Tag: dyscalculia

Maths-Gaps-Why-they-occur-and-the-problems-they-cause

Posted on by Rachel Law

I’ve never met a child without some gaps in their maths learning; it’s inevitable. How they affect a student depends on where the gaps in their knowledge are.

Why gaps in maths knowledge occur

Gaps in learning maths can occur for a huge number of reasons. Maths is hugely sequential, which means that many new concepts build upon previously taught ones – miss one and you may have problems. Missing learning can result from any number of factors: missing lessons, not grasping a concept fully before the class moves on, losing concentration, teacher absences and a host of other reasons. It’s not unusual for sight or hearing problems to be picked up part-way through a school year which means children may not have been able to see or hear the lessons well. On top of that, there have been curriculum changes.

New curricula

In 2014, the new primary school maths curriculum was introduced, which meant that (in order to move us higher up the international education rankings) pupils were expected to know more maths earlier. This means that if your child was born in 2002-2004 (and to an extent 2006-2008), there were in the thick of that and may have more gaps than younger students. These years had to get up to speed really quickly for the new year 2 and year 6 primary school SATs, which was a problem for many. I wrote about this in  2015 – Why is my child finding maths particularly hard at the moment?

Plus to compound that the new GCSEs are very different from the old ones – take a look at  What’s different about the new GCSEs and what skills are needed to succeed. These exams require a more thorough understanding of the curriculum, more skills in problem-solving and ability to retain knowledge of all the curriculum.  It’s hardly surprising there are many students struggling.

What problems are caused

Gaps in maths cause difficulty in taking on board new concepts, which can delay or pause learning in some topics. If these gaps are very early (foundation or year 1) in the curriculum, it can mimic the effects of dyscalculia – see Does my child have dyscalculia? Gaps later in the curriculum tend to have a less profound effect, but can still be problematic.

Much of the tutoring that our teachers do at Tutor My Kids, in maths, is gap filling. Whether it’s dealing with a year 3 child who’s struggling or a GCSE student who needs to simply pass their exam.

For information on maths tutoring, click here,  email Rachel or call Rachel Law on 01223 858421.

If you’re interested in becoming a tutor, please take a look at our tutor page, the kind words from our tutors and our other blogs.

 

 

 

 

How-Dyscalculia-Screening-helped-a-parent

Posted on by Rachel Law

How dyslexia screening enabled a parent to make plans to support her daughter.

What is dyscalculia?

Dyscalculia is having specific difficulties with maths around size of numbers (being able to know if a number is greater than another number), being able to estimate how many counters there are in a group (subitising) and in recognising patterns (really important for learning number bonds and times tables). So, why can dyscalculia screening be useful?

In the same way that testing for dyslexia can be useful – see 4 reasons to arrange an dyslexia screening, it can give useful information to give to school so they can focus their efforts in the classroom or through their interventions for your child. It can also help you to support your child at home yourself or with a private tutor.

Recently, we had a parent approach us who was concerned that her daughter might be dyscalculic because she had always had difficulties in maths. Dyscalculia is quite rare; it’s estimated that between 3-6% of the UK population may suffer, so we discussed whether it might be dyscalculia or historical maths gaps that might be causing her current difficulties. Take a look at Does my child have dyscalculia for more information on this.

How the screening works

Mum felt that arranged a screening would allow her to know if there was an underlining issue or simply maths gaps. The screening was carried out in the comfort of her home, where her daughter was most secure by Tutor My Kids and took about an hour. The screening came back as negative, which was a huge relief to mum. But, there was still the issue to deal with of why her daughter behind.

How the screening helped this parent

Having ruled out dyscalculia, We very much thought that it was maths gaps. that were causing the issues and needed to be sorted.

Maths is a hugely sequential subject and rather like building a wall, it’s important that the foundations are secure before adding further layers.  And filling in those layers (think underpinning a subsiding house!) when they’re missing. Most children have gaps in their maths knowledge. If they’re in the very early years, this can have quite an impact on maths learning and attainment. At Tutor My Kids, we think that it’s really important to get the right tutor and this is especially true with maths tuition.

With this parent is was really important to get a primary school teacher, who had taught early years, to tutor, so the very early gaps could be filled and this girl could get her maths learning back on track.

For more information on dyscalculia screening, click the link, email Rachel or call Rachel Law on 01223 858421 for advice.

 

 

 

 

 

The Easy Way to Multiply

Posted on by

This is really interesting. It shows a Japanese way of multiplying numbers together which is very visual and also illustrates place value pretty well too.



It’s arguably slower that a standard compact multiplication method for a student who knows their multiplication tables, but has merit for those who don’t. It also has merit for more visual learners and can be used to promote maths understanding for those who have difficulties understanding maths and those with dyscalculia.


Our maths tutors in Cambridge and Ely find that those children who have difficulties in maths benefit from learning in ways which are highly practical (kinesthetic) and visual in addition to the usual auditory.


Tutor My Kids is always on the look out for great qualified teachers to work as English and maths tutors in Cambridge, Ely, Newmarket and Huntingdon. We work with children from 5 to 18.

Please contact us via www.tutormykids//maths-english-tutor-jobs/ for more information and details of how to get in touch to discuss how this might fit in with your existing teaching commitments.

 

Does-my-child-have-Dyscalculia?

Posted on by Effie Herdman
Tutor My Kids Tutor working with child

Some children have difficulty in understanding maths because of gaps in their understanding; others because they have specific difficulties in grasping number concepts.

Gaps in learning can occur for all sorts of reasons – illness, lack of attention one day etc, which make it difficult for knowledge to be added to it, due to the sequential nature of maths. For example, if you know your number bonds to 10 (which combinations of 2 numbers make 10) it’s really easy to then link this to 20 (19 +1, 3 +17) and 100 (30+70). If the number bonds are missing, it’s incredibly hard to pick up the more advanced learning.
 

However, some children have specific difficulties in learning maths. There is a cluster of issues that can point to dyscalculia – a specific difficulty in learning maths:

These include difficulties in recognising patterns in maths (e.g. the end 5 and 0 digits in the 5 times table), how big a number is (e.g. £20 can be seen as smaller than £15.72 because it has fewer digits), telling the time, ability to estimate logically (can show as ‘wild’ estimates that vary hugely),strategies to solve problems that are immature (e.g. older primary children sharing using pictures or cubes when written methods would be more usual).
One key indicator can be how instantly children can say how many objects there are. (This is age dependent, but most year 5 or 6 children would be able to look at 5 counters and say that there are 5 without counting. This is called subitising.) If a child (or adult) cannot do instantly without counting them, it can be part of the cluster of behaviours that points to dyscalculia.
 
Helping children overcome missing gaps and/or dyscalculia needs specific teaching to help them link maths ideas to their written form; it is hugely helped by 1 to 1 tutoring by a maths tutor, maths teacher or school intervention.

If you would like to discuss any of these issues, please contact Rachel Law on 01223 858421 or by email hello@tutormykids.co.uk

For more information on Dyscalculia screening, click the link.