Many classroom have shelves full of math manipulatives that rarely get used. Students do not access them independently, nor do they know which ones to choose for each concept. Multi-sensory math is hands on, using one set of blocks for many concepts, such as: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, money and time.

Students become very familiar with the same set of manipulatives and then transfer their thinking into drawing the semi-abstract concepts. Finally, once students have plenty of time and practice, they are able to solve abstract problems only using numbers. Students touch, build and manipulate the numbers they are use, which allows many learners to truly understand the size of a numbers they are working with in a problem.

Most students who struggle with math, struggle with number sense. They have a hard time visualizing, memorizing, estimating, and following multi-step directions. The Orton Gillingham approach begins with the concrete stage, so students can visually see the operations taking place using blocks. Students can see, touch, count and manipulate numbers until they understand the processes taking place.

Then students move to a semi-abstract stage of drawing the blocks and following the same process. They can see how the concrete stage bridges to the semi-abstract and then to the abstract stage when appropriate. The sequence of beginning in the concrete stage and moving to semi-abstract, ending in abstract allows students to understand processes taking place, rather than focusing on memorizing answers.