Puzzles

The four main types of puzzles used to develop these skills are Pythagoras puzzles, tangrams, square puzzles, and design tiles. Pythagoras and tangrams involve the use of seven wooden puzzle pieces -- two large right triangles, one medium right triangle, two small right triangles, one square, and one parallelogram. Square puzzles and design tiles involve the use of plastic tiles which are red, blue, white, blue and white, and red and white.

When students need to build puzzles they have seen but which are not currently in front of them, they need to rely on their visual memory and/or their verbal descriptions of the pictures created by the puzzles. As students manipulate puzzle pieces, they become aware of relationships among those pieces. For example, the leg of the small triangle is the same length as the side of the square, and the hypotenuse of the small triangle is the same length as the long side of the parallelogram.

Students learn to recognize which pieces they need to use based on the shape in the puzzle which needs to be completed. They learn how to position individual puzzle pieces in order to create particular constructions.

Some students may be able to easily replicate puzzles they have seen, but they have much difficulty putting into words the process that is involved in doing so. Other students may have difficulty recognizing how several pieces can fit together to create a given shape. As with each technique in educational therapy, the purpose of engaging the student in puzzle activities depends upon the unique needs of each individual student.