The last decade has seen a great advance in the biological understanding of dyscalculia, or math disability. The DSM V groups a specific learning disorder in math (315.1) under Specific Learning Disability along with impairment in reading (315.000) and impairment in written expression (315.2). The NIH defines dyscalculia as a condition contributes to “difficulty understanding arithmetic concepts and doing such tasks as addition, multiplication, and measuring.” It is important to identify dyscalculia, because an unrecognized LD can contribute to cycles of academic underachievement, secondary behavioral and emotional issues, and obstacles to further academic or workplace advancement. With the recent addition of high-stakes exams like the calculator-free section of the new SAT, it is even more critical that students with dyscalculia be identified. The DSM V definition includes the […]
[Premium] Math Journal Club: Strategic Instruction for Fractions
This past week, researchers published an interesting study that suggested that students should receive explicit instructions about why certain approaches are chosen for certain types of math programs. As it turns out, studies of strategic math instruction seems to especially benefit students with “learning disabilities.” This approach should be valuable to students with dyslexia because rather than having to memorize multiple steps of math problem solving, they learn to recognize the different categories of problems that are presented giving them the opportunity to choose the approach that is best for them. Rather than presenting with a large quantity of math problems that they are left to solve on their own, students are first divided into groups depending on how they initially choose to solve a problem. Rather […]
Top Back to School Apps for Dyslexia [Premium]
EARLY READERS Endless Reader by Originator – Free to try; $5.99-11.99 bundles. iPhone and iPad Great for visual learners. Animations and characters help with sight word learning. Orton Gillingham Card Deck by Mayerson Academy FREE. iPhone and iPad Multisensory card deck with consonants, single vowels, consonant digraphs, vowel teams, vowel + r, short vowel signals, VCe, and common suffixes. Auditory drill. Record and playback to hear pronunciations. Video see and hear sounds. Great phonics practice. Sight Words by Little Speller – FREE Iphone and Ipad All 220 sight words, no-frills program that allows you to create your own sight word lists – lower case or upper case letters. Can allow hints. Sight Words Reading and Spelling by Edoki $3.49 Android. Includes 320 sight words (Fryes + Dolce). […]
Tips for Supporting a Student with Dyscalculia – Steve Chinn
Thanks Steve Chinn of Maths Explained for this post. Steve also has several books with practical strategies to help with math and dyscalculia. There's The Trouble with Maths and an eagerly awaited Mathematics for Dyslexics and Dyscalculics - 4th Edition which is now...
Math Tips: Teaching Place Value [Premium]
“Many problems that appear in later numeracy can be traced back to a lack of understanding of place value. It therefore needs careful attention, particularly when zeros are involved.” – Chinn & Ashcroft, Mathematics for Dyslexics Place value may be covered quite quickly in a student’s first math lessons, but for the dyslexic student, who likely will have trouble with multi-stepped procedures and working memory overload, the problem will spread beyond borrowing and regrouping, into multiplication, decimals, and algebra. At left, from Diane Montgomery’s Teaching Gifted Children with Special Educational Needs, see examples of systematic place value errors. 83 +49 1212 #1: Carry-over mistake in addition. 46 -39 13 #2. Borrowing – Regrouping error in subtraction. 43 x 5 = 205 #3. Carryover mistake in […]