Kaitlyn Markham and Karina Zaveri are on a mission this summer to change how children with learning disabilities feel about math.
“Often because they’re more challenged when they confront math problems, they often become discouraged and just don’t want to do math anymore,” said Markham.
That’s why the two Xavier High School students created the nonprofit Math Magicians. This week, the teens along with a team of volunteers, are hosting a five-day summer camp for children with ADHD and Dyslexia.
They tell us the key to this camp is adding a little fun to the equation.
“We have a lot of different interactive games set up to make this as memorable for the kids as possible,” said Zaveri. Games like math bingo where students first solve an equation before checking their cards.
There’s math Jenga where each piece has a math problem to be solved written on it.
Then there’s beach ball math, where tutors toss a beach ball covered in numbers to the student, and depending on how they catch the ball, the numbers under their fingertips are added together.
It’s easy to forget when you’re watching all the fun that these children are learning along the way.
“We had about forty-five students attending this week from age five to ten,” said Markham.
“I feel like they really like it because it’s not traditional classroom math, they get to have a little fun while they’re doing it,” said one volunteer.
“Especially for kids who might struggle more with learning, making it more fun and more memorable will help the enjoy the subject more, and I think it will really stick with them,” said Zaveri.
The parents we spoke with today seem to agree.
“I think the entire thing is genius,” said one parent. “At this age is has to be fun for them to continue pay attention.”
With more than five million children currently diagnosed with ADHD and one in every five children suffering from Dyslexia, the program was recently awarded a big prize by the Dragon Kim Foundation. One that figures to be a massive help in expanding their efforts.
“They granted us a five-thousand-dollar grant to help change our corner of the world,” said Markham.
What was clear Monday is you don’t have to know calculus to see how this program is definitely getting results.