DEFINITION
Students with strong math skills show confidence and/or currculum understanding in math. Students with weak math skills may display labored effort, avoidance behaviors, or some anxiety when anticipating or working on their math.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE
- Rarely sequences numbers, equations and formulas appropriately
- Unable to perform 'mental math'
- Computations are usually inaccurate
- Many careless errors, often chooses the wrong operation
- Difficulty understanding mathematical concepts
- Rarely uses mathematical terms appropriately both orally and in written work
- Does not remember the math facts well
- Cannot do mathematical word problems
WHAT YOU CAN DO
- Make sure you are expecting your child to engage in the appropriate math level for their grade. (check here)
- Help your student to use 'pictures, words or graphs' to help with understanding. Relate all problems to a real-life situation as much as possible.
- Use concrete manipulatives to ensure understanding takes place before moving into the abstract concepts. This too will assist to provide strategies to visualize. When working on problem solving or word problems, provide opportunties to use real life situations or items to assist with visualization. Use humor in these examples whenever possible.
- Communicate a positive attitude about the family history with math. Please do not say, "I was terrible at math so it's no wonder you aren't good at it". We've talked to too many kids that say they don't like math (or try at math) because their mom or dad isn't good at math.
- Use a fun approach for the basics. Try card and computer games for mastery of the basic math facts up to 20 and the multiplication tables as well. 10 minutes a day can work wonders.
- Help create a math template of the termfs ideally prior to learning a new skill. Providing help learning of math symbols and the language of math. For instance, think about this symbol: -
: It can mean to subtract, it can be the fraction symbol, it can refer to a negative integer.
MORE SIGNIFICANT REASONS CONTRIBUTING TO AN ACTUAL MATH DISABILITY:
Dyscalculia:
Could my student's math difficulty be due to dyscalculia or a math disability? Dyscalculia means “a severe or complete inability to calculate”. Some people use the term dyscalculia to describe a child who has problems learning mathematics skills and concepts. However, the terms learning disabilities in mathematics and math disability are used more widely today.
Insufficient Mastery:
Could my student's math difficulty be due to insufficient mastery of previous math level? Arguably the most common reason a student is displaying a weakness in math is due to the insufficient mastery of the previous math level. TIP: Review math facts to make sure your student has fast retrieval of them (addition, subtraction, multiplication).
Vision Difficulties:
Could my student's math difficulty be due to vision difficulties? Yes. As with all potential learning difficulties, check health related matters first. TIP: Rule out vision difficulties or eye tracking difficulties.
Visual Memory:
Could my student's math difficulty be due to a visual memory problem? A student's visual memory skills include his/her ability to remember math steps and math signs. Memory issues can be an input problem (not focused enough to process the information completely) or that the students requires more repitition to commit the visual images to memory.
Visual-Sequential Memory:
Could my student's math difficulty be due to visual sequential processing deficit? If you notice your child has difficulty following along in a book, loses his/her spot, or needs to use his/her finger to point to each word while reading, then your child may have a hard time processing longer sequences of visual information. If so, then you need to breakup the sequence visually as much as you can (smaller steps).
Visual Spatial Skills:
Could my student's math difficulty be due to visual spatial skills? A student may display visual spatial difficulty when they seem to misalign numerals in columns for calculation or display problems with place value that involves understanding the base ten system. Try using the graph paper.
