Hello and welcome to this edition of What in the World is Dyscalculia, the
podcast that is all about the math learning disorder. I'm Dr. Honora Wall
and I'm the host of your podcast which is sponsored by Educalclearning and
you can learn a lot more about Dyscalculia at educalclearning.com. If
you are a parent, teacher, administrator, or a person who has Dyscalculia and you
want to know more about why this causes certain math struggles and what to do
about them, at educalclearning we are happy to help. And I want to talk today
about the idea of memorizing those basic math facts. Now if you've been listening
to the show before, you know that one of the biggest issues students have with
Dyscalculia is that the parietal lobe loses math information over time. This
is a different way of processing, retaining, and recalling math information. So
steps and procedures and formulas and those basic facts get lost. This is a
struggle, especially in elementary school, because we have such an obsession
with memorizing and hopefully none of you listening are using those timed
tests. If you have any timed tests for basic facts anywhere in your possession
in your classroom or your school, I want you to use them to start your next
bonfire and never ever give them to any student whether or not they have Dyscal
culia, but especially not if they have a math learning disability. Now memorizing
those basic facts is one of our biggest myths about teaching and learning math.
The idea that we have to use that as a foundation for everything that comes
later. It's just not true. It's just simply false. Let it go. Memorization is a
parlor trick and if someone has great memory skills and they learn those basic
facts and they stick with them forever, wonderful. They're going to get a sticker
in the form of better grades and faster processing and having an easier time.
They've already got a leg up on everyone else. There are plenty of people who
struggle with memorizing plenty of things. Basic math facts is one of them. So
that shows up a lot for students who have low numeracy or a weak math
foundation, students who have anxiety, depressive disorders, trauma backgrounds,
all of these things impact shifting information from short to long-term
memory, retaining a good filing system for things we've learned and being able
to recall them especially under pressure, especially in the middle of a lot of other
complex things like am I finding perimeter or area or volume? What's my
shape? What's my formula? When do I add? When do I multiply? Or just being put on
the spot and asked to answer something like what is 8 times 2 or what is 11
plus 15? So for students with dyscalculia this is exceptionally difficult
because of that parietal lobe condition I mentioned before. It's very
frustrating for a lot of elementary school teachers who don't realize that
this is just a wiring issue, not a practice issue and not a you need to try
harder issue. That is not what dyscalculia is about. So if you're thinking
that any student can memorize those basic facts if you just send home those
flashcards again, please, please, please find someone to train you in dyscalculia
because you need to know more about this learning condition. Okay the second
problem with memorizing those basic facts and that myth that it is the
foundation of everything mathematically important just completely false. Math is
about many other things pattern recognition, shapes, understanding how to
solve problems, pulling things apart and putting them back together in a
different way. The beauty efficiency and usefulness of inverse operations these
are all conceptual things that are perfectly fine for people with
dyscalculia. The stumbling block is that dyscalculia trifecta time money
place value and that memorization thanks to the parietal lobe. Now I know that my
elementary teacher friends and my elementary teacher special ed case
managers and school counselors love to put fluency and memorization into IEP
goals and use them as a standard for mathematical progress. I'm here to tell
you please let that go and it's not just my opinion saying that you should let it
go. I did a little digging into common core math standards for all grade levels
because most states use common core as their foundation of math standards
whether or not they call them common core they all say the same thing. There's
only a few states that have one or two variations against the common core
standards but that's pretty much what we're all following. So that's where I
went and I did a little digging and I found something interesting. The word
memory occurs exactly twice in all of the common core standards from kindergarten
through the highest math you can take in the K-12 system only twice. It happens
once in second grade where there is one standard that says students should be
able to know by the end of second grade all of the sums of one digit numbers. So
two plus three nine plus nine things like this. That is one out of the 26
second grade math standards. So even if we say listen don't memorize become
fluent check your work make sure you have accuracy use your external support
tools like a one to one hundreds chart or a number line or other manipulatives or
count on your fingers even if we're letting all of that slide. This student
can still hit the other standards because there's only one that requires
memorization. So let's take it out. Obviously if it's only 4% of the overall
number of standards we need students to know it's not that important. The second
time memory occurs in common core standards is in third grade where students
are expected to know from memory all of the products of one digit numbers two
times three nine times nine etc. So again that's one out of 25 third grade
standards that says no from memory. So about 4% a student who cannot memorize
can still succeed at 96% of the standards for that grade level. So memory is not
something that any of us recognizes being a key ingredient when we're writing
standards. However we hold on to it as a myth of memorizing basic facts being the
underpinning of everything mathematically important and it's just not true. Now you
might be thinking to yourself what about fluency being fluent means being able
to memorize these facts and recall them quickly. Well I would argue against that
fluency means something slightly different but even if we went with that
idea fluency occurs 11 times in all of the common core math standards from
kindergarten through the end of 12th grade and those 11 mentions stop after
fifth grade. This is one of the many reasons why students with dyscalculia do
much better in upper level math classes than they do in elementary level math.
The irony of course is that if you're not doing very well in elementary level
math then you're usually held back and you don't get to progress. This is
problematic for a whole number of reasons and I talk about those reasons in a
whole bunch of the podcast or you can find that information online and through
our social media posts on the websites brochures that we have at the dyscalculia
training and research institute www.vdtri.org. You can grab your free
brochures about dyscalculia and your free infographics for parents and
teachers there but any who getting back to fluency only happens up until fifth
grade. That's the only time we even mention it and those 11 times are
scattered from first grade through fifth grade so it's not even 11 times in one
year. So these ideas of memorizing and recalling and retaining basic math facts
is something we really need to let go of. First of all our standards do not
require this work from our students. 96% of the two grade levels that even
mention it do not require memorization in order to meet the standard. But why do
our IEP goals have this memorization and fluency and working without
manipulatives built in. We need to change the wording and changing the wording of
an IEP goal is going to take time and awareness and just educating ourselves
learning more about dyscalculia and how to write the correct accommodations and
the correct goals for our students. Changing the wording of math standards
that's a little more like changing direction of a cruise ship. That's massive
efforts going to take a lot of time. The first step of course is that awareness
and education piece and we know we have a long way to go with that. We just don't
have enough people talking about dyscalculia and some of the people talking
about it really don't know what they're talking about and that is problematic.
But I'll save that for another episode. I have some really interesting case studies
to talk with you about. I've been getting a lot of great information from
students I've been working with this year and I'm happy to share that with you.
I also found a great researcher who focuses on dyscalculia based here in the
United States. I'm super excited to learn more about her work and share more of
her research findings in future episodes. But for today the thing I want you to
take away from this podcast is that memorizing basic facts first of all does
not happen at the same rate if at all for people who have dyscalculia. And so
what who even cares. We only care when we're grading these time test when we
have expectations of students that don't match who our students are. And we call
dyscalculia the math learning disability. But really is the problem with the
student or is it with the system that they are working within. Because we know
that our students can add subtract multiply and divide. Students with
dyscalculia are just going to do that using external tools using manipulatives
using their one to one hundreds chart or a number line counting on their fingers
or later on using a calculator. I recommend that somewhere around fourth
grade because now we're just shoving all of these standards in so fast and the
pace is so much that makes it difficult for kids to keep up with as well. But
they're keeping up as fast as they can. The last thing they need is us requiring
the parlor trick of memorizing basic facts before we let them move on and
before we will let them feel like successful mathematicians. So in closing
if you or a colleague or a teacher that your student is currently learning from
talks to you about the importance of memorizing basic facts and how you've
got to do that before you can move on in math. Please let them know not even our
national math standards think that is true. It's it's just an old idea that is
a myth. We were wrong in the past and we're wrong if we're holding on to it
today. We can teach students math. We can teach them the algorithms of adding
subtracting multiplying dividing the importance of using those skills in
later work and we can have them do all of that successfully while accommodating
their learning differences in an appropriate and legally protected manner
which is the other important piece which if you've been listening you know that
is a soapbox of mine. Anything that we ask schools and teachers to do for
students who have dyscalculia these are all federally protected accommodations.
We're not asking for anything unusual and we're not asking for anything that
gives anyone a leg up. It evens the playing field so that they can participate
in the game of math which is what we really want. We want students to know
that they are natural mathematicians and they can succeed. The same way we let
students wear eyeglasses if they're far-sighted or near-sighted we need to
let them use the right support tools if they have dyscalculia. So those basic
facts go back to the parietal lobe losing math information over time and as a
group we're all going to come together in the math community and share together
this information and let go of the idea of memorization. If it happens for some
of your students great. If you really want to improve it then you never let
students guess. You always make them confirm their work using those external
tools. If they only ever see the right answer you're going to see a lot more
retention and you can improve the basic facts recall for your students through
games and activities and through supporting them properly. It's actually
really easy. Helping students who have dyscalculia is one of the easiest things
I've ever done. Helping students with dyscalculia succeed in a school or a
classroom who doesn't understand or accommodate them properly exceptionally
difficult. I'm Dr. Honora Wall with Educalc Learning and thank you for
listening to this podcast. If you want any other information check us out on
social media. We now have advice and information on TikTok Instagram. These
podcasts there's websites. We have a Facebook group. You can email me Honora
at educalclearning.com or Honora at the DTRI.org and we are happy to get as
much information to you as we possibly can. You can find this information out
for yourself if you do some reading on Google Scholar or you can save yourself
some time. Check us out and we will get information to you. The final message is
that of course students with dyscalculia can succeed in math. I see it happen
every day. If it's not happening for you yet you're just not right in the right
place working with the right people but it is possible for you. This has been
the what in the world is dyscalculia podcast and thank you for listening. I
will see you again soon.