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Hello everyone and welcome to this episode of What in the World is Dyscalculia?

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I'm your host Dr. Honora Wall and this podcast is put on by Educalc Learning.

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Please visit EducalcLearning.com for lots of information and resources and

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training in the Math Learning Disability Dyscalculia. You can also visit our

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nonprofit, the Dyscalculia Training and Research Institute, thedtri.org.

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Lots of excellent free resources there as well. And in today's episode I want to

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talk a little bit about something that's a little bit of a, I don't know if I want

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to say a conflict or a paradigm shift that we we want to discuss when we talk

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about Dyscalculia. This is an area where I feel a lot of educators and parents

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struggle and even some experts there's some disagreement on what's the best

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route to take for helping students who have Dyscalculia in the area of fixing

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or solidifying or finishing that math foundation before giving access to higher

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level math. And I'm sure that you know you're gonna get it as many opinions as

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you listen to different people on this one. Opinions plus three dollars will

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get you a small coffee but I'm gonna give you mine. Mine is based off of my

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experience for many years working with people of all ages and grade levels who

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have Dyscalculia. Typically I work with high school students, college students,

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or adults and that can skew my opinion certainly. I have taught elementary

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grades in the past. It's not my forte or my skill set and I prefer working with

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older learners. Anything from sometimes middle school but mostly that high school

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adult learners and college students. So that's where most of my experience comes

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from. Now I'm a huge advocate for early screening, early identification, and early

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interventions. Absolutely that's going to make a huge difference. The sooner you

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find out you have a problem in any area of your life and you address that problem

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the more progress you're gonna see and the better long-term outcomes you're

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going to find. However with the math learning disability I have absolutely

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100% every single time for years seen students who are perfectly capable and

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able to do grade level work no matter what kind of background experience they

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have had. It can be frustrating of course. It can take a little longer to get

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done of course and our typical Gen Ed classroom is not designed really to meet

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the needs of these students in a lot of ways. That's a systemic problem that's

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not a person problem or a learning challenge problem. Let me explain exactly

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what I mean because I'm not coming down on Gen Ed teachers who do a lot of work

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to accommodate all of their students and a lot of higher level math incorporates

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quite a few of the accommodations that we like to see especially calculator use.

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The problem for our students is that they've had eight-ish years of training

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and indoctrination that the calculator is lava and you cannot touch it and if

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you touch the calculator you are not doing math and that's just false. Mental

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math is a great parlor trick and if you're good at it fantastic sign up and

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get that free sticker they give out to people who are good at mental math. Oh

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there's no free sticker. Okay so moving on. If you're good at mental math awesome.

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If you're not you can still be good at math. You can still be a good problem

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solver, pattern recognizer, you can have good visual spatial skills, you can still

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get through algebra, you can still get through calculus and you can still get

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through geometry and you're probably going to enjoy those a lot more but if

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someone hands you a calculator you've never been allowed to touch before and

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the numbers didn't make sense to you anyway then the calculator does not make

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sense on its own. So in higher level math we want to allow for a little bit of

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training, a little bit of walking around the room and asking students put this and

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this into the calculator and tell me what happens. Tell me what you get for an

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answer. If they get the right answer you're looking for then you can reinforce

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that super whatever buttons you hit in that order you're doing it exactly right

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keep doing that. Now the brain has confirmation it knows exactly what you

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want it to do. Check, strengthens that neurological pathway, check and it

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continues on. If a student gets the wrong answer then you can say all right

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let's take a look at your calculator. Maybe we need to hit the clear button

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seven times. Maybe we need to look at the order. Are you hitting the radical sign

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before the number or do you have to hit the number first and then tell the

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calculator to find the root? Are you taking the correct button and using it

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for a square root or do we need one with extra letters so that you can put in any

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root? Or do we want an X to the squared button as our visual? Do we want X to the

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Y button or Y to the X button so that we can put in any kind of exponent? Does the

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student understand the vocabulary you're using? Take a moment to clarify that.

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Every calculator works differently so if you have a room full of people using a

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different calculator or what typically happens a room full of people who never

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brought their calculator actually with them into the room now you might need to

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answer a few more questions. If you take the time at the beginning of class to

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make sure everyone knows what buttons to hit in what order on their particular

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calculator now we can solve a million problems and now we can get confidence

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and mastery. We've removed the barrier that was in the person's way. That is a

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huge part of upper-level math for students with dyscalculia. The earlier

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math that they struggled with is not something we're even focusing on anymore.

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We're just not asking those kind of questions even when we multiply and

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divide. In upper-level math we're using some very small numbers. We're not

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multiplying three digits by two digits and throwing in a bunch of decimals. Now

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we're doing negative 12 divided by 2. That comes up over and over and over again.

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We're multiplying 3 by a whole bunch of different stuff. That's it. So the idea

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that you have to be perfect at the nightmare math of third and fourth and

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fifth grade in order to do upper-level math is really not true. The problem for

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high school and college educators is that you've got a bunch of people who

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have not had any math success or very little math success to rely on. So their

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prior knowledge reinforces learned helplessness. Their prior knowledge

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reinforces that this is not an area they can succeed in. That's what they're

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used to and that's what they're expecting. You need to make that break. The

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other problem is that you're going to have a whole bunch of students coming in

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who seem like they don't have the basic skills that they need to keep up with you.

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Okay, take five minutes. At the beginning of every class state explicitly and

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directly exactly what you're going to be doing that day. Make sure everyone knows

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how to use their tools properly to get that thing done and then you can have a

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longer conversation about the concept, about the why this is true. If you will

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make sure that your students with dyscalculia have success with the numbers

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first, then you've removed that frustration, you've removed the barrier,

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you've shown them that they can succeed in your class, and then they will talk to

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you all day about tying equations and functions to graphs and how do you

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interpret a why intercept and what does it mean if you have a certain number of

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curves in your graph based on the exponent in your function, then they're

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right there with you because you made sure that the numerical barrier is out

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of the way. Let's contrast that with what typically happens is that we take a

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student who has trouble with mental math or trouble remembering their basic facts

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or trouble feeling confidence and we put them into interventions that mimic the

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third, fourth, fifth grade situation that they already failed in. That is not a

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recipe for success. That is psych 101, you don't do the same ineffective thing

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over and over and over again and expect to suddenly find success. That's not

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going to happen for students who have dyscalculia because their parietal lobe

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loses math information over time and those basic facts are held almost in

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neurological pathways that are like gossamer strings. They're very light

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and they don't fire as fast sometimes or as completely sometimes or it's almost

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like watching one end of a spider web floating around not really attached to

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the rest of the web. You can tell that they're looking and they're thinking and

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they're trying to find the numbers and they're just not finding the other end

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of that neurological connection. The axons and the dendrites are just really

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not solid for them in that case. Okay, if we teach math we are actually not

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brain specialists designed to increase neurological pathways. We can, there's a

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million ways to do it and they're actually very simple and they're going to

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make you happy and your students happy but that's a topic for another day. A lot

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of educators got into this field not because they wanted to know about the

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brain and how it works and not because they wanted to be the kind of person

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who spends all day enriching neurological pathways. That's not why they do this

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job and that's perfectly fine. That's acceptable. Take the few minutes, make

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sure each student knows how to use their calculator correctly and then move on to

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the next part of the conversation. Students with dyscalculia can and should

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do grade level work at all times. Taking an older student and making them repeat

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the nightmare of third, fourth, fifth grade math in the exact same way they

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always did it before is ineffective. It's a waste of your time. It's certainly a

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waste of their time and it's an external barrier that keeps students from

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having the success they are capable of in upper level math. So to wrap it up, if

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you want to make a real immediate difference in mathematical performance

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for students with dyscalculia, you're going to give them grade level work. You're

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going to explicitly and directly show, tell, and watch them do the steps with

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their external tool. Be it a calculator, be it a 1 to 100's chart, be it the old

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fashion times tables list, the list of multiplication, you're going to see

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immediate differences and immediate success. And once you give them that, then

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they will be with you for the entirety of the rest of your conversation about

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upper level math concepts. They're going to have great questions, they're going to

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have great insights, you're going to transform their math experience, and

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you're going to have a better time teaching. So for older students, use the

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right intervention, use the right accommodation, break the cycle of

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reteaching elementary level math in the elementary level math way, and that's a

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great way to do it for students who are neurotypical. It's also a pretty effective

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way to do it for students who are struggling with a weak foundation or

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low numeracy. It just happens to be completely inappropriate for students

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with the math learning disability, dyscalculia. I'm Dr. Honora Wall and thank

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you for listening to this episode of What in the World is? Dyscalculia. If you

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have questions or comments about this episode or about the math learning

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disorder in general, please find me on social media, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube,

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we have a teacher support group on Facebook, and check out my websites

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educalclearning.com and the dtri.org. You can email me and I'd be

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happy to get more information to you. Thanks for listening to What in the

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World is? Dyscalculia. We'll see you next time.