1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:08,280 Hello and welcome to What in the World is Dyscalculia, a podcast dedicated to the math 2 00:00:08,280 --> 00:00:16,600 learning disability presented by Educalc Learning and hosted by me, Dr. Honora Wall. 3 00:00:16,600 --> 00:00:21,600 A lot of times in the podcast we talk about where Dyscalculia comes from, how you can 4 00:00:21,600 --> 00:00:27,360 recognize it in your child or in your students, and what you can do about it. 5 00:00:27,360 --> 00:00:31,320 Today I want to tell you what the future looks like. 6 00:00:31,320 --> 00:00:38,840 I want to share the story of one of my students, we'll call her Cameron, and she's having 7 00:00:38,840 --> 00:00:45,560 a very exciting week because she was just inducted into the National Junior Honor Society 8 00:00:45,560 --> 00:00:47,240 at her school. 9 00:00:47,240 --> 00:00:53,680 When I first met Cameron, she was failing math, had just been diagnosed with Dyscalculia, 10 00:00:53,680 --> 00:00:59,120 and I don't think that she or her parents would have envisioned this day happening. 11 00:00:59,120 --> 00:01:05,000 I'm so excited for her because this opens up so many opportunities and really reinforces 12 00:01:05,000 --> 00:01:08,720 the work she's done to get to this point. 13 00:01:08,720 --> 00:01:13,600 So what I want to do today is share with you exactly what we did and how this journey 14 00:01:13,600 --> 00:01:19,000 occurred because you can do it too. 15 00:01:19,000 --> 00:01:24,760 When Cameron was in fifth grade, living in Michigan, going to a public school, she had 16 00:01:24,760 --> 00:01:31,480 always struggled in math and was on the verge of failing and had just been diagnosed with 17 00:01:31,480 --> 00:01:32,480 Dyscalculia. 18 00:01:32,480 --> 00:01:37,120 Her mom is an educator but had never heard of this. 19 00:01:37,120 --> 00:01:42,800 Her class teacher at school had never heard of it and the school had never heard of it. 20 00:01:42,800 --> 00:01:47,160 So the school was very accommodating and said we would love to help and we would love to 21 00:01:47,160 --> 00:01:51,320 support her, we just don't know what to do. 22 00:01:51,320 --> 00:01:57,360 So Cameron's mom found me on a Facebook support page for people who have Dyscalculia and reached 23 00:01:57,360 --> 00:01:59,440 out. 24 00:01:59,440 --> 00:02:05,600 She told me a little bit of Cameron's background and I suggested we start with my standard one 25 00:02:05,600 --> 00:02:11,240 hour a week of tutoring via Zoom. 26 00:02:11,240 --> 00:02:17,400 I like to stick with one hour a week for tutoring unless a child is in crisis. 27 00:02:17,400 --> 00:02:22,120 And by crisis I mean that they're a high schooler about to get an F on a report card because 28 00:02:22,120 --> 00:02:26,640 then you have to repeat credits or if there's a large placement test or something else coming 29 00:02:26,640 --> 00:02:32,680 up or if they have a low F in their class and we're trying to get them to passing. 30 00:02:32,680 --> 00:02:36,920 But in general, one hour a week I find is sufficient. 31 00:02:36,920 --> 00:02:42,760 And I never like to go longer than one hour in a tutoring session because it's bad for 32 00:02:42,760 --> 00:02:45,200 everyone, myself and the student. 33 00:02:45,200 --> 00:02:51,400 At the end of an hour the brain has taken in about all it can on this one topic and 34 00:02:51,400 --> 00:02:58,200 we start to see little mistakes, little slip ups, wrong answers that are so close to being 35 00:02:58,200 --> 00:03:01,800 right just slightly off and that's because the brain is getting a little tired of this 36 00:03:01,800 --> 00:03:04,520 topic and wants to think about something else. 37 00:03:04,520 --> 00:03:11,600 We never want to end a tutoring session or a class if we can help it on that low note. 38 00:03:11,600 --> 00:03:17,520 We have to end on a high note emphasizing success and emphasizing where we have mastery. 39 00:03:17,520 --> 00:03:24,760 It's really an important part of the learning process from a neurology standpoint. 40 00:03:24,760 --> 00:03:26,960 So we started working one hour a week. 41 00:03:26,960 --> 00:03:33,280 At this time the country was still dealing with the pandemic and Cameron was doing remote 42 00:03:33,280 --> 00:03:34,720 schooling. 43 00:03:34,720 --> 00:03:39,800 That comes with its own set of issues as all listeners have gone through this process. 44 00:03:39,800 --> 00:03:42,000 I don't need to tell you how it went. 45 00:03:42,000 --> 00:03:49,880 But it did give us an area that we could use to our benefit because the class work, the 46 00:03:49,880 --> 00:03:55,120 notes, the textbook, all the materials were online and that meant Cameron could share 47 00:03:55,120 --> 00:03:59,960 them during our sessions. 48 00:03:59,960 --> 00:04:08,160 We decided to focus on getting her to a passing mastery level in her class. 49 00:04:08,160 --> 00:04:10,240 This is a standard approach for me. 50 00:04:10,240 --> 00:04:14,040 If people come to me and they want to work on foundational skills or they want to work 51 00:04:14,040 --> 00:04:18,960 over the summer to shore up the foundation or get ready for the next year, then we're 52 00:04:18,960 --> 00:04:23,400 more open minded about doing those skill based practices. 53 00:04:23,400 --> 00:04:27,720 But for the most part, people come to me because they have a problem right now and they need 54 00:04:27,720 --> 00:04:32,720 to fix it so that's where we focus. 55 00:04:32,720 --> 00:04:37,720 We can build in foundational skill work as we're going along. 56 00:04:37,720 --> 00:04:43,680 I never waste time trying to get students to memorize basic facts because I understand 57 00:04:43,680 --> 00:04:48,920 that dyscalculia causes the parietal lobe to lose that information over time. 58 00:04:48,920 --> 00:04:54,440 Instead we go with the support tools that will help the student retrieve basic facts, 59 00:04:54,440 --> 00:05:00,200 either a times tables list, a 1 to 100's chart, a calculator, whatever is most appropriate 60 00:05:00,200 --> 00:05:03,320 for their grade level and their work. 61 00:05:03,320 --> 00:05:09,240 And I say that because if a student is learning how to multiply and divide, then a times tables 62 00:05:09,240 --> 00:05:11,480 list is most appropriate. 63 00:05:11,480 --> 00:05:16,680 If they're learning how to simplify fractions, find equivalent fractions, least common multiple, 64 00:05:16,680 --> 00:05:22,080 greatest common factor, yes, a times tables list, not a multiplication chart for these 65 00:05:22,080 --> 00:05:26,280 students is going to be the most effective tool. 66 00:05:26,280 --> 00:05:33,440 But if a student is learning about perimeter, area, volume, studying formulas, then we need 67 00:05:33,440 --> 00:05:39,680 the calculator because we need to focus on the vocabulary and the new topic. 68 00:05:39,680 --> 00:05:44,600 Getting the math answer right is the secondary piece and I don't want them wasting time or 69 00:05:44,600 --> 00:05:47,600 slowing down their work going through a times tables list. 70 00:05:47,600 --> 00:05:49,920 It's not always the most appropriate. 71 00:05:49,920 --> 00:05:53,920 The calculator is. 72 00:05:53,920 --> 00:05:59,000 Since our class materials were online and we could share them and look at them together, 73 00:05:59,000 --> 00:06:04,520 we could really analyze and pick apart what did a word problem mean, what was she expected 74 00:06:04,520 --> 00:06:10,120 to do, what was she expected to show as far as showing her work. 75 00:06:10,120 --> 00:06:15,400 That really helped her feel like she understood what was happening in the classroom and that 76 00:06:15,400 --> 00:06:17,640 made a really big difference. 77 00:06:17,640 --> 00:06:25,400 I find that that analysis piece as the instructor or educator, you want to present that information, 78 00:06:25,400 --> 00:06:30,520 expose the child so they understand what their expectations are from the material or from 79 00:06:30,520 --> 00:06:34,320 their teacher and then keep going with the unit. 80 00:06:34,320 --> 00:06:39,800 But to never talk about how to think about the problem they're thinking about leaves 81 00:06:39,800 --> 00:06:46,040 metacognition on the table and we really want that to be a piece of our work. 82 00:06:46,040 --> 00:06:50,840 While we're talking about math at the same time. 83 00:06:50,840 --> 00:06:56,160 I also made myself available to the school and to the teacher, shared my website and 84 00:06:56,160 --> 00:07:01,040 my email offered to have any conversations that would make them feel more comfortable 85 00:07:01,040 --> 00:07:08,440 helping Cameron through her challenges of learning how to work with this learning disorder. 86 00:07:08,440 --> 00:07:15,360 So because we focused on skills, on support tools and on understanding what was expected 87 00:07:15,360 --> 00:07:19,500 of her, she was able to start to get success in class. 88 00:07:19,500 --> 00:07:25,880 She knew what she was supposed to do for homework and classwork and she was able to develop 89 00:07:25,880 --> 00:07:27,800 that skill set. 90 00:07:27,800 --> 00:07:32,720 When she did stumble, which of course everyone does, she could bring that to me and we could 91 00:07:32,720 --> 00:07:35,680 analyze what happened nine times out of 10. 92 00:07:35,680 --> 00:07:43,040 It had been a small mistake, something very common to any student, but extremely common 93 00:07:43,040 --> 00:07:45,080 for students with dyscalculia. 94 00:07:45,080 --> 00:07:48,600 She hadn't checked her answers with a calculator. 95 00:07:48,600 --> 00:07:53,120 I find students with learning challenges don't want to have to use their support tools. 96 00:07:53,120 --> 00:07:57,240 So we have to do a lot of training that it's better to support yourself and get the right 97 00:07:57,240 --> 00:08:02,800 answer than to understand the topic and be wrong with your answer because you didn't 98 00:08:02,800 --> 00:08:04,440 verify your work. 99 00:08:04,440 --> 00:08:10,200 Requiring precision and accuracy goes a long way towards developing mathematical thinking 100 00:08:10,200 --> 00:08:13,800 skills. 101 00:08:13,800 --> 00:08:17,720 The next thing that we did was talk about what accommodations the teacher was comfortable 102 00:08:17,720 --> 00:08:25,040 giving her in class and helping mom understand how to explain the need for the accommodations 103 00:08:25,040 --> 00:08:26,040 to the teacher. 104 00:08:26,040 --> 00:08:29,280 And in this case, it went very well. 105 00:08:29,280 --> 00:08:34,680 Not every state, not every teacher is as open to the accommodations and the reasons why 106 00:08:34,680 --> 00:08:36,280 they're important. 107 00:08:36,280 --> 00:08:42,240 But Cameron got lucky, especially when the teacher saw over time that there were changes 108 00:08:42,240 --> 00:08:48,280 in her work, that she was getting more answers right, that she understood more of what was 109 00:08:48,280 --> 00:08:54,120 going on in class, and her demeanor and her engagement level changed because she wasn't 110 00:08:54,120 --> 00:08:58,160 checked out thinking that she could never do it and therefore being quiet. 111 00:08:58,160 --> 00:09:04,320 No, she was starting to really interact in the class more than she had before. 112 00:09:04,320 --> 00:09:10,040 So she did very well that first year she did pass and developed a lot more confidence. 113 00:09:10,040 --> 00:09:17,880 Cameron's family is a military family, so over that summer they moved to Missouri. 114 00:09:17,880 --> 00:09:22,840 And Missouri has been great for Cameron. 115 00:09:22,840 --> 00:09:27,200 She did have the same issues where teachers had never heard of dyscalculia. 116 00:09:27,200 --> 00:09:32,120 The school was not very familiar with the learning disorder or what to do about it. 117 00:09:32,120 --> 00:09:39,480 But Missouri, like Iowa, has adopted the very appropriate and smart measure of allowing 118 00:09:39,480 --> 00:09:45,440 students to use accommodations at all times, including on their state tests. 119 00:09:45,440 --> 00:09:48,360 And I think other states are starting to jump on that bandwagon. 120 00:09:48,360 --> 00:09:53,680 If you live in a state where you can use accommodations on your state mandated test, please let me 121 00:09:53,680 --> 00:09:54,680 know. 122 00:09:54,680 --> 00:09:58,360 I love to know what's happening across the country. 123 00:09:58,360 --> 00:10:03,480 Not all states are as progressive, but I do think we will see more of a change in this 124 00:10:03,480 --> 00:10:07,000 area in the next few years, which only makes sense. 125 00:10:07,000 --> 00:10:12,520 We don't ask students to leave their eyeglasses at home on testing day. 126 00:10:12,520 --> 00:10:13,520 Accommodations work. 127 00:10:13,520 --> 00:10:14,880 They're there for a reason. 128 00:10:14,880 --> 00:10:21,160 And we see that students who have learning disabilities but who have the right accommodations 129 00:10:21,160 --> 00:10:22,160 are passing. 130 00:10:22,160 --> 00:10:23,920 They're getting their appropriate score. 131 00:10:23,920 --> 00:10:26,400 Might be a level 3 out of 5. 132 00:10:26,400 --> 00:10:28,320 Might be a level 4 out of 5. 133 00:10:28,320 --> 00:10:31,520 But it does not inflate their score. 134 00:10:31,520 --> 00:10:38,120 Learning accommodations to students who need them allows them to perform at their appropriate 135 00:10:38,120 --> 00:10:45,240 normal level without the barriers of their learning disability in their way. 136 00:10:45,240 --> 00:10:50,960 So you will not see any inflated grades or inflated performance when you let students 137 00:10:50,960 --> 00:10:56,240 use appropriate accommodations. 138 00:10:56,240 --> 00:10:59,320 So the second year I worked with Cameron. 139 00:10:59,320 --> 00:11:01,640 We had a new teacher. 140 00:11:01,640 --> 00:11:03,280 School was face to face. 141 00:11:03,280 --> 00:11:08,720 We talked a lot about being engaged in the class and how to take notes in the class and 142 00:11:08,720 --> 00:11:13,920 how to make those notes useful during a test or quiz situation. 143 00:11:13,920 --> 00:11:19,080 That's a big piece of working with students who have dyscalculia, helping them learn to 144 00:11:19,080 --> 00:11:22,000 write notes that tell them a story. 145 00:11:22,000 --> 00:11:25,240 They're giving a message to their future selves. 146 00:11:25,240 --> 00:11:29,240 If you work with students who have dyscalculia, I'm sure you have found that they can take 147 00:11:29,240 --> 00:11:34,720 great notes, write down everything you said and every example you put on the board, take 148 00:11:34,720 --> 00:11:40,480 those notes out during a quiz or a test and they have no idea what it means. 149 00:11:40,480 --> 00:11:44,000 It doesn't trigger recall. 150 00:11:44,000 --> 00:11:47,440 It does not give them a better sense of understanding. 151 00:11:47,440 --> 00:11:52,560 And therefore it was a lot of work with very little result. 152 00:11:52,560 --> 00:11:53,560 And this can be challenging. 153 00:11:53,560 --> 00:11:59,680 I am working in the classes I teach right now with high schoolers, working on how we 154 00:11:59,680 --> 00:12:06,480 can change the way we take notes and how we create a study guide right before a test. 155 00:12:06,480 --> 00:12:10,960 So that they're giving personalized messages to themselves through explanations, through 156 00:12:10,960 --> 00:12:17,640 worked examples, through a little asterisk on the side, watch the signs, check your calculator, 157 00:12:17,640 --> 00:12:24,960 whatever is most commonly a problem for that student. 158 00:12:24,960 --> 00:12:30,760 So I encourage educators to work on that piece and really have that conversation with students. 159 00:12:30,760 --> 00:12:32,600 Tell me about these notes. 160 00:12:32,600 --> 00:12:34,480 Does any of it help today? 161 00:12:34,480 --> 00:12:36,680 Does it not help today? 162 00:12:36,680 --> 00:12:40,160 How can we make it help in the future? 163 00:12:40,160 --> 00:12:44,520 And practice different methods of note taking and different methods of writing messages 164 00:12:44,520 --> 00:12:45,960 to themselves. 165 00:12:45,960 --> 00:12:48,480 And that's a big piece of what I did with Cameron. 166 00:12:48,480 --> 00:12:54,440 We would make sure to have a session before she took a test so we could talk about what 167 00:12:54,440 --> 00:13:00,480 she had mastered, how to find those problems on a test and answer all of those first so 168 00:13:00,480 --> 00:13:05,720 she had gotten every right answer she could in the least amount of time. 169 00:13:05,720 --> 00:13:12,480 And now she had more time to focus on the problems that for her were more challenging. 170 00:13:12,480 --> 00:13:18,480 We talked about the mistakes she had made while she was learning that topic. 171 00:13:18,480 --> 00:13:24,240 And wherever she would usually stumble or wherever she would get off track in a procedure 172 00:13:24,240 --> 00:13:30,000 or a step or not feel confident about where to start, that's what we would add to her 173 00:13:30,000 --> 00:13:31,240 note card. 174 00:13:31,240 --> 00:13:36,760 And her teacher was very open to letting her have a note card while she was taking her 175 00:13:36,760 --> 00:13:40,240 classroom quizzes and tests. 176 00:13:40,240 --> 00:13:45,120 Of course, the first few times she and I would make a note card together and she would show 177 00:13:45,120 --> 00:13:50,080 it to her teacher to make sure the teacher understood what we were doing. 178 00:13:50,080 --> 00:13:54,840 This was not trying to take homework and copy all the answers. 179 00:13:54,840 --> 00:13:59,360 It was not a way to help Cameron somehow cheat. 180 00:13:59,360 --> 00:14:03,640 I don't even know how a note card would help a student cheat in general. 181 00:14:03,640 --> 00:14:08,760 But it was a way for her to remind herself what she needed to be aware of and where she 182 00:14:08,760 --> 00:14:14,400 needed to be more careful and how to set up her test taking process. 183 00:14:14,400 --> 00:14:17,920 And this was a second game changer for her. 184 00:14:17,920 --> 00:14:23,040 Once she had learned how to support herself, what tools she needed when and how to use them, 185 00:14:23,040 --> 00:14:29,960 the second piece was really planning what to do during an assessment. 186 00:14:29,960 --> 00:14:34,520 Now for those of us who work with children with dyscalculia, this next piece will not 187 00:14:34,520 --> 00:14:36,000 surprise you. 188 00:14:36,000 --> 00:14:42,960 Children would do a great job on classwork, great job on homework, A's across the board, 189 00:14:42,960 --> 00:14:49,880 have her note card, sit down to take a test, classroom test, she had all of her accommodations, 190 00:14:49,880 --> 00:14:52,240 and she would get C's. 191 00:14:52,240 --> 00:14:55,960 Every once in a while she would get a D, every once in a while she would get a B, but she 192 00:14:55,960 --> 00:14:59,320 mostly fell in that C range. 193 00:14:59,320 --> 00:15:03,360 This happens to students with dyscalculia, first of all, because the parietal lobe is 194 00:15:03,360 --> 00:15:11,360 losing information over time, so we do see a loss in mastery over time. 195 00:15:11,360 --> 00:15:17,120 It also happened because she was very nervous about taking tests, so we started working 196 00:15:17,120 --> 00:15:22,760 on that anxiety piece and having those conversations in our tutoring sessions. 197 00:15:22,760 --> 00:15:27,040 That's an important part of this growth chapter. 198 00:15:27,040 --> 00:15:29,360 Get the success first. 199 00:15:29,360 --> 00:15:32,520 Establish mastery as soon as possible. 200 00:15:32,520 --> 00:15:38,280 Then you've opened up space to talk with the student about anxiety, about their approach 201 00:15:38,280 --> 00:15:41,960 to test taking, about their engagement in class. 202 00:15:41,960 --> 00:15:47,320 Now you're really refining how they act as a student in a math class. 203 00:15:47,320 --> 00:15:50,000 They can take that into any class. 204 00:15:50,000 --> 00:15:54,680 About the same time, Cameron was doing so well that we cut our sessions down to 30 minutes 205 00:15:54,680 --> 00:15:56,120 a week. 206 00:15:56,120 --> 00:15:58,440 She really didn't need much more than that. 207 00:15:58,440 --> 00:16:03,480 We would add in an extra 30 minute session before a big test, and we would take time 208 00:16:03,480 --> 00:16:07,880 off if there wasn't a lot going on in school that week, which happens for so many different 209 00:16:07,880 --> 00:16:13,320 reasons, holidays, test taking time, snow days. 210 00:16:13,320 --> 00:16:17,320 There are a million reasons why you don't need to meet every week, but with her new 211 00:16:17,320 --> 00:16:28,400 confidence and her changed performance, that was an appropriate scaling down for her. 212 00:16:28,400 --> 00:16:32,360 It has taken us some time to work on that test taking piece. 213 00:16:32,360 --> 00:16:38,240 She knows that she tends to freeze when she sits down knowing she's taking a test. 214 00:16:38,240 --> 00:16:44,480 And when we look back on the test and review what happened, then we usually see that maybe 215 00:16:44,480 --> 00:16:52,200 she forgot to verify her answer, or maybe she confused a formula or a step in a procedure. 216 00:16:52,200 --> 00:16:58,360 When she's working with trapezoids, many times she'll forget which two things to add or forget 217 00:16:58,360 --> 00:17:01,840 to divide by two at the end, completely common. 218 00:17:01,840 --> 00:17:06,320 So we've started adding that into her note card, little asterisks next to the triangles 219 00:17:06,320 --> 00:17:11,240 and trapezoids that say divide by two, exclamation point. 220 00:17:11,240 --> 00:17:17,000 That way she remembers that that's the piece she tends to forget. 221 00:17:17,000 --> 00:17:25,760 We also talk a lot about analyzing the test, what kind of question it's asking, and modeling 222 00:17:25,760 --> 00:17:28,680 for herself how she's going to answer that question. 223 00:17:28,680 --> 00:17:29,680 Thinking at first. 224 00:17:29,680 --> 00:17:32,040 Okay, this is the formula. 225 00:17:32,040 --> 00:17:35,440 This is the step I need to get started. 226 00:17:35,440 --> 00:17:36,800 This is what I'm looking for. 227 00:17:36,800 --> 00:17:38,880 It's different from that. 228 00:17:38,880 --> 00:17:42,680 And thinking about what you're thinking, that metacognition piece is huge. 229 00:17:42,680 --> 00:17:43,680 Huge. 230 00:17:43,680 --> 00:17:48,560 You will really see a lot of growth in all of your students if you add that piece in 231 00:17:48,560 --> 00:17:51,480 to your classroom or your tutoring session. 232 00:17:51,480 --> 00:17:58,120 Students at home, I don't know if I want you to add in that piece as a parent without 233 00:17:58,120 --> 00:17:59,480 some extra training. 234 00:17:59,480 --> 00:18:03,320 And honestly, at home I want families to have peaceful, nice time together. 235 00:18:03,320 --> 00:18:08,880 I don't want you constantly having to work with your child or try to fix something that 236 00:18:08,880 --> 00:18:11,280 is wrong in their math performance. 237 00:18:11,280 --> 00:18:18,120 That just sets up a bad emotional space between you and your children. 238 00:18:18,120 --> 00:18:23,320 Coming back to Cameron, the third year that I worked with her, she had a new teacher but 239 00:18:23,320 --> 00:18:26,720 was in the same school, in the same state. 240 00:18:26,720 --> 00:18:31,960 And this time I got to sit in on some of the IEP meetings, have a conversation where I 241 00:18:31,960 --> 00:18:38,240 was just available to answer questions or talk about the accommodations we wanted for Cameron. 242 00:18:38,240 --> 00:18:41,320 And that was a really nice conversation. 243 00:18:41,320 --> 00:18:46,320 I definitely used the time to let the teacher know how much we appreciated her and that 244 00:18:46,320 --> 00:18:52,000 Cameron felt very supported in her class and felt comfortable using her accommodations 245 00:18:52,000 --> 00:18:54,160 and asking for help. 246 00:18:54,160 --> 00:18:57,880 And that really changed her engagement in class as a student. 247 00:18:57,880 --> 00:19:02,640 So in this case they were very good conversations. 248 00:19:02,640 --> 00:19:07,960 And over time this has led to Cameron being a student who understands that she will learn 249 00:19:07,960 --> 00:19:10,320 math and forget it. 250 00:19:10,320 --> 00:19:16,280 A student who understands that she does need a little more time to conceptually talk about 251 00:19:16,280 --> 00:19:20,960 what's happening in the math topic before it really clicks for her. 252 00:19:20,960 --> 00:19:26,480 She knows that forward math, anything using multiplying or adding or having a problem 253 00:19:26,480 --> 00:19:31,080 that you solve from beginning to end is much easier than the backward math. 254 00:19:31,080 --> 00:19:37,320 Division, subtraction, having the perimeter, finding the missing side, anything backwards 255 00:19:37,320 --> 00:19:40,200 like that takes her more time and is more of a challenge. 256 00:19:40,200 --> 00:19:45,760 I find this across the board with all my students who have dyscalculia. 257 00:19:45,760 --> 00:19:51,240 I would even say that's one of the differences between dyscalculia and low numeracy. 258 00:19:51,240 --> 00:19:55,960 Students with low numeracy or weak math foundation, once they've learned a topic they can work 259 00:19:55,960 --> 00:20:02,760 forward and backward much easier than students with dyscalculia. 260 00:20:02,760 --> 00:20:08,440 I have not seen any research on that backward math or the inverse operation piece. 261 00:20:08,440 --> 00:20:11,320 If you know of any please send it my way. 262 00:20:11,320 --> 00:20:18,480 You can find me through the website, educalclearning.com or email me, honoraateducalclearning.com. 263 00:20:18,480 --> 00:20:21,120 That's H-O-N-O-R-A. 264 00:20:21,120 --> 00:20:25,640 I'm always looking for more research to read and I'm always looking for more research to 265 00:20:25,640 --> 00:20:26,640 do. 266 00:20:26,640 --> 00:20:33,000 So at the end of this journey with this particular student, first of all creating mastery right 267 00:20:33,000 --> 00:20:34,000 away. 268 00:20:34,000 --> 00:20:39,680 Second of all learning how to use the right support tools in the right situation. 269 00:20:39,680 --> 00:20:45,680 Third, discussing her anxiety response in test situations. 270 00:20:45,680 --> 00:20:50,720 Fourth using metacognition skills to really reflect on what she needed to do before she 271 00:20:50,720 --> 00:20:54,760 went in to do it, think about what she's thinking about. 272 00:20:54,760 --> 00:21:00,800 Those things really changed her approach to math and her further engagement and seeing 273 00:21:00,800 --> 00:21:06,640 herself as a person who could succeed in math even though she had these learning challenges 274 00:21:06,640 --> 00:21:14,400 made her the kind of student who was inducted into the National Junior Honor Society. 275 00:21:14,400 --> 00:21:18,480 Of course she still has dyscalculia, of course she still needs her accommodations and of 276 00:21:18,480 --> 00:21:25,160 course she will use her support tools throughout her journey as a student. 277 00:21:25,160 --> 00:21:29,320 Nothing about her disability needs to hold her back from accomplishments though and none 278 00:21:29,320 --> 00:21:35,320 of it needs to hold her back from succeeding in class and in school in general. 279 00:21:35,320 --> 00:21:40,680 So that's my success story about my student Cameron. 280 00:21:40,680 --> 00:21:43,800 I hope that this was interesting and helpful to you. 281 00:21:43,800 --> 00:21:49,800 I hope that you can take away some easy things you can put into place in your tutoring sessions 282 00:21:49,800 --> 00:21:56,600 or in your classroom right away and see some real benefits for your students. 283 00:21:56,600 --> 00:22:01,600 If you have ideas for upcoming podcast episodes please email me. 284 00:22:01,600 --> 00:22:05,400 If you're interested in taking any of our teacher training courses make sure you check 285 00:22:05,400 --> 00:22:08,600 out educalclearning.com. 286 00:22:08,600 --> 00:22:15,520 We do have a number of courses that teachers can take online at any time. 287 00:22:15,520 --> 00:22:22,600 Some of them also contain the ability to get CEUs, some are one CEU courses, we have a 288 00:22:22,600 --> 00:22:24,800 two CEU courses. 289 00:22:24,800 --> 00:22:30,920 Those are CEUs given through CSU Pueblo, very excited about that partnership and we will 290 00:22:30,920 --> 00:22:39,720 soon be launching two courses that confer graduate level credit through CSU Pueblo. 291 00:22:39,720 --> 00:22:45,280 So very useful for teachers to keep up with their licensure and have those continuing 292 00:22:45,280 --> 00:22:49,560 credit options while training in dyscalculia. 293 00:22:49,560 --> 00:22:52,400 I'm glad you listened today. 294 00:22:52,400 --> 00:22:55,160 Thank you for listening to What in the World is Dyscalculia. 295 00:22:55,160 --> 00:22:56,840 I'm Dr. Wall. 296 00:22:56,840 --> 00:22:57,840 It's been a pleasure. 297 00:22:57,840 --> 00:23:04,840 I hope to hear from you soon.