Issue 97 - Mathematics and Dyslexia

Vedic Mathematics Newsletter No. 97


A warm welcome to our new subscribers.

Vedic Mathematics is becoming increasingly popular as more and more people are introduced to the beautifully unified and easy Vedic methods. The purpose of this Newsletter is to provide information about developments in education and research and books, articles, courses, talks etc., and also to bring together those working with Vedic Mathematics. If you are working with Vedic Mathematics - teaching it or doing research - please contact us and let us include you and some description of your work in the Newsletter. Perhaps you would like to submit an article for inclusion in a later issue or tell us about a course or talk you will be giving or have given. If you are learning Vedic Maths, let us know how you are getting on and what you think of this system.


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This issue’s article is “Mathematics and Dyslexia” by Vera Stevens. Vera has had amazing success with her Pebble Maths, which is especially effective with people with dyslexia.



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NEWS
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CALL FOR PAPERS

If you would like to offer a paper at the Bangkok VM Conference next year (Part of the World Sanskrit Conference) you have until 30th November 2014 to submit your abstract. This should not be longer than 300 words.

Full details about the Conference can be found at:
http://www.sanskrit-silpakorn.org/conferences-2015.php
To submit your abstract, click on the registration link on this page. In the “In Section” box put “Vedic Mathematics Panel” and insert your abstract in the box below that. When you click “Submit” that is the end of the process: you will not need to answer any more questions.



REQUEST FROM DR KAPOOR TO CONTRIBUTE TO VM TEXTBOOKS

1. We feel privileged to request all to participate in our project of Vedic Mathematics text books for classes eight to twelfth.
2. We request you all to participate and contribute your intellectual inputs about the values of the Ganita Sutras
3. Also contribute about the values of the Ganita Sutras as being complemented and supplemented by the values of other Sutras and Upsutras.
4. We shall be highly thankful for this participation and contribution.
5. We shall be duly recognizing this participation and contribution of intellectual inputs about the values of Ganita Sutras.
6. We shall be highly being our respects and thanks in recognition of the intellectual inputs of participants.
7. It is a noble cause.
8. Please participate.
Contact



NEW COURSE: THE CROWNING GEM

This is a 4-week course by Kenneth Williams and shows how Shankaracarya Sri Bharati Krishna Tirthaji’s Crowning Gem can be extended to finding Powers and Roots of numbers (and polynomials) and the solution of Polynomial Equations.

There are no prerequisites apart from a basic knowledge of algebra. You can see further details here (course 3):
http://www.vedicmaths.org/community/calendar-of-events



2015 COURSES

We have 3 online courses starting on 3rd January 2015:

1) Teacher Training Course – 9 weeks.
2) Certificate Course – now a 3-week course – the trainer for this course is Dr Arvind Prasad of Queensland University.
3) The Crowning Gem – 4 weeks.

Full details and application forms can be found here (courses 1, 2, 3):
http://www.vedicmaths.org/community/calendar-of-events

Also, the next Diploma course will start on 28th January (follows on from the Certificate course).
The next Advanced Diploma course starts on 4th April (follows on from the Teacher Training Course or Diploma Course)

And in May/June we hope to offer another new course: on Applied Mathematics.



ARTICLE IN THE HINDU BY JAMES GLOVER

This article titled “Everything Vedic in ‘Vedic Maths’” was published on October 15th and was a response to an article by Professor C.K. Raju in the same newspaper on 3rd September titled Nothing Vedic in ‘Vedic Maths.

You can see James’ article here: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/everything-vedic-in-vedic-maths/article6500986.ece

Professor Raju has since sent a somewhat incoherent response.



ONLINE CONFERENCE

As part of the 2015 celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the publication of Sri Bharati Krishna’s book “Vedic Mathematics”, an online Conference is planned. This will be on 14 and 15th March, for 3 hours each day.

Day 1
1) Introductory workshop by foremost VM expert James Glover
2) A series of short presentations from VM practitioners around the world telling us what they are doing, their success, plans etc.
3) Longer presentations outlining research areas that will be presented in person and more detail in the later conference in Bangkok.

Day 2
4) A series of discussions on moving forward with Vedic Mathematics: global, educational, research etc.

Updates on this can be found at:
http://conference.vedicmaths.org/2015-03%20Online%20Conference.aspv

Registration will be available from January 2015.



GERMAN EDITION OF TEACHER’S MANUAL

We are delighted to announce that we now have a free edition of this popular introductory book in German. This excellent translation is thanks to Hildegard Bomheuer one of our qualified VM teachers. See:
http://vedicmaths.org/free



VEDIC MATHS IN SCHOOL CURRICULUM

Angela Henry at the new Manchester Creative Studio at Manchester, UK, has integrated Vedic Mathematics into the curriculum there.



PLANNING FOR THE 2015 CELEBRATIONS?

Please keep us informed of events you are planning to mark this anniversary so that we can let everyone know.



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ARTICLE for VM Newsletter 97
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Mathematics and Dyslexia

by Vera Stevens

During the last two years I have had increasing numbers of students with Dyslexia.
All of them began with me with nothing but confusion about arithmetic, fear and a grand belief that they were incapable of understanding the workings of numbers.
I begin with all my students, no matter what age, capacity or diagnosis, at the same place, i.e. number building with pebbles with the focus being on odd and even numbers having unique characteristics.
Some of these students take a long time before they are willing to write numbers, others will try even if they write them back to front. I do not comment on the written work. I work mentally as much as possible so that the students do not have the added burden of reading and writing the numbers. The students always have the numbers in pebble form in front of them and therefore have the concrete reality of the numbers.
My experience has been that these students are totally capable of learning and more importantly enjoying arithmetic, geometry, weights and measures etc.
I now have six dyslexic children of primary school age studying Vedic mathematics .These children are in the process of mastering all the understandings in ‘Pebble Maths’ and are also learning multiplication above and below the base, squaring and square rooting mentally ,Vedic division , vertically and crosswise multiplication, all from 9 and the last from 10 etc.
I am finding that progress is quicker and quicker and excitement and joy go hand in hand with the learning. Not only are these children becoming good at mathematics, they are letting go of negative ideas about their capacity.
Daisy is 15 years old in year 9 at school. She had never passed a maths exam in her life when she came to me 3months ago. Her position in maths was the bottom of her year of 5 classes. She was angry and frustrated. She writes with both hands, a pencil in each so that when she writes a two digit number she writes the first with the left hand and the second with the right. Fascinating!
After 6 weeks of lessons Daisy passed her first exam with a score of 70%. She also scored the school average in the national exam. She was so happy with her result.
Daisy believed that her career choices were very limited. She told me that she would study drama.
Two weeks ago Daisy told me that she wants to be an engineer and asked me if I thought that she could do it. I told her that of course she can be an engineer if she wants to. She now has her sights set on maths for years 11 and 12 and a university course in engineering.
The imperative is now for me to be able to teach all the secondary curriculum in a way that the children can understand- in other words we need to work with Vedic maths.
I am studying Advanced Vedic Maths with my year 10 student Amber aged 15 (who is not Dyslexic) and who is a far more able student than I .
Amber can see how beautiful the Vedic methods are. She will be taking advanced maths for her senior years and my hope is that she can influence her teachers with her understanding.
 In the past it has been difficult if not impossible for Dyslexic people to attain proficiency in arithmetic. However by introducing arithmetic with the visual, tactile and kinaesthetic approach in ‘Pebble Maths’ and continuing with basic Vedic Maths, Dyslexic people are not only capable of proficiency in  mathematics but by all reports, the problems with reading writing and spelling reduce.
It will be fascinating to see how far my Dyslexic students will have come in another year.   
My belief is that they will all be happy and successful maths students.
My hope is that some of them will return to the school environment when they are adults in order to help other students by introducing them to Vedic maths and giving them the confidence to achieve.

End of article.
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Your comments about this Newsletter are invited.
If you would like to send us details about your work or submit an article or details about a course/talk etc. for inclusion, please let us know on

Previous issues of this Newsletter can be viewed and copied from the Web Site: www.vedicmaths.org
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Editor: Kenneth Williams

Visit the Vedic Mathematics web site at: http://www.vedicmaths.org
mailto:
13th November 2014

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