Matryoshka Posted October 16, 2017 Share Posted October 16, 2017 Posting for an extended family member. Kid is in ps, early/mid elementary. He's been diagnosed with dyscalcula and is getting pull-out at school, but mom isn't sure it's helping. She emailed me since she knows I homeschooled, but I never had a kid who needed this kind of extra support, or targeted supplemental vs. whole curriculum. Here's part of what she wrote me: "I’m hoping to find something we can do at home for 15-20 minutes per day, that is guided, sequential and that a parent can lead. We’ve found a wonderful program done online for B's reading (DM Education) that incorporates online games and rewards and B loves it, and would love to find something similar for math but it may not exist so just wanted to see if you had any ideas?" I thought the Hive might have some ideas, so if anyone does, please share! TIA! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneStepAtATime Posted October 16, 2017 Share Posted October 16, 2017 (edited) Ronit Bird. Ronit Bird is where I would start, TBH. And possibly reading David Sousa's How the Brain Learns Mathematics. If this child truly has dyscalculia then the pull outs at school won't help much (or at all) unless they are really working on basic subitization skills, not just limping the child through current math lessons. FWIW, if he truly has dyscalculia then this will not be an easy fix. This will be a life long area of challenge that may need YEARS of very targeted and supportive and much slower paced instruction. Also, some things may gel and the child may even excel at while others may never gel. Like never click at all. It depends on the child. And the instructor. The main thing, truly, while they work through this, is to keep the child from feeling demoralized and developing severe math anxiety. Even a supportive and kind instructor can cause tremendous anxiety in a student if they take the approach that the student just needs to focus a bit harder or the instructor gets easily frustrated when the student seems to understand and do well on something one day but seems to completely forget the next day...or is struggling with something the instructor feels is very simple and they just don't seem to get this seemingly simple something at all. With true discalculia there are certain basic functions of the brain that just are not working the way they should. Things are missing. With very supportive help and a TON of patience from someone who genuinely understands that this deficit makes math HARD and makes some math click for a moment and be utterly gone again the very next day or even the next hour then the student may be o.k. Otherwise, they may develop a fight or flight response that makes learning even harder. She might read My 13th Winter by Samantha Abeel. It might help her understand her child better. I highly recommend the book to anyone with a child that has dyscalculia. Edited October 16, 2017 by OneStepAtATime 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rosie_0801 Posted October 16, 2017 Share Posted October 16, 2017 I always recommend CSMP because that's what worked for my dd. She began with pretty much no number sense or place value sense, and now tests as not having a maths disability at all. (I don't necessarily believe the test.) CSMP is easy to teach and while it may not look sequential, it all adds up. Basically, no amount of drilling of maths facts is going to cure dyscalculia. She needs to work, and work persistently, on developing number sense and place value sense. What's Junior's highest reliable maths skill? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneStepAtATime Posted October 17, 2017 Share Posted October 17, 2017 I always recommend CSMP because that's what worked for my dd. She began with pretty much no number sense or place value sense, and now tests as not having a maths disability at all. (I don't necessarily believe the test.) CSMP is easy to teach and while it may not look sequential, it all adds up. Basically, no amount of drilling of maths facts is going to cure dyscalculia. She needs to work, and work persistently, on developing number sense and place value sense. What's Junior's highest reliable maths skill? Agree with Rosie. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted October 17, 2017 Share Posted October 17, 2017 Apparently what I was going to say wasn't very valuable, because I just lost it all. :( Anyways, software won't address the root problem, because it's a number sense issue, not a sequencing or curriculum step size problem. Given that he has both reading and math needs, I would strongly consider hiring a tutor if the mom is not committed to teaching. An OG tutor may either have training in multi-sensory math or know someone who does. Yes, Ronit Bird is the bees' knees. She has three ebooks that are an easy, affordable way to start. Together, the three (Dots, C-Rods, Multi) are roughly equivalent to her younger target age print book Toolkit. The instruction is absolutely brilliant. RB has a print book targeted at older kids (10+) which is Overcoming. Personally, I'm a huge, huge fan of the ebooks. You could do them but the simpler ones quickly with an older dc. It's an easy way to get their feet wet because they include videos and are placed in sequential, instructional order. You really can't go wrong with the ebooks and they're only $10. I did Dots, had him drilling the add facts by the end, then taught the Positive/Negative Turnovers game from her free Games ebook. At that point we were doing subtraction with positive and negative numbers as well. The ebooks are deceptively simple. If you milk them, really milk them, you can get a LOT done. Fwiw, she should invest in good manipulatives. I have ante poker playing cards, small playing cards, large playing cards, tons of dice, fractions puzzles, magnetic numbers, white boards (lap size, 16X20). Don't just use software. Doing it hands-on lets you move things around in your mind, which works with the disability. Going screen/print is totally abstract, the most abstract. He's probably going to benefit from moving the math, feeling the math, moving it in his mind. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sweetpea3829 Posted October 17, 2017 Share Posted October 17, 2017 Dyscalculia is so poorly understood. I mean...the word STILL pops up as an unrecognized word in my keyboard dictionary. And because it is so poorly understood (and nowhere near enough research has been done on it yet), there are precious few resources available. Ronit Bird is definitely the "Barton" of dyscalculia, but even her stuff has a long ways to go in addressing the needs of these kids. With my daughter, I spent YEARS focusing on number sense. Years and years. I never did use Ronit Bird, as I became aware of her stuff mostly after my daughter's subitization and number sense skills were starting to come together. Today, at age 11 1/2, she can mostly consistently count forwards and backwards, through larger numbers, and over tens, hundreds, and thousands thresholds (though it's harder for her with larger numbers). She is adept at skip counting, has all of her math facts solidly memorized and can solve multi-step word problems. She also does fairly well with money. She is a solid 3rd grade math student and last year on her district-required standardized test, she scored well above passing on her 2nd grade math. (The previous year, she scored 15th percentile, though they did test her at 4th grade level). Problems still persist, however. She can tell time, but adding and subtracting with time is very difficult (if a movie starts at xyz time and lasts for xyz minutes, what time will it end...that kind of problem). She still has considerable weaknesses in reasoning and most of the mistakes she makes in ALL of her subjects, and life, are related to those poor reasoning skills. As far as I know, there aren't many (if any) programs that directly address poor reasoning. Is the poor reasoning part of her dyscalculia? Or is the dyscalculia part of whatever it is that causes her to have poor reasoning? Who knows? Anyways, my goals for her are to get her proficient enough in math that she can engage her world as an adult, without needing me to check her bank accounts, etc. I'm confident that I can get her there (where a few years ago, I wasn't sure). Once we've accomplished that, we'll see where she goes from there. I think that's kind of the best we've got for these students right now. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matryoshka Posted October 17, 2017 Author Share Posted October 17, 2017 Thank you all of you. I don't have much more info about the child in question - he's SIL's nephew, and lives out of state, so I've only even met him a couple of times (and this is why I have only such a vague idea of his grade... :blushing: ). I will ask her follow-up questions when I reply, like his age/grade and if there's anything in particular he's struggling with. And maybe suggest a tutor. Sound like Ronit Bird and CSMP are the places to point her in general. Are there websites for these? Where do I point her to buy stuff? Is there a product or place to start in either program I can tell her? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rosie_0801 Posted October 17, 2017 Share Posted October 17, 2017 Fwiw, she should invest in good manipulatives. I have ante poker playing cards, small playing cards, large playing cards, tons of dice, fractions puzzles, magnetic numbers, white boards (lap size, 16X20). Don't just use software. Doing it hands-on lets you move things around in your mind, which works with the disability. Going screen/print is totally abstract, the most abstract. He's probably going to benefit from moving the math, feeling the math, moving it in his mind. :iagree: x about a trillion Ronit Bird is definitely the "Barton" of dyscalculia, but even her stuff has a long ways to go in addressing the needs of these kids. Mm. I'm not terribly impressed with her after a disagreement about the Papy Minicomputer. I don't think my dd would have developed place value sense without it, and Ronit Bird considers it a mere computational device. This doesn't show a lot of understanding on her part, nor does it show an interest in anyone else's ideas or experience. (Mr Papy's idea, not mine, lol.) Thank you all of you. I don't have much more info about the child in question - he's SIL's nephew, and lives out of state, so I've only even met him a couple of times (and this is why I have only such a vague idea of his grade... :blushing: ). I will ask her follow-up questions when I reply, like his age/grade and if there's anything in particular he's struggling with. And maybe suggest a tutor. Sound like Ronit Bird and CSMP are the places to point her in general. Are there websites for these? Where do I point her to buy stuff? Is there a product or place to start in either program I can tell her? It'd be great if she could find a tutor that could help, but that's pretty unlikely. http://www.ronitbird.com http://stern.buffalostate.edu/CSMPProgram/ http://kateshomeschoolmath.com (Kate's addition facts really helped my dd back when she couldn't deal with number bonds) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happybeachbum Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 http://www.dyscalculia.org is a great resource Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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