[senco-forum] Re: dyscalculia

Thanks all for suggestions. I will follow them up. I just wish I could

We mustn't forget that 'a difficulty with maths' need not necessarily mean
dyscalculia.

It is very common for dyslexia to cause a difficulty with maths due to the
language of maths; teaching approach; impact of initial
confusion/anxiety/failure creating further difficculties etc.

I would advise the maths teacher to consider and investigate this pupil's
grasp and confidence with the language of maths ...

'Multiply, x, lots of, times' can be very confusing for a dyslexic
struggling with terminology and memory storage/recall. We have right
angles ... where are the left angles or wrong angles? We write '37' in a
manner that matches the way we say the word ... so why isn't '17' written
'71'? Multiplication tables depend heavily on audio memory and can cause
great difficulties for dylexic students. Maths is full of squiggles such
as % which then have to be related to an appropriate word, concept and
understanding.

The 'numeracy hour' teaching approach is not good for those with memory
and language processing weaknesses ... they live in overload and rarely
get the chance to explore and consolidate topics at the pace they need
before new approaches or topics bombard them.

The impact of failure in maths is huge. It can create enormous barriers to
the ability to calmly examine, decode and interpret numerical tasks;
reduces experience and confidence; leads to maths anxiety that turns the
brain into jelly.

I also, personally, think that we do not do enough to really instill an
understanding of units. If you calculated the length of a table and the
answer came out as 2 miles, you would know immediately that they was a
mistake somewhere. Do children (or adults) have the depth of knowledge
concerning litres and grams etc ... they might know 2litres is a bottle of
coke, but do they know the weight of 10grams, or volume of a bath?

The meaning of the = sign is also one I have found struggling dyslexic
pupils often misunderstand. They equate it to mean 'and then, at the end
of the story, we get to an answer'. This understanding creates havoc when
they try to understand algebra, whereas the meaning of = as 'the same as'
relieves their confusion. This demonstrates just one example of how the
difficult decoding symbolic language can lead to a fixed misunderstanding
that a maths teacher may not be aware of.

Often, specialist teachers are not aware of 'the simple difficulties'
being faced by students. Some never had any difficulties themselves when
learning maths and therefore do not recognise subtle confusions that might
be occurring. Helping the maths teacher to recognise maths from the
dyslexic's perspective can help them design teaching experiences that
access learning and discovery rather than confusion and anxiety.

Interestingly, countries in which mothers play numeracy games with their
children have higher numeracy levels than those that play literacy games.
In the courses for parents of dyslexic children I am running throughout
Cornwall at the moment, we are giving out sets of dice including
multisided ones (from Warhammer game shops) and accompanying dice games to
play.

The difference the parents are finding between the child tackiling maths
homework versus playing a dice game that explores similar topics,
demonstrates a difference in a learning approach ... the sooner we get
dartboard games as a national sport, the better!!

'Dyscalculia' (as opposed to dyslexia causing a difficulty with school
maths) is relatively rare. If I told you that chair plus table equals
ceiling, and then asked you what ceiling take away table was, you would
probably tell me 'chair'. You have worked this out through logic, not by
understanding the qualities of 'chair' 'table' or 'ceiling' that qualified
the equation. Similarly, dyscalculics can learn some maths through rote
learning, but not understand underlying dimensions of number. They do not
identify that '16' is made up of 4x4; 20-4; 10+6 etc. As a result, the
approaches used to teach maths to someone with dyscalculia are very
different to those who are dyslexic.

Finally, many dyslexics are inherently good at maths. I read somewhere
that 75% of the dyslexic population are naturally good at maths compared
with 25% of the non-dylsexic population. However, whilst the dyslexic
might be able to quickly produce a correct answer, they often are unable
to break their calculating processes down into identifiable steps ... not
an approach we encourage in school. By GCSE, the above statistics are not
in evidence, supporting the suggestion that the way we teach maths in
schools positively disadvantages the dyslexic learner.

Best wishes,
Sally (Plymouth-soon-to-be-St-Austell)

> Thanks all for suggestions.  I will follow them up.  I just wish I could
> work with her myself as she is keen to improve and has great parental
> support, not like a few others I have to teach who couldn't care less and
> make everyone's life misery.  Sorry, had to get that off my chest.
>
> Dolina
>
>
>
>