FM.I.106 MATCHES PICTURE CARDS, CHOICE OF 9

Once your child can match 9 pictures, he will have reached an advanced level of visual discrimination. At Macquarie we use this item as one of the prerequisite skills for learning to discriminate and recognise words (yes, reading!).

You will find ready-made nine-piece lotto sets in educational toy shops. A lotto set has a range of pictures laid out on a base board, and sets of picture cards to match. Look for (or make) a lot to set which has clear pictures of familiar objects. More challenging lot to sets, which show similar pictures or silhouettes of objects, are useful for extension work.

How to Assess

Materials: A lot to board with 9 pictures and 9 matching cards.

Method: Place the lot to board on the table. Hold up the first card and say ‘Put … on .. .’. Repeat for all cards. Remove each card after your child has matched it.

Score plus if your child places all 9 cards on the matching picture.

How to Teach

You will need at least 2 different lotto boards. Most commercially available lottos have several to a set.

Many children benefit from working on six-piece lottos before moving on to nine-piece ones. Six-piece lottos are hard to find in the shops, so make your own, either by drawing yourself or by pasting down 6 cards from a game of Concentration and using the other half of each pair to match.

It is essential that your child looks closely at the picture card, and at the board, before he matches. If you can see that he is about to make an error, intercept him and say ‘Look hard. This is a . . . Where’s the . . .?’

If your child persists in making errors, direct him to point to the matching picture. Help him to keep his finger in place as he puts the picture card down.

Matching 9 pictures takes quite a long time, but it is important that your child learns to concentrate throughout the activity. If he will currently match 5 pictures before losing concentration, require that he matches 6. Gradually build up until he is matching all 9. It is important that you determine when the activity will end. Before you start, show your child all the pictures that you want him to match, and put them in a separate pile when you have finished.

Playtime and Round-the-house Activities

Let your child play freely with his lot to boards from time to time. Spend time looking at complex pictures with many parts, pointing out different features and asking your child to select familiar objects.

Remembering and Extending

In the next item in this sequence, your child will learn to sort the picture cards.

You can extend his skills by introducing more challenging lottos – the ‘Bruna Lottino’ series has silhouettes on the backs of the lotto boards and the child must match the picture cards to their silhouettes. Other lottos are available which show very similar pictures (such as photographs of animals) or abstract patterns. Or you could look for sets in which pictures of individual objects are placed on a single complex picture.