Dyscalculia+Tips

 Math has been a struggling point for students, parents, and teachers for years. Some people even say, math is the reason they have not looked into furthering their education. Yet, for 5-6% of those struggling in math, they might actually have a disability called Dyscalculia. Dyscalculia is a learning disability that impacts a person's mathematical processing. For instance, if a person struggles with remembering basic math concepts, struggles with addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division, has a difficult time with the basic calendar information, etc. they might have dyscalculia. Before technology became such an amazing tool, some people might have just given up on math. However, now there are a many tools available to assist those struggling in math.  One tool which was just recently mentioned in //Wired// magazine is the Khan academy. (http://www.khanacademy.org/) This is a great site that incorporates videos and practice activities at all levels of math. Students get the chance to see step-by-step instructions at their level making the lesson much more valuable. If they still have questions they can re-watch the movie to see where they are getting lost.  Another great tool for teachers to use in the classroom is the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives. (nlvm.usu.edu/) Since a lot of students struggle because they can't visualize the math process, the NLVM is a site that you can use to manipulate tools to make a visual math problem. For teachers who have interactive whiteboards, this is extremely helpful to assist all students in understanding and to keep them engaged.  If you'd like your struggling student to practice their math skills and they are tired of working out problems Cool Math (www.coolmath.com) and Math Playground (www.mathplaygorund.com) are great sites where students can practice their math skills while playing games. Making it fun and educational.

Resources: More Dyscalculia information: http://www.as.wvu.edu Khan Academy: http://www.khanacademy.org/ National Library of Virtual Manipulatives : http://nlvm.usu.edu/ Educational and Interactive Game Sites: http://coolmath.com/ and http://www.mathplayground.com/

There are some early signs of dyscalculia that can be seen by second or third grade, and can be important to recognize for remediation of these students. They include: poor subitizing, which is a number task that is associated with visual counting, the ability to visual note in small quantities how many objects there are without actually counting them; difficulty in the process of counting and learning number facts and understanding their communative properties; constructing a mental line or the ability to order numbers in line from 1-10 and the recognition of which is the larger number (eg. 5 or 8) the comparison of numbers take alot longer: difficulty in learning number faces and using them and are often struggling with the ability to estimate numbers. Remediation for students with dyscalculia typically will focus on work that help to fill in conceptual and operational gaps. Various techniques can be used to help them learn and retrieve math facts. Including techniques that use alot of repetition and practice. The strategy of remediation using practice with subitizing seems more appropriate. Results in a study (Fischer reports) showed that even a small amount of training in subitizing improved their abilities in this area and this improved ability significantly increases math ability. Students training with software to practice subitizing 15 minutes daily for three weeks improved enough to test ,on average, in the normal range. A significant improvement was shown even after a short time. These students continued to improve for a year with only normal mathematics instruction.

A program that is available for practicing subitizing is **SUB iNet** produced by [|Home Therapy Systems]. It is a program that is well-designed and straightforward. It gives the students a series of symbols that flashes on the screen for a short time and gives feed back on whether answers is correct. 15 minutes of daily practice is required.


 * //Number Bonds //** @ [|www.number-sense.co.uk/numberbonds/]. is n adaptive game for dyscalculic children that has recently been developed.

<span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif';"> [|The Number Race] is a free open-source software program available online has a variety of modules intended to teach early number concepts. It was developed for children ages 4-8 and incorporates simple math games.

<span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif';">Resources: <span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif';">Dyscalculia by [|**David Mills, Ph.D., M.A.**] <span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif';">[|www.number-sense.co.uk/numberbonds/] <span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif';">http://www.visiontherapysolutions.net/
 * [|www.MathLearningDifficulties.com]**