"The author, parent of a young adult son with Down syndrome, wanted to make sure he had the skills to live independently. As math is an essential skill, she developed hands-on ways to teach her son math, where he could touch and manipulate, not just look at equations. She created games so her son, and all students, could have fun, practice skills, and transfer the concepts to long-term memory. She also broke down each skill into manageable steps so students could finish each activity and not be frustrated.

This book, written for parents, brothers, sisters, teachers, friends, and anyone interested in helping a hands-on learner learn math, is not just for children with Down syndrome. Children with autism spectrum disorders or learning disabilities will also benefit. Each lesson uses common household materials. There are games and activities to support each lesson. The appendices include information about calculators, other teaching materials, and recipes that help the students learn fractions. The resources include helpful math web sites and organizations."
-Newsline, Winter 2010 (Federation for Children with Special Needs)

"This sequel to Dr. Horstmeier’s first book is also intended for families and educators. The content focuses on strategies to teach essential math skills for independent daily life. Its projected learners may be concrete thinkers, have Down syndrome, an Autism Spectrum Disorder, cognitive disability, are elementary or secondary school age students who struggle with math or young children who need concrete instruction. In addition to these author-identified groups, typical students may benefit from hands-on-math activities, along with adults with neurological-based impairment. Occupational therapists who work with any of this clientele will find the material equally useful in therapy or in supplementing strategies shared with clients, educators and caregivers.

The introductory chapter clearly answers who, what, when, where and why about the book followed by chapters on student characteristics, general strategies and informal assessment. The latter includes a useful checklist of functional math skills. Addition and subtraction skills are reviewed but the focus is on multiplication, division, simple fractions, measurement, money, shopping, geometry, graphs, decimals, percent, and narrative problems. All chapters are well organized with a similar structure and start with orientation questions each answers. Objectives, materials and step by step procedures are listed for instructional activities along with associated generalization techniques. Common commercial games to 'buy or try' are suggested. Real pictures of students, the activities and home-made materials add valuable context. Templates for math strips, cards, games, and other visuals to reproduce are incorporated.

The last, short chapter provides guidelines for educators and parents deciding on a student’s enrollment in algebra or pre-algebra class. The useful appendices are: appendix A describing calculator models: Appendix B with 107 different photocopy masters of worksheets, cards, games, etc,: and Appendix C a list of recipes highlighting inherent math skills. Twenty eight references are mentioned and 10 pages of primarily North American resources include sources of teaching materials, software, math games, helpful math websites, and organizations. An index is included but not a glossary of terms, although some definitions are interspersed throughout in relevant chapters. The use of United States based currency examples throughout is a small drawback for the Canadian consumer.

At 492 pages, Teaching Math to People with Down syndrome and Other Hand-On Learners: Book 2, is full of helpful resources and strategies for occupational therapists."
-Canadian Journal of Occupational Therapy, February 2011

"As someone who struggled with math in school, I often thought, 'Does this actually have any practical purpose for life or is this just a way to torture me?' Horstmeier's hands-on approach to teaching math skills is full of real life examples to illustrate why it’s actually a good idea to know this stuff.

Like the earlier Book 1 Basic Survival Skills, Book 2 includes informal assessments to help identify what math skills a learner has and what needs to be taught with meticulous step-by-step instructions for games and hands-on activities. It covers multiplication, division, fractions, more advanced money skills and more information on measurement and time.

Horstmeier clearly explains each lesson: what you are trying to teach, how to teach it, what materials you need and how to measure your success."
-Down Syndrome News, Volume 31, #7