Hi, welcome to the What in the World is dyscalculia
podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Honora Wall,
and What in the World is dyscalculia is sponsored
by Educalc Learning. Educalc Learning is a company
that offers teacher training, classes for homeschool
students, and guidance on the math learning disability.
I'm also the founder and executive director of
the Dyscalculia Training and Research Institute.
That is a non -profit organization that works
with school districts, state departments of education,
and schools for a variety of trainings and research
topics around dyscalculia. And that's what we
talk about in this podcast. So this is the first
episode of season three. We have some goals this
year. I'm glad you're going to be part of this
journey with us. One is to bring you a lot more
research from a variety of researchers doing
some excellent work in the field of dyscalculia.
That's really important because the published
research of dyslexia compared to dyscalculia
is running about 10 to 1 right now. We have some
great stuff out there about the math learning
disability. but we need a lot more. And the first
step is to raise awareness and talk about dyscalculia
and encourage more researchers to join us in
getting more studies underway and out into some
peer -reviewed journals. Another big goal we
have for the podcast this season is to bring
you more guests and to have more discussion with
other leaders in the field and other education
leaders who are talking about social emotional
learning and executive function issues and all
sorts of topics. If you have an idea for a topic
that you'd like to know more about or someone
you'd like to see included in our podcast, please
reach out to me. I'm pretty easy to find. First,
you can email me at Honora, H -O -N -O -R -A,
at EDUCALCLEARNING .COM or Honora at theDTRI .ORG.
So let's jump into today's topic. And I wanted
to start with a research study that I found just
fascinating. I included in all of my training
for teachers around dyscalculia ever since I
came across it. It's really an exciting one and
this came from, there we go, Dr. Katie Lewis
who is in Washington State and she is a professor
and she did this research study on dyscalculia
with one of her college students who has dyscalculia
and was studying to become a statistician to
study statistics and did that very successfully.
So Dr. Lewis wanted to know how did she get to
that point in her journey because a lot of college
students with dyscalculia do not study math.
And sadly, a lot of people with dyscalculia have
trouble getting into college. or successfully
staying in college because of the math class
requirements. The problem there is not the math
or the math class, it's usually the setup and
the structure. A lot of times in college students
don't get the kind of accommodations and support
that they should, and a lot of math professors
haven't really heard about dyscalculia and aren't
sure what it is or what they should do to support
students who have it. So definitely need more
awareness in the higher ed sphere. And here's
a great research study for math professors to
start with, but it also has really good information
in the K12 system. Here's what the study found
in a nutshell. Going to jump right to the summary
section. rather than go through the methodology
and participant description. In future podcasts,
we might do that, but I'm not sure how many people
listening really want to take a deep dive into
the statistics of qualitative and quantitative
research studies. If you do, let me know. I'm
happy to talk more about those details. But what
Dr. Lewis found when she did a case study with
her student was that this particular young woman
had spent most of her K -12 experience supporting
herself in her math struggles. Common story,
her teachers were not aware of dyscalculia, what
it is, where it comes from, what the hallmark
features are, or how to best support students.
So she was not getting a lot of direct and explicit
instruction consistently. She didn't have a lot
of accommodations for having notes or her examples
with her during assessments. That was tricky.
And then what do you do with extended time that
really has to be trained? So there were some
key struggles. She was able to successfully compensate
and learn what worked best for her through a
lot of trial and error. And one thing that really
became clear in this study was the incredible
amount of time this student had to spend outside
of class. Much, much greater than what any neurotypical
student spends, even those who have straight
A's and who study and really devote themselves
to being good at math. Having dyscalculia, this
student really had to fight a lot harder. So
some of the things she found that were very successful
for her. The first was finding and using her
preferred type of graph paper. She used four
squares per inch, the very oversized so she could
really see what was going on. And this helped
her align her math problems and space out her
work so that later she could really see what
was going on. She had plenty of space to work
with. She found that using one particular kind
of pencil and eraser, worked best for her. And
this makes a lot of sense to me. If you've tried
using different pencils and erasers or sometimes
using pen, you know that the thickness, the quality,
the sharpness of a pencil, that all makes a difference
in your writing style, whether or not you can
really see your work later. And it can even impact
the feeling. If I'm using a pencil, it has to
be sharp enough to kill. Otherwise, I'm constantly
sharpening it. I don't like a dull pencil. Also,
when you're using different kinds of erasers,
some erasers are only an eraser in name. They
don't actually erase anything. They just smudge
everything around on your paper. Makes it very
distracting and hard to work with. Sometimes
they just make your paper fall apart. Sometimes
they just crumble and disintegrate. In order
to avoid any of those frustrations and make sure
she knew that when she was working everything
would go smoothly, she stuck to one consistent
brand. You may or may not find that when you're
finding your own support tools, but consider
that because every aspect of practicing math
can impact your experience and we want to make
it as smooth as possible. That way it's enjoyable.
You're going to remember more. You're going to
feel good about it. You're more likely to do
the work later. So keep all these things in mind.
She also used a lot of colored pens, which I'm
also a huge fan of. What this student would do
is make her own color coding system for her notes
so that she used certain colors to trigger either
certain operations or certain examples. For me,
I use color a lot with geometry so it can really
train people exactly where to look and we're
matching vocabulary with the shape or the part
of an object or the specific angle or sides we
need to focus on. So color is a very effective
tool. You don't want to make everything a different
rainbow color. You want to have some meaning
or consistency behind it so that it draws your
focus. And this one made a lot of sense to me
after having worked with students who have dyscalculia,
but the amount of time I just felt very much
for this student. When she would go home after
class and rewrite her notes, which she did all
the time, Instead of using those mathematical
symbols like a plus sign, a minus sign, parentheses
for distributive property, things like that,
she would rewrite everything using words. So
instead of an Arabic digit of three with a plus
sign, Arabic digit of five, this is my example
I'm using for you, she would write out three
T -H -R -E -E space plus P -L -U -S That way
when she was reading it later she had a narrative
and I do find a lot of my students with dyscalculia
prefer this method when we're trying to figure
out how they can write notes that will help them
prepare for an assessment. You really want to
practice having a future conversation with yourself.
Harder than it sounds. So it might take you a
few tries before you really land on something
that works best for you. Some students will write
step one, step two, step three next to their
worked examples, or they might put full sentences.
Now, of course, if a student has dyslexia or
dysgraphia, that might not be their first choice,
but you could also use a voice to text to help
out with that. But anything that will help the
notes make sense to you later. Because a lot
of students would just calculia find that they
will take excellent notes. And within 24 hours,
they can look back at those notes and go, well,
I have no idea what I meant. So play around with
note taking and give yourself the space to see
what works, what doesn't, and make some changes.
A couple of other things this student did was
to create a running dictionary for herself. And
this contained the different mathematical symbols,
what they meant. We use so much shorthand, especially
in upper level math. And we do that because mathematicians
like to make things as efficient and simple as
possible. You might not know it when you're trying
to teach yourself. upper level now for sure but
it is a way of making things very smooth and
fast quick and efficient but if you're not sure
how to interpret those symbols then they're not
very helpful and you're not going to get that
meaning excuse me so uh very dusty here today
doing this longer podcast i should have made
a hot tea all right So this dictionary she would
build out over time, so it made sense to her.
She would rewrite any problems from class in
a format that was consistent for her and the
way that she could best solve them. And she used
a consistent solution style every time. That
way she wasn't having to constantly look for
the best option for a certain thing. She knew
exactly what to do. and she had to spend a lot
of time trying to find real world examples for
herself. That's a good message for us as teachers.
We need to spend some more time taking abstract
concepts and making them real world examples
our students can connect with. The important
thing to remember when we're doing that is that
we don't live in their world and they don't live
in ours. So something that's real world for an
adult is not going to be a real world example
for a student. So just think about math differently.
And you can really teach any math class in the
room you're sitting in. Your real world examples
can come from the concrete in your immediate
vicinity. They can come from your local park.
They can come from the classroom. They can come
from your house driving to and from school. But
a lot of our word problems especially in most
of our math curriculums don't really do that.
So spend more time talking with your students
with dyscalculia and see if you can make some
real world examples in the space you're in because
that truly is the world that you're both sharing.
So if you want to know more about that study,
look up Dr. Katie Lewis. She does have other
research studies out there, a lot of really great
information, and I think this is a great way
for us to bridge that gap between research studies
and what we can do practically in the classroom.
I come from a pragmatic lens for my frame of
reference around education. What do we need to
do and how do we get it done? And for most of
our students, what they need to do is pass math
class so that they can maintain grade level work
and progression, so that they can graduate high
school, so that they can complete their college
degree and open up more career choices, more
earning pathways, and have a better understanding
of themselves as students and as learners. I
can tell you from my work, Absolutely. Students
with dyscalculia can and should do upper level
math and science classes. They're more than capable.
Those classes are much easier than elementary
school. Elementary math is much harder for people
with dyscalculia. And if we look at examples
like the student Dr. Lewis included in this study,
there's no reason why dyscalculia should keep
a person from reaching any of their goals, including
majoring in math and using that as the way to
finish their college degree. Last goal for this
new year is to have summaries and links to some
of these research studies on both of the websites.
So if you want to know more about this study
right now, go to Google Scholar or go to Google
itself and type in Dr. Katie Lewis and find her
and you can find more of her work. In the near
future, keep checking our websites and look for
more research studies to be included in that
space. And then, of course, we have lots of reels
on social media if you're looking for some quick
bites of information. We have a support group
for teachers on Facebook. That's a public group
where you can meet colleagues and ask questions.
And you can email me anytime. I'm Dr. Honora
Wall. I love talking about dyscalculia and I
thank you for being a part of this journey and
listening to the What in the World is Dyscalculia
podcast.