Using a Geoboard to Help Students with Dysgraphia

Posted by Erica Warren on Jul 01, 2021

Recently I discovered the geoboard and now I love to use this product to develop mathematical skills, visual spatial skills, visual reasoning and fine motor dexterity. In fact it is great for my students that have dysgraphia.

What is a Geoboard?

A geoboard is a math manipulative that students can use to explore basic shapes and geometry such as perimeter, area and coordinate graphing. It consists of a wood board with evenly spaced rows of nails or a plastic board with protruding pegs around which string or rubber bands are wrapped.

How Do I Use My Geoboards?

Due to the popularity of rubber band bracelets, one can get a huge variety of colorful rubber bands in many different sizes. I have organized mine into sectioned plastic boxes so that my students have many options to choose from. Here are a number of fun activities that I offer my students in my own private practice.

For my young learners I use the geoboard to:

learn the formation of letters and numbers. It is a wonderful tool to use when students struggle with letter, number or symbol reversals.
instruct about the many shapes - triangles, squares, rectangles...
develop spatial skills where students copy a design I create on another geoboard or from a picture of a design that I created on a geoboard.

For my older students I use the geoboard to:

develop writing skills. Players create images that they then described in writing so that another player can create the image by following the directions.
teach and review coordinate graphing.
teach and review the plotting of points on a coordinate plane.
creating, line, frequency and bar graphs.

If you too are using a geoboard, I would love for you to comment below this blog. Also please share if you are using the geoboard in other creative ways.

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Cheers, Dr. Erica Warren

Dr. Erica Warren is the author, illustrator, and publisher of multisensory educational materials at Good Sensory Learning. She is also the director of Learning to Learn and Learning Specialist Courses.