Does-my-child-have-Dyscalculia?

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.

 

Gove is like Mamite

Gove
is like marmite.

People either love or hate him.

I can’t agree that knocking our teachers constantly has
helped the education system any, but I do support the need for our children to
be able to spell, write grammatically correct sentences and be numerate.

This term, I’ve seen some great teaching of grammar and
spelling in our local primary schools. Previously, it tends to have been taught
as an add-on, but increasingly, it’s been taught as a main focus. It’s stuff
like correct use of apostrophes – the teachers’ staff room, I’d, won’t. I’ve
lost track the number of times I’ve seen was’ent or similar. It’s about how
it’s taught – if children understand that the apostrophe is showing missing
letters and what it’s a shortening of – it’s so much easier for children to get
it right.

Punctuation can catch children out too – commas often
confuse children and sorting out ways to help them is really useful. Getting
children to work out in a sentence which is the main clause and which is added
information helps to ensure that commas are in the right place. e.g. The boy
walked along the road, towards the swimming pool.  The boy walked along the road is the main
clause; towards the swimming pool the additional information.

Many children find spelling difficult. Learning spellings
by heart is hugely useful, but more so is spelling patterns and looking at
where the difficulties lie. Are there letters we don’t sound – like
environment?

It’s great to see our children being more prepared for
the world of work.