Hello and welcome to the What in the World is Dyscalculia podcast hosted by Dr. Honora
Wall.
That's me and sponsored by EducalcLearning, which is my business where I train educators
in everything related to dyscalculia.
I also talk a lot to parents and students who I work with individually and as a classroom
teacher.
So I really live dyscalculia every day and I'm recording this at the beginning of the
school year.
I'm getting lots of questions about what are some good accommodations?
How do we approach the beginning of a new school year and a new math class?
Specifically one of the biggest questions is what do we do about these times tables?
Parents know right away that it's going to be a tough year.
They've had a lot of crying in the past.
Parents and students, they've had a lot of frustration.
The students are not looking forward to school and the teachers get frustrated because they
have certain expectations.
One of them is that students are going to memorize their times tables.
And the fact is, students with dyscalculia are not going to memorize their times tables.
This is because dyscalculia comes from issues in the parietal lobe, which is the very front
part of your brain, kind of like behind your forehead.
It's a very large area.
Lots of things happen in the parietal lobe.
And one of the main things that happens is that this is where we store math related information.
And for people who have dyscalculia, the parietal lobe acts almost like a colander rather than
a cup.
The math information goes in and if we had a cup that we poured water into, the water
being our math information, the cup would hold it.
And we could always go get that cup of water, know right where it is, and it would remain
full.
For people who have dyscalculia, it's more like a colander where there are holes.
And we pour in that water, that math information, and it flows back out.
This is not something that we're going to change through the most perfect instruction
and through the most intense amount of practice.
And it's not something that we have to go in and make different.
It's just something we need to accommodate.
And honestly, it's so easy to accommodate this issue and help people with dyscalculia
succeed in their math class.
And that's really what I want to talk about in today's podcast.
Exactly how can we do it and why do we need to do it?
So like I said, that parietal lobe gets math information and loses it over time.
How long of a period of time is different for every single person who has dyscalculia?
So some people forget math pretty quickly.
Some people forget math over a few weeks, or when you get around to the midterm or the
final, they've forgotten a lot of what they've already learned.
In other episodes, I'll talk more about how to address that feeling of forgetfulness and
how we can support those students.
The other thing to know is that everyone who has dyscalculia is an individual person.
They have different learning preferences.
Some people have different working memory, capacity, processing speed, visual, spatial
skills.
It's very different.
So you want to get to know yourself as a student and you want to deal with your students as
individuals as much as possible.
That means that some students with dyscalculia will do very well with the different songs
or books or methods that are out there for learning time tables.
Those can be very helpful, mostly because they interact with other regions of the brain.
So if we're listening to songs, that's auditory.
That information is stored in a different place.
If we're reading books and they're very engaging and we like them, that is a different part
of the brain that's active.
And those memories can be stored in different places.
If we're playing fun games or working together as a group in the class, now we're hitting
on social, emotional, collaborative areas of the brain where we're activating different
responses.
Which part of the brain, being an amazing tool that we are only beginning to understand,
works together.
So it can be possible to store some math related information in other ways and that can make
recall easier sometimes.
That's why we like to do a lot of multimodal activities.
So we're hitting all sorts of different parts of the brain and getting the information in
as many places as possible.
But still, those wonderful programs may or may not work for your individual student.
And they may or may not last over time.
So definitely try them out and use anything that's working.
Whatever is a way of accessing math success for your student, keep going with that.
In addition, especially when we're doing classwork, especially when we're doing homework, and most
definitely when we're doing quizzes and tests, we need to give our students the support tools
to verify those basic facts.
This is where I lose a lot of math teachers in my training.
Because math teachers, especially at the elementary school level, have a firm and solid belief
that if you use a calculator, you're cheating.
For students with dyscalculia, that is not true.
It's like saying someone who wears glasses should not wear glasses during a test because
it's letting them cheat.
No, it's letting them see clearly.
And that's exactly what a calculator or a times tables list or sheets with a multiplication
pattern written out or a multiplication chart can be really helpful because they allow students
to confirm their thoughts, confirm their facts, and work with precision.
I'll talk in other podcasts about how important that is.
We have to have mastery.
We have to have success because that is how the brain knows which neurons to save and
which ones to get rid of.
But not getting off on too much of a brain tangent today, let's focus on those support
tools.
When we're looking at early elementary, second grade, sometimes even first grade when we're
seeing a lot of struggles, we're not sure exactly what the problem is, and even reaching
into third grade.
Students with dyscalculia have a lot of trouble memorizing, adding and subtracting basic facts,
and because they have a weaker approximate number system, which is our mental number
line, it's harder for them to jump in at the number seven and then count on three more
or jump in at 18 and subtract out six.
These are difficult skills because their brain is not pulling up an automatic number line
that they can move through.
So let them use a one to one hundreds chart or let them use a number line.
That way they can confirm, they can do the adding and subtracting, and they can get the
right answer so you know that they're confirming their work and they're passing your class.
Please note that if a student is still using a one to one hundreds chart while they're
doing their adding and subtracting homework, they are doing the exact same work as a student
who has memorized or who has a strong approximate number system.
But with those students, we don't see what work is going on because it's happening in
their brain automatically.
It's like they have their very own math butler in their head who's getting that information
for them.
So our students with dyscalculia are doing more work because they have to do it all individually,
brand new for every single problem.
This becomes an issue when we start adding more homework problems at a time or when we
want to focus on the rules for adding and subtracting decimals or adding and subtracting
money and we need to move away from struggling over basic facts.
If we want students to memorize the rules for lining up the decimal point, for borrowing
all of the tiny details that go into those steps and procedures, letting them confirm
their adding and subtracting answers through a one to one hundreds chart or a number line
is the right way to go because now their brains can focus on the new concept without being
held back by those basic facts.
The same thing happens as we move further along third, fourth, fifth grade and now we're
putting in multiplying and dividing and we're putting in fractions and we've got to learn
the rules about when you can add or subtract, how do you multiply and divide.
We have steps and procedures we need to count on and we need to get those solid.
And you also want to remember that dyscalculia causes problems with remembering steps and
procedures and keeping them in the right order.
That's also cross listed with dysgraphia and if we're doing word problems now we can be
cross listed with dyslexia so you can see that there's a whole lot going on for these
students.
Using them using a calculator or a list of the times tables, that's my preference because
they can really see the pattern within multiplication and they can see all of the facts in context
and that's really helpful for long term storage and retrieval of those facts.
I like that better than a multiplication chart for most students because so many people with
dyscalculia also have visual spatial skill issues.
So looking at those really great charts where you put your finger on the six at the top
and the five on the left and then you see where they meet, that's really hard for people
whose visual spatial skills are lower than others.
So if that works for your student, great, keep it up.
If they're still getting some answers wrong and they're not quite sure how to use that
chart, give them a list of the times tables and let them confirm their work that way.
When we're getting into fifth, sixth, seventh, the amount of work, the types of formulas,
the new vocabulary, all the steps and procedures, there's so much going on.
At that point it really does make sense to let students use a calculator at all times.
First of all, they're going to experience mastery and success.
Really important in learning.
Second of all, they're going to have more mental energy to focus on the steps and procedures
and the problem solving and the new vocab and the difference between perimeter and area,
et cetera, et cetera.
And that's really what we're teaching them in that late elementary, early middle school
period.
Also we want them to have the calculator because it keeps them on task by getting more of the
work done in a certain amount of time.
So they're really staying at pace with the class and not being held back by their learning
disorder.
The funny part is once we get into ninth grade, anything above ninth grade, sometimes eighth
grade, we start insisting that kids use a calculator and then we throw a super expensive
high end calculator at them and we don't train them how to use it.
That's a topic for a future podcast which we will definitely spend some time on.
We need to train students how to use calculators.
They're a tool and like any other tool, you need to be shown exactly what to do with it.
However, in that late elementary and middle school time period, I definitely recommend
you get a basic four operation calculator and you let students use that because it's
going to help them have the time and space to practice the other things we need them
to know and give them the mastery of having the right answer.
These issues of losing math information over time, forgetting basic facts no matter how
many times you've drilled them and being held back from understanding more advanced concepts,
these are going to continue for people with this calculator throughout their lifespan.
It's not a big deal.
It's the same exact process for me wearing my reading glasses.
If I want to read, I had better make sure I have my glasses with me.
This is not a big deal.
I just wear the glasses.
I happen to love reading.
Very good at it if I say so myself.
Uncomprehension is not an issue and I love talking about literacy.
But I know that if I want to truly see the words on the page, I had better have my reading
glasses on and that's always going to be true and it doesn't take away from who I am as
a reader.
We need to make a shift in the way we identify math students.
Memorizing is a parlor trick.
Let it go.
Let students who are struggling use the tools they need so that they can confirm their work
and get further along in their math classes.
There is no reason to hold back a student from upper level or advanced math classes simply
because they are stuck on those basic math facts.
It's like making students take off their glasses when they enter the room and then asking them
why they're not reading fluently.
It's a barrier we're putting into place and it does not need to exist.
So if you are listening and you're a parent, a teacher, if you're a guidance counselor,
if you're at all involved in the IEP process, please bring up calculator or another support
tool like a time-stables list as an accommodation that should be used at all times.
It will make a huge difference not only in your students' progress but also in their
self-esteem and in the way they define themselves as being a mathematical person.
Lots of benefits, no real downside.
Here's why there's no real downside.
First of all, students with dyscalculia are not going to memorize and retain those basic
facts.
So it's not like you're giving them something extra that they should be picking up on their
own because that's not how their brains work.
Second of all, the students who do not have a specific learning disorder and yet are struggling
from low numeracy are going to have another method of confirming their right answers and
they're going to move away from using those support tools because their memorization is
going to get better on its own as they're confirming right and wrong answers.
If you're looking for more information about how that works in the brain and how the brain
decides what information to store in long-term memory and which neurons and connections
to get rid of because it's incorrect information, feel free to email me, honora at educalclearning.com.
Or visit my website, educalclearning.com.
You can reach me through there.
And whenever I can, I try to update that with new information.
This year my focus is to get some really great classroom tools for teachers and parents to
have handy.
If there's something specific that you need, let me know.
Email me, contact me through the website and I will help you get some resources together
and the research behind everything I'm saying in these podcasts.
Everything that I talk about has been documented through research in some way, shape, or form.
And also, these are the tricks and tips that I use with my students in the classroom and
as a private tutor.
So I know they work from personal experience for many years and I know they work because
they're backed by scientific research.
And that is really important.
We want to make sure that it's not only something we think can work, but it's something that
we study and we know why it works.
Final thought.
Give them a calculator or a times tables list or a 1-100 chart.
Move on with the next phase of math instruction.
It's a super important support for students with dyscalculia of any age or grade level.
I'm Dr. Honora Wall and I thank you for listening and I hope that you tune in for our next episode
of What in the World is Dyscalculia.