Welcome to What in the World is Dyscalculia, a podcast that focuses on the specific learning
disorder that impacts math.
This podcast is presented by Educalc Learning and I'm your host, Dr. Honora Wall, Dyscalculia
Specialist and Student Advocate, and I'm excited to be with you today.
I'm right in the middle of recording voiceover for our Dyscalculia Specialist Certification
Program and I had to take a break for just a moment.
I'm doing the voiceover for the lessons for middle school teachers and I was thinking about
how many things happen in middle school math and how they impact students with Dyscalculia
and that's what I want to talk about in today's episode.
The good news for students with Dyscalculia is that once they get into middle school,
the Dyscalculia trifecta, time, money, and place value is gone.
We're not asking those kinds of questions anymore.
We've moved on to new topics and these new topics have some very interesting concerns
for students with Dyscalculia.
So we're talking about sixth, seventh, and eighth grade.
Now the middle school math experience is very different in different parts of the country.
I do work with students in many different states, some in public school, some in private
schools, some who home school, so I've seen a wide variety of approaches to middle school
math.
Certainly some things are the same anywhere you go.
We have a lot of graphing in middle school.
We're introducing variables in a really specific way and we're learning all sorts of different
rules for how do you play the game of math.
It certainly doesn't feel like a game to many of our students but honestly that's what
we're learning.
What are the rules to working in this math environment?
So let's pull these apart and the first thing I'll look at is the graphing piece.
So creating a graph involves taking an equation, later on called taking a function, they mean
the same thing, and plugging in some x value, some kind of number, any number at all.
These were given those numbers, sometimes we get to make them up.
We put that number into the equation, we do the work and we see what happens.
Then we take our input and output and we make a picture out of it.
That's our creating a graph.
This can be troublesome for students who still have low numeracy skills and haven't really
worked with the support tools to support their numeracy or feel good about solving math problems.
Use a calculator.
If you're not allowed to use a calculator in the classroom or as a teacher if you're
very resistant still to letting students use a calculator in the classroom, just use the
calculator at home so at least you're having successful math experiences you can reflect
on and you're practicing the skills and that will translate into classroom performance.
And teachers, the calculator is simply a tool.
Let's train students how to use them properly so that they can focus on the purpose of these
equations, the purpose of these functions.
Just move away from the numeracy focus and get into the graphing focus.
Coming out of the other way, reading a graph means that we're looking at the picture and
then trying to figure out what happened.
Trying to figure out what are the important parts of this graph.
Where are we touching the Y axis?
What does the intercept, what does that mean?
Only in middle school we're only looking for the Y intercept.
But sometimes we have the X intercepts, sometimes that comes into play later.
These can be confusing topics for students and looking at a graph or looking at a graph
paper may be the X and Y axis stand out.
But maybe they don't seem to be very much different from the other lines on our graph
paper or on our coordinate grid.
As teachers we want to spend a little more time talking with our students and making
sure that they know exactly what the axis line is, exactly what the intercept means.
Explaining slope and looking at slope from a graph can be very strange topics to explain.
Especially for students with dyscalculia because a lot of times they're very linear concrete
thinkers.
They need a little more time to really feel comfortable with abstract thoughts and processes
that are making a lot of sense.
Especially when it happens in math class which is already not making a lot of sense.
One of the great things about teaching students with dyscalculia is that you're going to become
a much better math teacher because you're going to have to find new ways of explaining
concepts.
You're going to have to find new tricks and new methods and new analogies and new metaphors.
And you're probably going to find that your students with dyscalculia are better either
at creating or at reading graphs depending on their visual spatial skills and depending
on how comfortable they are with different tools like calculators or times tables charts.
So that's one big piece of middle school math.
The other really big piece is the expansion of variables.
Sadly, we are pushing so much algebra into elementary school textbooks in a way that
is not appropriate for the development of our children.
That students come into middle school having been exposed to variables or having been exposed
to an unknown equation.
But that doesn't mean the exposure made any sense.
And it does not mean that for students with dyscalculia, the use of the unknown or finding
an unknown makes any sense.
At middle school age, a lot of students with dyscalculia are still trying to become comfortable
with the idea that math is about a problem.
You have a problem, you have to solve it.
That was a big enough hurdle.
And now all of a sudden we are telling them well what about when you don't even know what
the problem is and you are trying to figure it out and work backwards.
Very tough skill.
So we want to give our students a little more time in this area and a little more support.
I do not recommend pushing students with dyscalculia into algebra one in middle school.
There really is not a very beneficial point to it.
There is plenty of time in high school to take high school math courses.
And middle school is our last chance to make a really strong foundation.
To find the places of weakness and shore them up.
To find the places of strength and expand them.
And to help students learn how they can best study, how they can best advocate for their
needs and how they can best succeed in a traditional classroom.
There is plenty to handle as a sixth, seventh or eighth grader.
Earning high school credit does not also have to be something that happens at this stage.
So let's let middle schoolers just be middle schoolers.
And with these variables we want to spend more time helping them develop a bridge to
abstract thought.
We want to reinforce working forward with substitution, putting numbers into a problem
and seeing what happens.
And within that same unit saying what if we did not know how can we work from there.
Remember that dyscalculia impacts the ability to remember and follow steps and procedures
and formulas.
So make sure your students have their formula sheet, their reference sheet, their personalized
notes where they've written down what they usually forget.
And they've given them worked examples so they can follow steps.
Because their parietal lobe is confusing this information and storing it almost like in
a mental junk drawer.
So it's hard to remember what to do in which circumstance.
Another place where we really want to support our middle school students.
Another big issue is that there are so many rules and regulations that we're teaching.
There are some things that happen only when you add or subtract.
And there are very different things that happen when you multiply and divide.
There are some properties that only apply when you add or multiply.
And they're totally different from subtraction and division.
Sometimes you're allowed to do certain things and sometimes you're not.
In middle school we really start working with integers.
Well we've just spent five years or more telling children that they have to start subtracting
from the bigger number.
And now all of a sudden we throw that out the window.
This is very confusing for children and it's frustrating for many students with dyscalculia.
Because what are they supposed to believe?
That they were learning before or what they're doing now and why is it different?
We need to have an explanation for that so that students understand what's going on.
And we want to let them make those notes, have those references so they can remind themselves,
especially during a quiz or a test.
What are you supposed to do when you're multiplying?
When I'm adding things that have different signs that's different from multiplying with
the different signs, which one is which, which time do I combine the numbers, which time do
I keep the sign, when do I get rid of the sign, when does it change all of these different
questions that come up for our students.
And I used quite a few different vocabulary terms in there getting rid of a sign or changing
a sign or what do you do with a sign.
That really mimics the experience of our students with dyscalculia.
We're spending so much time moving them through standards so quickly that the nuances of the
vocabulary and the essence of the word choice can get away from them.
So you want to spend a little more time at that part and don't rush through your topics
too quickly.
If you hear students saying something that's close but not quite accurate, pause for a
minute and help them with that accuracy and say, you know, I, I understand what you're
saying with this.
I think a more precise way to say it is like this.
That I think will help you with the concept or remember it more.
First of all, it will help them with the concept and help them remember it more.
Second, you're giving immediate corrective feedback.
Third, you're having a conversation with them so they know that math is not all take a problem,
solve it, turn in your work.
But no, it's a conversation.
It's something that we talk about.
We can go back and forth on how we both see it and come to an understanding of what's
going on within a problem.
That kind of mathematical thinking is what we want to develop before we send them off
into high school math.
Now interwoven through all of this is the socialization piece which is huge for middle
schoolers.
Shockingly to me, I still hear way too many teachers say way too many negative things
to their students.
If this is a problem you're having, if social emotional learning really doesn't make a lot
of sense to you, you need to figure that piece out because if you are being negative with
your students and making them feel badly about themselves and they always know what you truly
think of them, then you're being a barrier and you need to knock it off.
It's not that difficult to speak nicely to children and it's not that difficult to find
something they've been successful in, something they did right, something that is a strength.
Look for those things in all of your students and make sure you're pointing them out.
That's very vital in a classroom setting also because how we treat children in front of
their peers is incredibly important to them in middle school.
They're defining themselves as people and we want to help them define themselves as
learners.
Being positive, being proactive, mentioning and highlighting success and supporting them
when they struggle goes a long way to making them better students and to helping us have
a nicer day at work.
Another socialization piece that's important for this group is to use different types of
assessments.
If you've done any universal design for learning training, you already have a good handle on
different assessments.
If you've gone to any of my training seminars on how to use unusual activities to support
struggling students or if you have a copy of our games for the brain book, then you're
already familiar with some of the different activities and projects you can do.
Art projects, music projects, crossover with the history department doing reports on mathematicians
or playing games with cards or with dice or making art posters to put up on the wall.
All of these intersect with math and mathematical thinking.
And anyone can win in this kind of an activity.
So students don't feel quite so put on the spot if they're failing or passing because
everyone has a much more equal chance at success.
This can open the door for your students to find access to becoming good math students.
And that is what leads them to future math success.
Well of course we want to do that in elementary and high school as well.
In middle school it's vital.
Middle school human development is a very unique time.
And it is true middle school teachers are the heroes.
I do enjoy teaching middle school but that is a tough job.
It is not for the weak of heart.
It is not for the mean hearted.
And it is not for the weak.
But it is incredibly rewarding.
If you are a middle school teacher you already know that this is our last chance to really
put those remaining thoughts onto our students.
Help them define themselves going into high school.
What kind of people are they going to become.
This is our last chance to make sure that they think of themselves in the best possible
way that they have really great habits for self advocacy for studying for finding out
information on their own for being engaged in the school process.
And for students with dyscalculia sometimes we've lost that chance by middle school because
a lot of middle school age students have moved to home school.
It was just too frustrating.
They kept fighting trying to find a place for success and trying to get help in elementary
school and it didn't happen.
So now they are going the home school route.
I have a lot of students who have been through that situation.
We have a lot of impact in middle school.
It can be positive impact or it can be negative.
For students with dyscalculia very small changes on our part can make this a positive
experience for them.
Understand and recognize that there are visual spatial issues involved in dyscalculia and
support students as we are doing more visual work in math.
Understand that the switch to abstract thinking is something that happens for each person
on their own unique timeline and it can take longer for students with dyscalculia.
They are very concrete linear thinkers.
And that is a strength not a weakness.
It just doesn't always mesh very well with what we want them to do in sixth, seventh and
eighth grade.
And give them support tools that include reference sheet, formula sheets, personalized
notes and worked examples because we are throwing lots of different rules, regulations, properties,
order of operations, steps, procedures.
It's a lot to keep straight.
The more you support your students in keeping them straight the more success they are going
to find in your class.
The more success they have the more they can reflect on the best way to learn.
And that's how we really change the conversation for students with dyscalculia.
They can and should come out of middle school feeling great about themselves as mathematical
thinkers and is about capable students who can find their own success.
And that's our job before they leave us at the end of eighth grade.
If you have any other questions or comments about this I would love to hear from you.
You can email me Honora H-O-N-O-R-A at educalclearning.com or visit the website educalclearning.com.
You can leave us a message through there.
Let us know what topics you'd like to hear us address in future episodes.
Look at some of the books we have either through the website or on Amazon and find out where
we're going to be next for our training.
If we're going to be near you make sure you come say hi.
If you'd like to schedule training for your teachers let us know.
We're happy to come to you or to create something online if that's a better option.
I'm Dr. Honora Wall and I appreciate you being here today listening to this episode
of What in the World is Dyscalculia.
We'll talk soon.