Maths ideas for child with dyspraxia and possibly dyscalculia?

[MamanCochon]

Hi everyone.

I am considering tutoring a friend's son in maths. He has a formal diagnosis of dyspraxia and she reckons he finds maths concepts pretty hard, and we both wondered if it might help if he had some one-to-one time with me. He's currently in Yr 3 in mainstream school. Do you have any suggestions for good approaches or stuff I could use?

I am already thinking along the lines of using visual/tactile aids such as objects to count out, an abacus, Numicon (we have this at home anyway) and maybe Cuisinaire rods. But not all at once of course! I would probably start with visual discrimination activities and number work, just with low numbers and including simple board games where we move one, two or three places. Later I would move on to games with normal dice and dominoes, but not too fast as I think it's important to establish the basics and move at the child's own pace. Similarly I don't think the early lessons would need any written work (especially as this would be a chore for him).

In the past, with my own children, I've used books from the library with lots of ideas of 'maths through play'. I also have this book by Gareth Lewis as I was seriously considering home educating my children earlier on this year. It has a good section on maths but it's not specific to dyspraxia/dyscalculia. I've just seen The Dyscalculia Toolkit on Amazon which looks good, and is along the lines I was thinking of anyway. Has anyone used it themselves? Would you recommend it?