Any Teachers with experience in supporing children with dyscalculia? Or KS1 teachers with maths specialism

[ClaireyFairy82]

I have a class of year 3 children. 1 child really concerns me as the gap between her and the others (for maths) just gets bigger and bigger all the time. I have done a calculation audit with her and she's working within level 1 (year 1). She can order numbers but she struggles to count on or back, identify odd or even numbers, even with apparatus.

We started power of 2 (but parts of this are too hard for her), she has 2 sessions of RM maths per week, and might start number shark.

She has been using numicon on a regular basis, 1:1 twice a day with my TA then our KS1 HLTA, unifix, dienes, number lines and number squares (am I using too many?)

Has anyone had any experience in getting a child diagnosed? I have asked SENCO to have her seen by Ed Psych, but appointments are almost impossible to get round here.

I'm concerned that we're already almost 1/2 way through the year. Any suggestions?

I have discovered Dynamomaths. It works great with my group of children. It has online activities as well as lessons and has structured dyscalculia activities. It covers many of the specific topics related to dyscalculia and its not expensive!

Claireyfairy - I'm reading this thread as a mother of a DD who has dyscalculia and is very dyspraxic. I'm definitely going to be looking into some of the suggested toolkits.

We've noticed that pictoral aids help and mathswrap etc, but she's still massively behind )and is very aware of this.

You are obviously a very dedicated teacher - I wish my DD's previous teachers/school had shown this level of interest in helping my child rather than leaving her to fall further and further behind. I will be following this thread closely.

Our DD is now yr7. She was tested for dyscalculia in yr 6. It took about 18mts for the school to decide to test after all other 'catchup' programmes were implemented. They had to have a body of evidence to put her forward for testing. She tested positive for dyscalclia and had further help. We bought Ronit Bird and various bits but what I found the most helpful for her was timetables. We did 2 every day on the walk to school. She chose different ones everyday and I had her say, 1 times 2 is 2 rather than saying 1 2 is 2 and she used her fingers to mark where she was ie: 1X=1 finger up, 2x=2 fingers up. The repetition made a huge difference and she achieved a level 4 on leaving primary with that and the great help she was given. She was a 2-3 level previous to that. Sadly, now that she's in 2ndary school, she has gone to a 3a despite my attempts to make them aware of her problem which is very frustrating.

Hi - my daughter is upper level 2 maths and level 5 English - in Y6 - continues to struggle and cant yet tell the time for example. can I insist the senco tests her even if her difficulties are only in maths? They are blaming it on previous teacher sickness and lack of continuity through supply teachers - but her progress is so slow...

No, you can't insist a SENCO tests her.

All you can do is to ask the SENCO / HT / Teacher what extra support she will be getting to help her 'close the gap' - and how will that support be different from all the previous support she has had which hasn't worked.

All you can do is keep asking them questions, and keep getting things measured and specified......

She should be on the SEN register, and she should have an IEP.

The IEP should have SMART targets.

Ask if her IEP can cover half a term, and you can have IEP review meetings every half term......

Then every half term you discuss if she is making progress with the support she is getting - or if something else needs to be tried.

Although I suspect that dyscalculia, like dyslexia, is not an educational problem, but a medical problem. And that in the end you'll have to sort out her underlying problems because school can't.

shes in a group of 15 getting very good teaching from deputy head and can recognise numbers and use them but seems to really struggle with telling the time (she forgets whats been taught to her) and organizing herself - also needed extra help socially - BTW she's one of the youngest in year group but level 5 English. She's not on SEN register has no IEP. I've raised concerns about her memory and organisation / sequencing etc.