Manipulative Education Benefits

Manipulative tools, in the setting of education, are physical tools of teaching, engaging students visually and physically (benefit of using). A simple benefit of manipulative tools is that they can be simple objects such as coins, blocks, puzzles, markers, etc. The uses of manipulative tools are a positive tool because they actively engage the students with ID in discovery during while participating in the learning lesson. A teacher provides the lesson material along with a basic direction, while students are allowed to explore the materials and ask questions before and during the lesson. Additional benefits of using manipulative tools include that the are multi-sensory, they represent ideas in more than one way, they promote communication among students, and they increase confidence, leading to diminished confusion and comprehensive understanding. All of these benefits lead to an increase in student outcomes. (Firestone, n.d.). According to a review of studies by the National Center for Accessing the General Curriculum, certain groups of students, including special needs students and students with limited English skills, benefit from using manipulative tools

A case study published in School Science and Mathematics argued that the use of manipulative tools can take away from the student's ability to form an internal understanding of the concept (Puchner L.,Taylor A., O'Donnell B., and Fick K., 2008). Students can become to dependent on manipulative tools. They can loose their ability focus on the lesson relying solely on the manipulative tool to show them the answer. Some educators believe an additional drawback is that the use of manipulative tools is a waste of time or secondary to the important work of learning the assigned lesson and will inadvertently encourage their students to use these tools for play, and as a result no learning will occur (Golafshani,