HOW TO USE COUNT MONEY AS A TEACHING TOOL

You can set the options in the Math Skill Builders: Count Money program to customize the learning environment.

Customize the program to allow talking or require reading

Click the 'Allow Talking' check box to allow or disable talking during the activities. When the talking option is on the student can hear the directions and get feedback. This option should be used if the student cannot read well enough to complete the activities, but can work successfully independently if directions are spoken. Talking can also be used to develop or improve reading skills. Since everything that is spoken is also written on the screen, encourage the student to read the words as the program is talking. Turn talking off if the student needs to practice reading without spoken prompts, or if talking is distracting.

Click the 'Show Score' check box to allow or disable a display of the score in each activity. Do an 'initial probe' when the student uses the activity for the first time and use the score as pretest results. Determine how many trials you want the student to complete and record the score for that activity when the student is done. Track the progress by occasionally having the student complete the same number of trials and comparing the score with previous results. A more accurate score will be obtained for testing purposes if you do not allow the student to "try again" when the answer is wrong. When the student can consistently get 100% of the answers correct in an activity, move to the next more difficult activity.

Turn off the score feature when you are doing activities that do not require that the student follow the directions given by the program, such as when you are practicing naming and recognizing coins, or counting out amounts different from those specified by the program.

Click the 'Show Totals' check box to allow or disable a display of total amounts during each activity. Let the totals show if the student needs to verify the amounts while working the activities. To encourage mental arithmetic, turn the totals off and have the student do computation without seeing the running total. Totals can be turned on or off at any time. Encourage students to turn the totals on and check their answer by comparing their total with the number in the directions before they choose "Check Answer".