Dyscalculia

[OrangeBlossomsinthesun]

Not sure if this is the right place to put this. I've posted in SEN too.

DD is 11 in May and in year 5, which is the penulitmate year of primary here in Spain. She is fine in all subjects except maths. Which she just cannot do to save her life. This has been the case throughout primary but I didn't really realise how much until year 3 and then there was lockdown and she missed the whole summer term. Went back in year 4 and basically bombed every maths test since then.

The way it works here is they do a unit in the book and then do an "exam" on it. Even if she understands more or less she does totally disastrously in the exam. Her older brother was similar in primary but not as bad and struggled with other subjects too (and is struggling in high school...I wonder about dyspraxia with him).

I have bought "Power of 2" and the same book in the series for times tables and we've been doing a bit whenever we can and she has had a private tutor for 2 hours a week since mid January. The pwer of 2 seems to have helped with mental arithmetic but she still just goes totally to pieces in an exam setting. That's the system here...exams.

I've seen the Ronit Bird books recommended but I don't have the money right now and I understand they're mostly games with maths? is the boook (the toolkit) worth it for a nearly 11 year old?

I have a meeting with her teacher to talk about the latest disastrous exam (they've corrected it in class and DD thinks she got about 2 out of 10, even though she understood it well enough) but I'm wondering whether I should try to get her assessed. Maybe it's not dyscalculia, maybe it's just very weak maths skills and then maths anxiety. I was terrible at maths and struggled painfully to a C in GCSE maths.

I just don't know what to do really apart from what I'm doing. I'm worried how she'll cope at secondary the year after next.

Ask the teacher for a copy of the maths test and sit with your dd while she completes it, but as she does each question, get her to tell you what she thinks she should do. Do it in chunks. Don’t tell her how to do it, just watch what she does. It’s a good way of understanding any misconceptions she may have. For example, in a 2 step word problem, does she just do the first part? Does she know when to add, subtract etc if the + - symbols haven’t been used? Is her basic arithmetic secure? Can she do long multiplication and division?

All too often in class children can seem to get things right, but they may have been heavily supported by an adult - or even the child they sit next to!
I’ve attached a simple screening that might show your dd to be at risk of having dyscalculia, but an EP would be the best person to do a formal assessment.
www.additudemag.com/screener-dyscalculia-symptoms-test-children/

[quote Soontobe60]Ask the teacher for a copy of the maths test and sit with your dd while she completes it, but as she does each question, get her to tell you what she thinks she should do. Do it in chunks. Don’t tell her how to do it, just watch what she does. It’s a good way of understanding any misconceptions she may have. For example, in a 2 step word problem, does she just do the first part? Does she know when to add, subtract etc if the + - symbols haven’t been used? Is her basic arithmetic secure? Can she do long multiplication and division?

All too often in class children can seem to get things right, but they may have been heavily supported by an adult - or even the child they sit next to!
I’ve attached a simple screening that might show your dd to be at risk of having dyscalculia, but an EP would be the best person to do a formal assessment.
www.additudemag.com/screener-dyscalculia-symptoms-test-children/[/quote]
She has big problems with basic arithmetic, which we've been working on with the Power of 2 book.
She does know how to do long multiplication and division but frequently makes errors during the process of long division.
She also struggles with logic problems in general, not knowing whether to multiply or divide etc, but also perhaps doing the first part correct but then the second part wrong.

But it's like she totally goes to pieces in an exam setting.

Ask the teacher for a copy of the maths test and sit with your dd while she completes it, but as she does each question, get her to tell you what she thinks she should do. we did this with some exercises from the book before the exam and she was pretty OK with it.

Yes I would get her assessed. If she has any challenges it will mean more time in tests and exams. It will also highlight areas of strength too.
This might also be a useful program dybuster.com/en/calcularis/

Have you used it?

It looks quite good but I can't afford it at the moment as well as her private tutoring and possibly paying for an assessment. I will continue with Power of 2 in the meantime and maybe I could manage to pay for it for her to do over the summer.

My sons used the one for dyslexia- and it was really helpful and they enjoyed it.
It might also be worth contacting some dyscalculia charities - they usually have helpline and can explain best practice

Does she use a calculator? Does she write numbers in the correct order or do they get jumbled?

It does look good and says it is available in Spanish, which would be good because although she's bilingual, obviously she's doing maths in Spanish at school.

She doesn't use a calculator no. They aren't supposed to at school and she doesn't at home.
What do you mean by getting numbers jumbled? In year 4 she struggled a lot with number place, like knowing that 45367 is forty five thousand, three hundred and sixty seven iyswim. She struggled to understand how many zeroes she needed in 5 and 6 digit numbers. But we worked on that last summer and it seemed to click after a while.
So maybe it's more weakness in maths and then terrible maths anxiety rather than actually dyscalculia.

At this stage last year she was still counting on her fingers for things as simple as 7+5 but the power of 2 book has helped a lot with that.
They did telling the time in maths last year and she really really struggled with it.

My DD was finally diagnosed with dyspraxia and her maths was beyond awful.

She didn't have classic dyspraxia symptoms but her assessment confirmed it. Definitely slow processing and just so much more obvious in maths and then panics.

Telling time is still awful, she's an adult!!

She really doesn't struggle with anything else. She's not disorganized or clumsy, it's really just maths. And it may be just terrible mental arithmetic and then total lack of confidence and panic.
Her older brother seemed much more likely to be dyspraxic at her age and younger but has got better. Could never get anyone to take me seriously about that either.

Same here I paid for an assessment when she was 16. I thought there was something never suspected dyspraxia but does make it understandable why she can't throw 🤣 taught herself to ride a 2 wheeler bike aged 3 🤷🏽‍♀️

I think she just finds academic learning exhausting.

DS I wouldn't be surprised if he is dyspraxic but it really doesn't fit for DD. She only struggles with maths.
I should probably have them both assessed but here it would have to be private and I can't afford it right now.

Dyscalculia isn't really recognised as an SEN in England, don't know about Spain. Any dyscalculia can usually be explained by either poor foundations in maths knowledge, or some other recognised SEN such as poor working memory or slow processing speed.

If you think she can do the work at home and then falls to pieces in the test, then it suggests that there is an issue with either the pressure of the test, or the time allocated, or both.

What does her maths tutor say?

I wouldn't say she has poor working memory or processing skills, no.

She did have a very interrupted first 2 years of primary. Her teacher in year 1 was excellent but was off sick for months in the middle and the replacement did a different method (traditional not ABN). Then her teacher in year 2 was just terrible, no control over the class at all. Her teacher in year 3 was good but spent a lot of time trying to get control of a now slightly wild group of kids. Then in the March of year 3 we went into Spanish lockdown and the online learning was not great. By the time she was in year 4 she was waaaaaay behind with her understanding and ability.

But at least the positive is that if it's a poor basis then she might be able to get a grip before high school in a year and a half.

I'm sorry to hear your daughter is finding maths so difficult!

This board is for people who have taken their children out of school or are considering doing so. Your post will be seen by more people on one of the other boards, so you'll probably get even more help elsewhere. You could try the SEN board or the primary board. You can ask Mumsnet to move the thread.

I did post in SEN but have had no replies. I posted here too as when I searched I found a few old threads here about dyscalculia.

I am in France and my daughter was referred to a speech therapist after a diagnosis of dyscalculia. I am not sure if they have the same system in Spain. She had two hours a week of intense one to one ( made such a difference not being with me, even though I am a primary teacher).