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Help with tables for a dyslexic child

18 replies

Whyamihere · 04/01/2014 15:08

Dd is mildly dyslexic and is getting help with reading (which she's now much better on) and spelling as well as her confidence, however she is in year 5 and she still really struggles with her tables, she knows some of them but is way off of instant recall with most of them. We've tried Lots of different methods, the latest one is that I've written the answers out on bits of card we lay them on the floor and she needs to jump on an answer but we still don't seem to be getting anywhere.

Does anyone have any tips on teaching dyslexics their tables as we are all finding it frustrating and her reports keep saying she needs to learn them.

OP posts:
nonicknameseemsavailable · 04/01/2014 15:22

hmm well we think now that I am mildly dyslexic/compensated dyslexic and I think DD1 is. I always struggled with tables but was good at maths.

I did eventually manage to learn them, mostly just by rote as if it was a song I was learning so I would have to go through most of them to get to the right one. definitely not instant recall but I don't remember it ever really being a problem as long as I could work it out quickly enough. I seemed to end up naturally with some 'anchor' ones so say 7x7 is 49 so if I needed to know 8x7 then I would do 49 and add 7.

DD1 is only on 2 times table at the moment and we seem to have successfully learned it this week. Of course it is an easier one to learn and she could already count in 2s as she did them in the summer term. With the ones she found harder we tried to do it very visually for her so she could picture what it actually was. She counts up or down from anchor ones for a couple but some of them she now knows instantly.

YoullNeedATray · 04/01/2014 16:59

Can she remember song lyrics? My class adores Percy Parker songs. CD or there's an app too.
www.percyparker.com/

NoComet · 04/01/2014 17:04

DD1(15) and I still don't know them for the same reason. We get by with counting on from ones we do remember and scribbling in the margin.

It's a pain for KS2 SATs, but way less important for senior school and of no concern for RL. This phone knows what 8x7 is Grin

picnicinthewoods · 04/01/2014 17:34

I've never been able to learn my tables but did fine in maths GCSE. What helped the most was just concentrating on learning the squares (is that what its called when you times a number by itself?). So 2x2, 3x3, 4x4 etc up to 12x12. You can then learn to add or take away to find lower/higher multiplications.
You can also learn ways to do many multiplications tables on your fingers, well certainly the x9 anyway.
I found 'tricks' like the above enough to get me by. HTH.

Whyamihere · 04/01/2014 19:32

Thanks everyone, she does use tricks such as knowing a certain times table and adding or taking away from that, I can sympathise with her because I don't really know my tables (and I'm a chartered accountant so I guess it hasn't held me back), it's just a pain at the moment because it makes her slower on all her maths - everything takes so long as she needs to work through.
I will try the Percy Parker CD or app, she uses sqeebles at the moment which she likes.

OP posts:
tinytalker · 04/01/2014 22:22

If you google - A Visual Spatial Strategy for The Times Tables, Alexandra Shires Golon.
Then a really excellent PDF file will come up with an excellent strategy for learning times tables which can be very effective for dyslexics.
Hope it helps.

nonicknameseemsavailable · 04/01/2014 22:42

love that link tinytalker - thanks

PickleFish · 04/01/2014 23:02

if you have an iPhone/pad, you could try the Times Table Clock app for dyslexic learners

morethanpotatoprints · 04/01/2014 23:08

Hello OP I'm not sure if this will work for you but it certainly did for me and for dd. I am severely dyslexic and I'm guessing that dd is moderately.
Plain old boring Parrot fashion repetition, was the only thing that worked. Our ds 1 and 2 had tapes, songs, instruments and rhythm, games, puzzles etc and these worked for them.
I never get one wrong, can recall instantly and knew them all at age 8 as we had to back then.
Our dd is almost there, not quite instantly but has come on so much by just doing 10 mins a night, after brushing teeth, before story.
I know its boring but you could give a little reward system.

Whyamihere · 05/01/2014 10:20

Thanks for all the help, I shall be trying some of these out, I liked the link Tinytalker, it was very interesting.

OP posts:
smee · 05/01/2014 13:04

why me, you talking of leaping around games made me smile, as we've tried that sort of thing too. Thought it worth adding to all the ideas, as I've tried the Visual Spatial thing for my son (also yr5) and he didn't click with it at all. I thought it would, but it clearly doesn't work for all. He's come on in leaps and bounds with an app called 'Squeebles'. There's one for spellings and one for times tables. I have no idea why it works for him, but it does. All dyslexics are obviously different, so might be worth a try.

Let me know if you find anything else which works for your DD. Would love to hear. Smile

smee · 05/01/2014 13:06

Just thought I'd add that morethan's post on rote learning rings v.true for us. We do it every day on the walk to school. Stomp out a times table, then I fire random questions. Whole thing takes less than a few minutes, then we forget it and natter for the rest of the way. Does help though.

By-the-by, just been doing some maths homework with DS before school starts back and he was great on his 6 x tables, but then used his fingers to add up 12+6…

fotheringay · 06/01/2014 23:22

Sounds a weird idea but my dyslexic ds does things like use the 14 times table to do the 7 times table as he finds it easier to do (3x10 )+(3x4)+7 rather than 7x7 if that makes any sense

sashh · 07/01/2014 07:29

The thing about tables and dyslexics is that dyslexics (horrible generalisation, it's not exclusively them) want to understand how they work and what they mean.

You don't. You just need to be able to recite them.

I never saw the point, I can count in 2s, 5s, 12s etc why did I need to be able to recite 2 x 12 is 24.

aciddrops · 07/01/2014 08:02

There is an app called "Squeebles" which is good.

Another thing I've started to do is say "right, you have up to 21 to get your shoes on" 3,6,9,12,15,......" Etc

horsemadmom · 07/01/2014 08:55

My DD liked Schoolhouse Rock. They are probably all on youtube.

PastSellByDate · 09/01/2014 12:09

Hi WhyamIhere:

dyslexics can be very visual (so can remember pictorial detail better than letters/ numbers). Certainly flashcard systems rarely work for dyslexics. (I say this as a spouse of a dyslexic and with a M-I-L who was trained through Barts Hospital to work with dyslexics and has written extensively on the subject). The other thing - maddening to friends/ family/ partners - is dyslexics tend to have no short-term memory.

My advice is try learning times tables through video games. It's visual, playing games over several weeks will feed things into the long-term memory. I would strongly recommend Timez Attack - just because it's free, but also because it shows multiple additions as well as traditional vertical multiplication problems. I can't guarantee it will work but the link is here: www.bigbrainz.com/

Thing number 2 - dyslexics do respond well to patterns/ tricks.

I'm not sure where you are at - but counting by 2s (so even numbers) can be reinforced with house numbers, etc.... underlies learning x2 table.

Schools rarely formerly teach x1 and x0 - so it's worth reviewing that anything x 0 = 0. 1,999,999,998 x 0 = 0 and anything x 1 is = 1 (I was taught to think of 1 as a mirror).

If you DC knows x2, x5 & x10 there a long way there really.

x3 can be done from 3 x 1 to 3 x 10 by simply using your hands as a calculator. so look down on her hands (palms down). You'll see that each finger has three knuckles and that with the thumb if you take the joint with the palm and the two nuckles there's three points to count. That means that you can simply work out any number to 10 x 3 and count up knuckles.

4 x 3 - hold up 4 fingers and count.

Once you have x3 times table learned then it gets easy.

x4 - just double x2 times table facts.
x6 - just double x3 times table facts.
x8 - double and double again x2 times table facts.
x12 - double and double again x3 times table facts (or just double x6 times table facts).

x9 has a pattern & trick:

1 x 9 = 09
2 x 9 = 18
3 x 9 = 27
4 x 9 = 36
....and so on
to 10 x 9 = 90

You'll see that the first number (the tens digit) is always one less than what you are multiplying 9 by.

The trick is that any product in the nines times table has individual digits that always add up to 9.

3 x 9 = 27 and 2 + 7 = 27.

So if you remember the one less start and that number plus ? = 9 - you can get the answer

so 7 x 9 - one less than 7 is 6 (so it starts with 6 in the tens column) and what + 6 = 9 - well 3 - so 3 in the units column - so 7 x 9 = 63.

----

so that means you know 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,8,9,10 and 12.

That leaves 7 and 11.

11 is just fun.

first there is the pattern to 99

1 x 11 = 11
2 x 11 = 22
3 x 11 = 33
4 x 11 = 44
and so on to
9 x 11 = 99

then once you are at 10 or over x 11 there's a trick.

Separate the first and second digit of the number you're multiplying 11 by and then add them together and put that total in the middle.

So 13 x 11 = 1 - (1+3) - 3 = 143

It can get tricky if you have to carry - but just think it through:

48 x 11 = 4 - (4 + 8) - 8 = 4 - (12) - 8 (so we have to carry the 1)
so that's (4+1) - 2 - 8 or 528.

-------

gosh that just leaves 7.

well since we know 7 x 0 to 7 x 6 and we know 7 x 8 to 7 x 12 - that just leaves 7 x 7 = 49. You just have to learn it but it does help that 49 rhymes with swine.

I can't guarantee this but I think if you avoid pure memorisation (which really doesn't work for dyslexics) and focus on patterns/ tricks and encourage extra game play gradually, bit by bit, your DC will learn this. And the games will help build long term memory skills which will make the recall of these number facts easier and the tricks will help build frameworks of solving skills when caught on the spot.

HTH

PastSellByDate · 09/01/2014 12:12

Forgot to say that with x12 - sometimes it helps to think of it as x10 + x2

for example

7 x 12 is the same thing as (7 x 10) + (7 x 2) or 70 + 14 = 84.

HTH

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