Dominoes are toys that are a lot of fun to line up. The thrill of one small movement causing the whole line to fall is mesmerizing. Dominoes also have a more serious side, though. They can illustrate how compensating for a learning difference can impact a student.

When a student compensates for their learning differences, they can end up building a tower of skills that is difficult to maintain and may even lead to cognitive overload. This leads to a pattern of behaviors that prevents students from developing the basic skills they need to be successful. Compensating can have a similar effect on students with LD, as the additional skills can impact their ability to develop basic abilities.

For example, a student who learns to compensate for an inability to read or write can often end up with a large vocabulary and many facts but cannot understand how these pieces fit together to create meaning. This can make it hard to communicate, and it can have a negative impact on a student’s self-esteem.

A domino is a tile with an arrangement of dots, called pips, on one side and blank or identically patterned on the other. The pips are used to identify the domino’s rank, or value. A single domino usually belongs to one suit of pips but can belong to two suits or be blank.

Dominoes have been made in various natural materials, including bone, silver lip ocean pearl oyster shell (mother of pearl), ivory and ebony. European-style domino sets are typically made of MOP or ivory with a dark hardwood, such as ebony, inlaid or painted with black or white pips.

The most common domino set consists of 28 tiles and is used for games that involve more than one player. These types of games are generally known as layout or scoring games. Each player begins with a hand of seven tiles. The first player to empty their hand wins the game.

Most players also play games where they can block their opponents’ play, or where they score points by counting the number of pips in the losing player’s hand.

As each domino falls, it transforms its potential energy into kinetic energy and then transmits that energy to the next domino in the line. This continues until the last domino has fallen and the chain is completed.

In fiction, scene dominoes might be each point of the story that is needed to advance the plot. For instance, if you are writing a mystery novel, each scene should build toward the solution of the case. If you miss a key clue or do not raise the tension in a scene, it will be easy for readers to get bored or find something else more interesting.

Whether you are a pantser or a plotter, it is important to think of scenes as a domino rally: a first domino and a last domino with 49,998 steps in between. Thinking of scenes this way will help you keep your story moving and avoid putting unnecessary or repetitive scenes in your book.