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Saturday, September 27, 2014

Ratios Graphic Organizer

Helena is a student in one of my self-contained classes with a severe auditory processing disorder and extremely low reading skills. Helena is unable to read large numbers because she has not been able to master place value and base 10 concepts. She has difficulties with simple addition and subtraction and has little knowledge of multiplication fact families. After reviewing her Cumulative file last week, I have a better understanding of why she often appears so utterly confused, she is processing very little of what I am saying.

Helena's difficulties with processing auditory information have made it difficult for her to read and write problems involving ratios, much less use ratios to solve problems. She has not been able to consistently put words and amounts in proper order, even with simple ratios where amounts are given. I plan to provide her the graphic organizer below as instructional scaffolding. I am hoping that, by providing her with visual strategies, I might be able to help her overcome some of her auditory deficiencies, 

*** Read and Write Ratios, Then Use Ratios to Solve Problems





1.       Read and write ratios (two item comparisons)

a.       Ask, “What am I comparing?”

                                                               i.      Identify which two items are being compared (Word A to Word B)

                                                             ii.      Translate Word A and Word B into Word Form (words in a fraction).

b.      Ask, “What amounts are known?”

                                                               i.      Identify the amounts known and their order

                                                             ii.      Identify and solve for any missing parts. (Hint: it often helps to create tables to organize data)

                                                          iii.      Translate the amounts known to Fraction 1 and / or Fraction 2 in the same order as Word Form

2.       Use Fraction 1 (amounts known) to solve Fraction 2 (parts unknown)

a.       Compare numerators of Fraction 1 to numerators of Fraction 2

b.      Compare denominators of Fraction 1 to denominators of Fraction 2

c.       Multiply or divide both numerators and denominators by the same amounts to create equivalent fractions


d.      Label the solutions with Word A or Word B (the missing part of Fraction 2)

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