Math and Dyslexia

[MerryAtHope]

My kids do well in math most of the time (they almost always get A's on their tests). When they do struggle, though, it's usually from either not reading the instructions thoroughly (working on that!), or from a calculation error.

 

My son especially tends to get the first problem in a set wrong--if it's a set of subtraction problems, he'll add the first one. Or, the other day he added the ones column and subtracted the rest. He used to subtract whichever number was bigger from whichever was smaller (could be one way for the ones column, another for the tens column, and so on). He has mostly worked out of that, though sometimes it can still happen.

 

Long division has been a buggaboo if the problem is very long, LOL! Mainly he gets afraid of all the steps--he can do it but after awhile he will make a careless error.

 

I'm wondering if any of you have good ideas for helping kids clean up some of these kinds of errors and just careless errors in general. Are there tips? (I'm hoping yes!). Also, any advice on helping them with checking work? Today I was showing my dd how she could use estimating to see if her answer for a string of numbers to add was in the ballpark. (She had it wrong and was so sure I had to be wrong, poor kid! Occasionally I am--and even occasionally the book is, they love that! But it was not to be today...).

 

We really like our program so I'm not looking to switch, more for teaching techniques or maybe something supplemental you found helpful because of the teaching techniques.

 

Thanks! Merry :-)

[Sara R]

:bigear:

 

I've got the same problem, and was thinking about posting the same thing. Dd was failing Saxon math at school. Part of the problem was that Saxon wasn't giving her enough of a chance to master the new concepts before reviewing everything they had ever learned, but most of the problem was these kinds of careless dyslexic-related errors. She understands the concepts and the algorithms.

 

Her typical mistakes are: not borrowing when she should have because she switched the bottom number with the top number, adding instead of multiplying (or multiplying instead of adding) during a long multiplication problem, or carrying the wrong number during a long multiplication problem. I'm thinking about switching her to Rod and Staff along with Singapore to give her the extra practice. Also, I'm giving her a calculator so she can check each problem after she does it (I can trust her not to cheat). If the answer is wrong, she finds what she she did wrong and fixes it. Past that, I don't know what to do and I'd love other ideas.

[nevergiveup]

My son has all these problems and here are some of the things we do that help:

 

We use yellow note book paper and turn it on its side to write problems--the lines make columns so it is easier to keep numbers lined up.

 

I have him See it, Touch it, Say it, and then Do it--he will read a + sign as a X sign or read a number like 43 as 34 so by touching it he is directing his eyes where they need to be and by saying it, he can "hear" if it is right. Invariably, if he does not say it out loud, he will get it wrong. Plus, this involves different senses and that makes it more multisensory.

 

For subtraction, he would subtract in the wrong order, whatever number was smaller from whatever number was bigger regardless of their order, so again, he has to touch the number and say it and see if he can count down to the number underneath it. If he can, then he knows he can subtract, if not, he knows he has to borrow. Ex: 9 - 3: He would say 9 8 7 6 5 4 3, and since he can count down to 3 he knows he can subtract. It helps keep him oriented in the right way since he has to count from the top number to the bottom.

 

We also use the Box Method for multiplying--I mentioned it in another post--it is nice because he does all the multiplication first and then all the adding and does not have to switch back and forth between.

 

He can't add numbers in his head and keep track of them so when adding columns of big numbers, he uses a slash mark for anything over 10 and writes the ones digit next to it adding from there. Hard to explain, but this way he doesn't have to keep track of large numbers: he counts the tally marks and that is the number that gets carried to the next column. If anyone is interested, I can try to explain it further--I don't know what the method is called but it is really easy and I use it too.

 

We really struggled a long time until finding these methods which have helped a lot.