Having difficulties with numbers is common among children. Furthermore, we may find that in certain lessons, dyscalculic children have an outstanding performance, especially in non-mathematical topics.

Let’s talk about Physics. Physics is a part of the broad category of science that deals with the structure of matter and its fundamental constituents. And It involves a lot of arithmetic calculations. 

Physics is a broad subject. Learning physics involves varied skills and concepts such as logical sequencing and spatial thinking. A child integrates different concepts and ideas to solve problems in this subject and forms his own analytical strategies in the process. To function well in physics, many skills have to function together.

The important question is could children with dyscalculia get better at physics. And if they can, how could we support them? 

Understanding differences in children

Success in Physics could be difficult to describe. Each child is different. They have their own set of strengths and weaknesses. Failing to recognize these differences may deprive children of their enthusiasm. Because of this, they may begin to dislike the subject or lose interest. 

Most children get discouraged around physics because of their individual differences in relation to mastering the concepts and skills of the subject. Their difficulties in the subject may not be because of their lack of preparation or because teachers and parents have left something undone. Their difficulties in learning may just be a reflection of their inappropriate methods of learning physics, which may persist through later years unless we intervene and provide help on their weak components.

Poor health, difficulties at home play as much role in performing in a subject as opting for ineffective methods and missing vital lessons of physics. Avoiding these differences in the early years of their development may cause unpleasant experiences and affect their quality of life. 

The idea is to find their difficulties around the subject as soon as possible and provide appropriate help before it impacts their morale. Let’s understand some possible factors that could act as obstacles to learning in physics.

Factors affecting learning physics 

A child that has difficulties in math lessons may develop a fear of subjects involving maths such as Physics. This may dampen self-esteem and affect several aspects of their life. 

There may be many alarming signs like general difficulty or anxiety around math, malfunctioned directional awareness or inability to estimate number quantities, or having reading difficulties with word problems.

1. Anxiety around math

It’s a common occurrence among dyscalculic children to dread mathematics. They could be afraid that they might not understand a topic or lesson. Difficulties in understanding the relevant concepts and skills may make them hate math and the subjects that include math, like physics, at a very early age. 

A mismatch between instructional methods and their preferred techniques to learn may further increase their anxiety about math. We could tackle this by using additional material and concrete instructions to help them build confidence around the subject. 

We handheld them through important concepts like times tables, reading time, and making simple bonds. Each lesson should be individually tailored as per their need. Over time, this could act as a bedstone for more complex concepts. 

As parents and teachers, we need to support the children through their difficulties until they find their foot in the door. Making them more confident around the subject and related concepts could be the right place to start. 

2. Memory difficulties

Having a sound memory seems to play a key role in physics, as the subject requires memorizing equations and rules to solve secondary problems. 

Especially for kids with learning differences, it’s better to lay out what needs to be done next, to work through a science problem. Generally, that requires memorizing patterns and sequences of different kinds. 

We could teach visual and mental skills to help children improve their memory because a good memory that could hold facts and formulas is essential to find a pattern between similar problems. 

A bad perspective memory directly impacts a child’s ability in physics. For example, a dyscalculic child may prefer receiving information in small chunks to ensure their memory is not overloaded. 

3. Difficulties in reading word problems

Reading mathematical text is often a task for a child with dyscalculia. Physics has several word problems that require correct decoding, without which it is difficult to arrive at an accurate answer. 

In most cases, wrong interpretation is the issue instead of not being able to read the text itself. For example, a child may get confused between the relevance of the speed of water and the speed of wind while calculating the speed of a motorboat. 

Speed reading doesn’t help either and may result in a wrong interpretation of the original problem. Children with directional difficulties may also face a similar problem and find it hard to notice other elements of the problem like vertical tables, drawings, pie charts, etc. 

Having good reading skills is usually necessary for all curricular subjects, let alone physics. 

Learning physics with dyscalculia

Physics generally requires more relational and spatial thinking than basic arithmetic. Classes on physics even allow calculators. There are more ways to support our children with physics than we think. 

Let’s try to learn about a few strategies and concepts, including Metacognition, and how they can help dyscalculic children with physics. 

1. Introducing Metacognition

Metacognition is thinking about thinking. It is quite a technical-sounding word for something we all do to understand our thoughts and feelings. 

That said, few things are more enjoyable than teaching our children how to be resilient. No matter what difficulty arises, we want them to be equipped with a drive that says, “how can I solve this?” 

It’s quite tempting to give up during a physics exam and feel like nothing could help us overcome the obstacles. However, the application of Metacognition could help fix the mistakes children are frequently making.

Getting better in physics, especially the parts that involve math, could greatly benefit from questioning. Being curious about why things happen the way they happen can provide a lot of opportunities to think. And by practicing thinking while engaging in the subject we could promote metacognition in children. 

Under Metacognition, we could teach children with dyscalculia about math fluency. Math fluency is very much like reading fluency where they could use shortcuts to arrive at a solution. It frees up a child’s brain and uses that free space for high-order problems. We could also use repetition to promote math fluency through additional practice in all their physics-related lessons.

Encouraging children to use metacognition can certainly help children in their journey to get better in physics and other math-related subjects. 

2. Supplement Instructions on Physics

Additional instructions, apart from the existing material, should be provided to balance out our approach to better grasp the subject. While we assume a proactive role in children’s education, we need to be careful to not add to their frustration. Extra material should be introduced as per their need without challenging them beyond their capacity. We need to work with them in small bursts of time, ideally every day instead of one long session on the weekend. 

Getting better at physics starts by introducing children to activities that combine their innate skills with the subject. Flashcards, repetition series, math games, puzzles; all could be used to push children towards a better understanding of basic concepts. 

Worksheets with basic physics involving word problems, equation formation, and concept evaluation can be one of the many sources on the internet to promote fluency. Encourage children to complete one worksheet a day in the beginning and then balance the problems with their current capabilities. Ensure to challenge them as per their skill range. And gradually build upon their current skill set so one day they could find themselves solving problems with greater ease. Maybe even without our help. 

3. Develop a healthy relationship with children

Children struggling in physics would require attention. Initially, one-to-one teaching could act as a powerful support system. If a child trusts you, they would be able to open up about their anxiety. A discussion may help them more than a set of instructions to find a way through their difficulties. 

Developing a healthy relationship creates an easy atmosphere for both teaching and learning. It could encourage children to reveal what methods are working for them without fearing ridicule from other children. 

Any kind of progress mandates a healthy relationship between a teacher and child. This is no different.

How to help children with their physics homework?

As a teacher or a parent, we are our children’s study partners. Reinforcing physics concepts and teaching them is a paramount part of providing support to them. 

However, if we find ourselves in a difficult situation where our children are not able to understand certain parts of the assignments, make a switch to the parts that are easier for them. 

Handheld them through the assignment and note down the list of topics where the child is struggling and ensure to communicate it with their teachers or parents.

1. Positive Inputs

Homework experience must be enjoyable to children irrespective of their areas of difficulty. If they enjoy it, they would regularly return to it. A child must be regularly encouraged to include more tricks in his bag of tools. Do everything in your power to exclude the negative feeling that may develop through not getting good at a subject. Consistency is what makes the difference between the children who improve and those who don’t.

2. Focus on clarity of concepts

Homeworks, usually, is the repetition of previously taught topics. Physics homework is no different than a practice to review the concepts at home. Before beginning to help them with their homework, evaluate if they understand the concepts behind their assignments. Help them clear their basic doubts before diving into secondary concepts since it’s possible that the child might be unaware of the concepts in the assignment.

3. Challenge vs capacity 

Often, there are assignments from school which may exceed the child’s skill set. When you find your children in that situation, step back and find something within the assignment that’s reasonable to their capacity. Doing that may mean working the entire time on one basic problem. And that’s okay. We should give enough time to our children to master new skills and concepts. Hurrying through them does no good. 

Additional Insights

Thomas Edison and Leonardo da Vinci were dyslexic. Albert Einstein couldn’t read until the age of nine. History is filled with such figures who have proved themselves in their field in spite of having a disability. 

The degree of severity of dyscalculia; serious, moderate, or mild can decide how we could treat or deal with the learning difficulties of children and support them to become good in physics. 

Einstein became great in spite of his learning disability. Most have not achieved without a learning disorder what Einstein could. 

What matters the most is having a screening procedure for dyscalculia in place. Earlier assessment of dyscalculia is the most efficient way to diagnose it. 

What we understand is that classical arithmetic is just a part of physics. Even at the places where it is necessary, children could always use existing techniques to simplify the calculations. 

As a parent and teacher, there are many options you can opt for to minimize the damaging impacts of dyscalculia on your children. Through precautions and proactive participation in your children’s development, you could cultivate a math culture at home or at school to help your child jump-start on subjects like physics. 

Conclusion

Dyscalculia is a roadblock that children can push farther down the road with determination and appropriate support from their parents and teachers. With the right kind of intervention, we could turn the brain activity more normal by activating relevant parts of the reading brain. 

Through additional support based on children’s specific needs, you could boost their skills around math-based subjects. 

There is nothing a determined child with a support system can’t overcome. 

Manpreet Singh

An engineer, Maths expert, Online Tutor and animal rights activist. In more than 5+ years of my online teaching experience, I closely worked with many students struggling with dyscalculia and dyslexia. With the years passing, I learned that not much effort being put into the awareness of this learning disorder. Students with dyscalculia often misunderstood for having  just a simple math fear. This is still an underresearched and understudied subject. I am also the founder of Smartynote -‘The notepad app for dyslexia’, 

The post Learning Physics Being A Dyscalculic appeared first on Number Dyslexia.

In fact, the Glenn Commission, 2000 believes that the children, who will be the decision-makers of the future, need to be equipped with adequate mathematical and scientific tools from the very start in order to allow them to capitalize on the varied challenges and opportunities that are in store.

Development of the skills for preschool Math Concepts, thus, is based on multiple factors. Some of them, of course, are individualized to a child in form of the working memory and attention span (Passolunghi and Costa 2016) as well as the child’s innate abilities (Butterworth, 2005). However, adequate early attention to mathematical concepts can help develop numerical abilities in even children who are slow starters in a particular area.

Various preschool math concepts

There are multiple pre-school concepts that help a child develop an analytical and mathematical bend of mind. Many of them are overlapping and gradually progress from simple to complex. These preschool math skills help the child perform everyday activities as well as playtime games. Children thus unconsciously learn to use these rudimentary mathematical skills to develop their cognitive skills and embark further on their growth curve.

These preschool math concepts are:

1. Counting

Counting is the simplest of preschool mathematical concepts that is a kick-starter to most of the other concepts. It includes rote counting, which is simply learning to recite the number series from the memory. With time the child also needs to be initiated into the practice of rational counting, which is assigning meaning to the numbers and thus being able to count a specific number of items.

2. Number sense and subtilizing

Subitizing is the art of roughly estimating the number of items or other quantities without doing the actual counting. Thus, it qualifies to be called “math at a glance”. It is a preschool math concept that calls for a rough understanding and estimate of various things at the display, without doing the actual counting in your head.

Number sense is the gradual development of understanding of the concept of numbers by the child, where they understand that four apples are present in the basket, and if they eat two of them, only two will be left.

3. Comparison

Slowly, the pre-kindergarten child starts comparing things. In this process, they develop an elementary mathematical vocabulary. For example, they learn to compare between items which are ‘heavier’ or ‘lighter’; ‘more or ‘less’ and ‘singular’ or ‘in groups’.

This comparison helps them understand the concept of quantity and magnitude.

4. Patterns and Repetitions

Understanding patterns and repetitions in a group of things as well as being able to assemble similar or separate items in pairs is another important pre-school math concept skill.

The ability to comprehend the pattern, thus, also helps the child in putting in order various items and thus understand the art of compilation of items and segregation of the rest.

5. Shapes and spatial sense

A basic understanding of geometry and the ability to identify the various shapes is another preschool math ability that should be inculcated in young children.

Also, it is important for them to develop a spatial sense, which is the ability to place items in their correct places. Thus, it also requires them to understand the basic concepts of patterns and the importance of shapes in such placements.

6. Development of math terminology

The pre-schoolers also need to develop basic math terminology of numbers and comparison before they enter a formal system of education. This helps them cements their basic math skill and also allows for it further growth through communications and discussions.

7. Basic problem solving

Good preschool math concepts also call for basic math problem-solving abilities in children like simple addition and subtraction and pattern recognition.

These are required to ensure that the child has indeed grasped the basic concepts of mathematics and is able to cross-reference between the various concepts.

Ways to help the child develop pre-school math concept skills

It is important for parents or guardians to keep a close eye on the development of pre-school math concept skills in children and to give the extra push in areas in which they may lag behind.

Some tips and techniques to nurture and enhance preschool math concept skills in children are:

1. Observe the details

Ask your child to observe details of various household items like their shape and number. Then slowly introduce them to mathematical and geometric terminology like ‘singular and pair’; ‘circle and ‘square’; ‘heavy and light’, etc.

These observation and terminology recognition skills will form the basis of their preschool math concept skills.

2. Start the counting and comparing

The first baby step in counting is to teach the child the number series through rote learning. This requires you to help them memorize the number series from 1 to 10 without assigning actual meaning to it.

There are various ways to make this task interesting. You can the songs with numbers or dance to a number routine to make rote counting a fun task for your child. You can also make it a group task with each child reciting the next number in the series while passing the ball.

Slowly, you can help your child understand the meaning and significance of these numbers by comparing them to various household items like 1 apple, 2 bananas, and 3 boxes of cookies.

3. Participate and pattern with puzzles

You can use various shape puzzles which require the placement of various shapes in their proper places. This helps the child develop a certain spatial sense as well as start comprehending various patterns.

You can also play various pattern games by asking the child to arrange colored beads in a specific order of colors or pairing two kinds of cookies in a repetition series.

Slowly, you can extend this to various items in a clutter box-like beads and buttons ask the child to separate them into separate piles on the basis of shapes, colors, and sizes.

4. Build the lego tower

Let your child construct a lego tower and pillars. This will make them understand that certain items are required in a specific number and shapes.

Constructing and deconstructing mini buildings will help them understand how parts combine to become a whole and the whole can break into parts-thus introducing them to the wonderful concept of fractions.  It will again enhance their observation skills and spatial sense, as well as improve their geometric abilities.

In fact, as an added advantage, it will also fine-tune their motor skills.

5. Mark the calendar

Get a large, colorful calendar and mark the important dates with stars on it. Then ask your child to marks the calendar with specific symbols when it rains or when their friends come over.

In this way, the child develops a sense of time and dates and learns to form correlations between various items.

You can also sharpen their cognitive skills by relating the weather to certain activities. For example, when it rains, you put on a raincoat and when it’s too hot, mummy makes a cool glass of lemonade. These correlations are the beginning of the development of logical thinking in children, which is so important to the disciples of both science and mathematics.

6. Make it a part of the daily ritual

Developing pre-math school skills in your child should become a part of your daily routine. As you take them out for a walk, count the number of houses on the way.

When you are baking cookies together, ask them to pass three cups of milk and 4 cups of flour. When they are putting on their shoes, teach them that all shoes come in pairs while belts and hats are singular items to be worn.

This way you can help expand their knowledge subconsciously, without indulging them in planned lessons.

Summing up,

The development of a child from infancy to school-going age is a relatively fast-paced process. Hence, the right physical, emotional and intellectual development of the child in this phase is of paramount importance (YaopaDechacoop, 1999).

Croft and Hess, 1985; too emphasize that it is important that preschool children, from 0 to 6 years of age are introduced to math concepts in their daily routine and through creative art challenges so that they are also able to insert and integrate them with other subjects, which will also ascribe them to an opportunity to find the truth and understand the concept of things (Boonprachak Wongmonkol,1993).

References

1. BoonprachakWongmonkol. (1993). The Study on the effect of Experimental Test of Cooking and General Experience of Basic Skill in Mathematics of Preschool Children whose Intellectual Abilities Vary.Thesis: 
2. Croft, D. J and Hess, R. D. )1985.( An Activity Handbook for Teacher of Young Children. 4^th edition, Boston : Houghton Miffin.
3. YaowapaDechacoop. (1999). Activities for Primary School Children. Bangkok: Chao Phraya Printing.

Manpreet Singh

An engineer, Maths expert, Online Tutor and animal rights activist. In more than 5+ years of my online teaching experience, I closely worked with many students struggling with dyscalculia and dyslexia. With the years passing, I learned that not much effort being put into the awareness of this learning disorder. Students with dyscalculia often misunderstood for having  just a simple math fear. This is still an underresearched and understudied subject. I am also the founder of Smartynote -‘The notepad app for dyslexia’, 

The post Importance Of Developing Preschool Skill Set For Math Concepts appeared first on Number Dyslexia.

But, the challenge lies in the selection of activities, because anything complicated may not be preferable. Games have always been a fun way of learning various skills. Hence, in this post, we have curated 10 easy online money counting games that, though popular among kids, may intrigue adults too.

Before we start off with the list, let’s take a quick look at the advantages that adults can derive from money-counting games.

How games can help?

Coins come in different denominations. Thus, those having issues with working memory or who display pronounced forgetfulness may tend to make mistakes while paying for the purchase in cash. The gamified essence of money counting online quizzes help encounter this issue by serving the following purposes:

• Relearn skills lost due to brain injury: Money counting games, by virtue of repeated playing, or due to player’s zeal to improve scores help regain skills that may have got due to a brain injury.
  
• Strengthen mental reasoning: Some counting games require to differentiate among denominations; others require adult learners to add or subtract, or associate coins with their values. All these requisites of money-counting games eventually boost mental reasoning capacity.
  
• Help retain mind’s agility: Especially in older people who face frailing mental agility issues, the money counting-based games, owing to their speed and accuracy requirements, can help retain quickness in thinking, decision-making, and calculating.

All these advantages must have made you inquisitive about the money games that adults can play to improve their counting and money management skills. So, let’s head on to our hand-picked list of money-counting games for adults, which they can use to play with kids, or to be familiar with a foreign currency.

Engaging online money counting games for adults

1. Money Tree Game

Money counting is mostly thought to be a skill learned in the early years. But, there is always a need to refresh the learning. The money tree game acts as a quick refresher for denominations’ differentiation. It supports using the ‘one-more-than technique’^[2] which has helped people with retarded mental capacities to revive their coins identification and calculation skills. Adults can benefit from this game by further playing it in a time-pressed manner.

Playing this game requires prior memorizing of the denominations of the coins. If you have thought of moving to the US and want to be familiar with coins in circulation, you can help yourself by playing this money-counting game. The best reward from this game will be your smooth familiarity with coin denominations and values, which is crucial for error-free money management.

Web App Link: Play Here

2. Change Maker

Shopping and managing the correct giving of change are unimaginable without one another. You have to be quite quick in mind to tender or accept exact change. Hence, you can work your brains up and be comfortable with the coins by playing this game as fast as possible.

This money counting game is an effective tester of mental agility and gives the dual advantage of mastering the counting as well as calculating the change. Gameplay is quite simple; it requires you to calculate the change mentally and pick the corresponding coins that total up the amount. Thus, you can be ready to flaunt your calculation skills once you have fared excellently in this money-counting game.

Web App Link: Play Here

3. Count money: Select the correct 5-dollar bill

Counting money while making use of a 5-dollar bill correctly is the essence of this free online game. You are given a set of bills and coins, and the total amount is achieved by including a 5-dollar bill in the correct combination with other coins. Thus, while shopping, you will never be confused about cents, dimes, or nickels once you have practiced this game amply.

This game is a part of a long series of similar games where the focus will be a one-dollar bill, a ten-dollar bill, and so on. You are free to select the difficulty level of your choice or may start with the most basic calculation too. The aim of this game is to help you revisit the early money counting games. As a caretaker to a homeschooler, you can be prepared for all questions from your kid when you have mastered this game.

Web App Link: Play Here

4. Counting Coins

Summing coins values can be challenging for many adults who face arithmetic difficulties. It is affirmed by researchers that regular and productive practice^[3] is essential to make up for these shortcomings. This money-counting game offers the best-quality and entertaining method for improving summation abilities.

You have several hats to don as an adult. In many cases, learning to manage money through playful methods can be a wise step. In this game, adults with difficulty in calculations and money management get to differentiate coins and make the correct calculation to arrive at the correct sum. Hence, you can revise the calculation, digit identification, and coins’ denomination collectively with this engaging, fast-paced game.

Web App Link: Play Here

5. Money Game

Counting becomes easy to master when you have memorized all coins’ and currency bills’ denominations. But, counting is only the start. You need to learn to apply counting skills correctly too, to become an able cash flow manager. As an adult who has struggled with numbers and money most of the time, you can find the best practice tool in this free, online money-counting game.

As the gameplay indicates, you have to select the combination of bills and coins to match the amount given in the question. Thus, the game drives the grown-up learner to recall the bills and coins’ appearance, and add them up to get the correct amount too. Hence, the game prepares you on multiple grounds and grooms you to become a confident money manager.

Web App Link: Play Here

6. Counting Money

Terrible is the word that best describes the feeling when you are given those looks by others in the queue at the billing zone for being slow in making payment. You can save a lot many precious seconds by being fluid in calculations and tending correct payments to the billing executive. This money-counting game offers you the exact learning support you require to be fast in making correct payments.

Further, if you have applied for a job as a cashier and want to excel in it, this game offers an awesome preparatory ground. With continuous practice and playing rounds and rounds of it, you are sure to find a distinct lucidity in managing the payments you receive. This game is quite close to real-life situations and prepares you for all those instances you are most likely to encounter.

Web App Link: Play Here

7. Adding Money Game

This game is quite captivating and teaches you how to arrive at the correct money amount from the cues provided in words. It may remind you of your school days when solving word problems was a part of the curriculum. However, it was not easy to crack those problems back then; difficulty remains in adulthood, too, if you have learning difficulties to deal with. The gaps in learning left in childhood surface up most prominently while dealing with money matters. Hence, you can pick up the reins from where you left off by tuning on to this online game and playing a couple of rounds daily.

This money-counting online game can help adults improve comprehension, understanding, and identification of numbers, and make them comfortable with payments.

Web App Link: Play Here

8. Guess the value of the coin

Coins can be confusing. And, it takes extra sharp memory to remember the relationship between cent, nickel, dime, quarter dollar, and so on. However, a good start is half the battle won, and this ‘guess the value of coin’ game offers that wonderful start. If you are a newbie to a foreign country and need to repurpose your understanding of money to fit in a new land, this game helps you do so.

This money-counting game for adults can work best when you have played it at a difficult level where the time allotted is less. By adopting this strategy, you can boost memory recall and associative memory. Thus, you may hope to avoid all possible calculation blunders once you have trained yourself sufficiently by playing this money-calculating and identification-based online game.

Web App Link: Play Here

9. Trade coins with equivalent money

The most crucial part of making the correct payment is identifying the value of a set of coins. Seamless identification, quick mental calculation, and correct matching with values are some of the prerequisites of becoming a confident money manager.

This money-counting game offers all three learning requirements in the gameplay. Thus, by the way of gamification, adult learners can shake off their hesitation in dealing with coins and currency bills. Play it often and since it is available online, you can play it when traveling too.

Web App Link: Play Here

10. Equivalent Coins

Converting nickel into dimes or into dollars or the other way round can be mentally taxing if you are not in touch with the process. Rampant use of calculators and online payments have added further to the agony. Hence, a game that can help you revisit old-school ways of dealing with coins is certainly worth attempting. It can help you count change faster, pay tips correctly and eventually live like a local in a foreign city.

Play it faster with every attempt, or choose to climb the difficulty level and gain the confidence you need while dealing with coins. All of it will pay you back in form of easy management of cash, and error-free shopping!

Web App Link: Play Here

Summing Up,

Our list of money-counting games is designed to keep in mind the common problems adults encounter while dealing with daily financial affairs. Money management learning can be put on the right track with these games. There can be a lot many problems apart from counting that you might face. With the games mentioned above, all those issues can be addressed collectively.

References

1. Plerou, Antonia. (2014). Dealing with Dyscalculia over time. 10.13140/2.1.4229.5681.
2. Denny, Paula & Test, David. (1995). Using the One-More-Than Technique to Teach Money Counting to Individuals with Moderate Mental Retardation: A Systematic Replication. Education and Treatment of Children. 18.
3. Scherer, P., Beswick, K., DeBlois, L., Healy, L., Moser Opitz, E. (2017). Assistance of Students with Mathematical Learning Difficulties—How Can Research Support Practice?—A Summary. In: Kaiser, G. (eds) Proceedings of the 13th International Congress on Mathematical Education. ICME-13 Monographs. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62597-3_16

Manpreet Singh

An engineer, Maths expert, Online Tutor and animal rights activist. In more than 5+ years of my online teaching experience, I closely worked with many students struggling with dyscalculia and dyslexia. With the years passing, I learned that not much effort being put into the awareness of this learning disorder. Students with dyscalculia often misunderstood for having  just a simple math fear. This is still an underresearched and understudied subject. I am also the founder of Smartynote -‘The notepad app for dyslexia’, 

The post Top 10 Online Counting Money Games for Adults appeared first on Number Dyslexia.

Why money management is difficult for people with a learning disability?

Here is what researchers say on reasons why dyscalculia and developmental language disorder may cause money management difficulties:

1. Impact of dyscalculia

Some studies^[1] propose that dyscalculia may show three types of impacts – procedural, visuospatial, and semantic memory in individuals. It is a well-established fact that dyscalculia interferes with the working memory of the person. Hence, they may not be comfortable with the idea of finding what they should be left with after paying a certain amount to buy a thing.

Further, since the semantic memory is compromised, the dyscalculic may not be cool with doing calculations or remembering how to assign money to different expenses of recurring nature. They may require someone to keep the books for them.

Also, the inability to differentiate between various denominations correctly may lead to paying less or more each time they are out to buy the things of need.

Geary and Hoard (2001) in their paper,^[2] “Numerical and arithmetic deficits in learning-disabled children,” mentioned that children with dyscalculia don’t keep up with counting rules. Since it is one of the basic requirements for dealing with money correctly, the learning difficulties make money management a bit more challenging.

2. Developmental language disorder’s impact

Only dyscalculia is not the cause of difficulty in money management. Developmental language disorder also has an impact.

In an article,^[3] ‘Financial capability and functional financial literacy in young adults with developmental language disorder’, written by Maxine Winstanley and others, it was stated that young adults need family support to manage financial affairs. Their capacity to do so was measured using nonverbal cues, language, and numeracy measures. They could not exhibit satisfactory behavior on all these grounds.

As a result, they seek family assistance for dealing with money matters. It does lead to lots of issues due to dependence on others for managing finances.

Let’s take a look at common mistakes dyslexics or dyscalculics may make.

Common mistakes to expect

Learning difficulties cause problems in calculating ability. Apart from it, limited working memory and poor semantics lead to a variety of money management mistakes, that comprises:

• The buyer ends up paying more than the purchase deserves: It is due to a pronounced inability to understand the correct value of the item.
• Incorrect understanding of loan costs: Since the data in figures prove almost impossible to get, the adults may not choose the correct loan term and cost structure.
• Bad estimate of the money required for groceries: Adults with learning difficulties cannot estimate prices correctly; so they may keep on adding items to the basket over exceeding the budget. Thus, they will require to take things out or may face flak from others in the queue for wasting their time at billing.
• Taking incorrect amounts of money from the bank: Adults with learning disorders tend to take out incorrect amounts from banks; sometimes, even have no idea about how much money to withdraw for any particular reason.
• Incorrect budget planning: Since the adults have no idea about the correct assignment of money to things and services, they fail in budget planning mostly.

Hence, they depend a lot on family members or close friends, or managers to take care of money affairs.

Strategies for managing the money the proper way

Experts say early intervention^[4] (Chapter 7, Page no. 242) can be one of the effective strategies to help young children grow into confident money managers. Parents and teachers can assess the learning difficulty at quite an early phase these days. Thus, issues lingering on till the adult age have mellowed down considerably. However, the adults, too, who missed such radars cannot be left out.

They can be assisted by:

• Providing ample repetitions: Help adult chalk out expenses and maintain journals. A little working up the brain with the help of memory recall activities can allow adults to have ample practice.
• Teach-making budget: A journal will have both fixed and variable expenses. So, help the learner identify those and prepare a budget. Here also, the focus should be on practice. With continual putting up questions regarding weekly, fortnightly, and monthly expenses, the learners can be made to learn design budgets and stick to them.
• Employ money manipulatives: Money manipulatives can familiarize young adults with currency bills. Give ample practice with manipulatives so that they can smoothly do operations and have correct values in hand.

In addition to the above, the use of applications should also be promoted. There are several applications like Wally, Smartynote, etc. which can help complement learning deficits and make learners self-sufficient in budgeting, shopping, and other financial matters.

Summing Up,

Money matters handling requires expertise with numbers, number sense, and related operations. With the help of correct strategies and tools, people suffering from learning difficulties can be taught to manage money with confidence. Get the learning disorder evaluated correctly and then have a suitable intervention strategy to meet the money management needs of the adults in question.

References

1. Geary DC. Mathematical disabilities: cognitive, neuropsychological, and genetic components. Psychol Bull. 1993 Sep;114(2):345-62. doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.114.2.345. PMID: 8416036.
2. Geary, D. C., & Hoard, M. K. (2001). Numerical and arithmetical deficits in learning-disabled children: Relation to dyscalculia and dyslexia. LEARNING DISABILITY AND ARITHMETIC, 15(7), 635–647. https://doi.org/10.1080/02687040143000113
3. Winstanley, Maxine & Durkin, Kevin & Webb, Roger & Conti-Ramsden, Gina. (2018). Financial capability and functional financial literacy in young adults with a developmental language disorder. Autism & Developmental Language Impairments. 3. 239694151879450. 10.1177/2396941518794500.
4. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Education, D. O. B. A. S. S. A., Children, B. Y. O., Children, C. O. S. T. P. O. Y., Breiner, H., Ford, M., & Gadsden, V. L. (2016, December 21). Parenting Matters: Supporting Parents of Children Ages 0-8 (1st ed.). National Academies Press.

Manpreet Singh

An engineer, Maths expert, Online Tutor and animal rights activist. In more than 5+ years of my online teaching experience, I closely worked with many students struggling with dyscalculia and dyslexia. With the years passing, I learned that not much effort being put into the awareness of this learning disorder. Students with dyscalculia often misunderstood for having  just a simple math fear. This is still an underresearched and understudied subject. I am also the founder of Smartynote -‘The notepad app for dyslexia’, 

The post Money Management For Adults With Learning Disabilities appeared first on Number Dyslexia.

 If you have an analog clock in sight, it will probably take you a millisecond to answer that. But a passing gaze to read the clock is a mundane, simple day job that may be an uphill task for some people.

Dyscalculia or Mathematics dyslexia is a condition where the person concerned may have difficulty with numbers or arithmetic-related activities. A rough estimate pegs the number of this condition at 3% to 6%.

However, with nuanced teaching techniques and simple aids, the severity of the problem at hand can be reduced to a considerable measure.

Reading the clock being a dyscalculic: The issues faced

1. The clock hands placement

 A person with dyscalculia may have a problem differentiating between the hour hand and the minute hand and the meaning of their different placements in the analog clock.

Sometimes a third hand-“the seconds” hand that is found in many clocks may add to the confusion. The person with dyscalculia may also have a problem with correlating the 1,2,… on the clock with 5,10,15 minutes…and so on.

2. The clock language

We know that 3:15 in the morning, 3: 15 AM, or Quarter past 3 mean all the same. However, a person with dyscalculia may have a problem grasping the concept of the language of the time. Anything after the hour’s hand time may be slightly difficult for them to comprehend. Practice with multiple-time terminologies is the only way to lessen this problem.

3. The rise of digital clocks

Today more and more places are replacing the analog clock with the digital clock. Many schools have also stopped teaching the analog clock. This is both a boon and doom.

While an average person might be able to get the hang of the analog clock with even home teaching, a person with dyscalculia may require much more time and practice to get a sense out of it. Even with the rise of digital watches, which make it much easier for them to understand time, being able to read the analog clock is important for them to exercise their minds with respect to numerals.

4. The lack of awareness

A general lack of awareness around dyscalculia is the biggest problem in the scenario. People assume that the children that are unable to comprehend numbers and hence read the analog clock are plain lazy, which can be demoralizing for the children.

It is also important to remember that proper teaching techniques might be able to lessen the severity of the issue, but a person with dyscalculia may still not get entirely comfortable with the analog clock. A general acceptance of the fact for both the persons concerned and the people around them can go a long way in giving the person with dyscalculia the confidence to take slow and steady steps towards analog clock reading.

How to manage?

Teaching a person with dyscalculia to read the clock requires a lot of time, patience, and practice. However, the right way through this learning disability can also yield very positive and encouraging results.

1. Understand the clock

Getting a basic understanding of the clock is the first step in this direction. A clock mostly consists of two hands: the hour hand and the minute hand. Since there are more minutes than hours, the minute hand is longer and the hour hand is shorter. Sometimes there is a second hand too.

Since seconds in an hour are numerically more than minutes, it is a good way to remember that the second hand will be the longest. The analog clock is divided into two 12-hour brackets which gives us the AM and PM time. Thus the clock has 12 numerals from one to 12.

2. Practice clockwise direction

The child may have difficulty understanding the difference between the clockwise and anti-clockwise directions. It is thus very important to practice the clockwise direction in multiple manners and ways.

You can start by asking the child to draw the clockwise direction with a pencil on paper, multiple times. Whenever you play a group game, always start the turn in a clockwise manner so that the pattern is imprinted in the child’s mind.

Ask the child to arrange his toys in a clockwise manner. Once the pattern is established, reading the analog clock will become easier for him\her.

3. Learn the numbers and their associations

Teach the child to remember the numbers 1 to 12 in a row and their proper order. Then teach the multiplication of 5. The next step will then be to teach the child to associate 1 with 5, 2 with 10, 3 with 15, and so on.  This may require a lot of practice and patience is the key to the entire process.

4. Position of hands

One very important concept while reading analog clocks is that the hour hand is not always at the said number. At 07:05 AM it will be close to 7 but at 07:55, it will be almost on the 8 number.

However, even when the hour hand is almost 8, we will write it and say it as 07:55. Understanding this concept requires a lot of practice too.

5. Write down the number

Initially, while practicing clock reading, it may help to write down the number. The children can start with the hour hand. If it is between, say, 1 and 2; they can write the number that is before on a sheet of paper. In this case, it is 1. They can then add two dots to it.

Then have a look at the minute hand. If it is 4, they can multiply the number by 5. That turns out to be 20. Add the number on the sheet. Thus, the time turns out to be 01: 20.

Once they get comfortable, with the method, they can start practicing reading the clock orally.

6. Mastering the language

The final step would be to master the language of ‘quarter past’ and ‘quarter before’. This will help them communicate effectively with others. This task falls at a slightly difficult level for persons with dyscalculia, but practice can help overcome the hurdle to a significant amount.

Final thoughts

• Practice, Patience, and Perseverance: Although we have mentioned it multiple times, we would still like to reiterate the point one more time. Practice, patience, and perseverance are the keys to mastering the analog clock and generally, everything else in life. Remember even a small rivulet can carve the rock if it flows on it long enough.

• Don’t give up on the analog watch: Although digital watches are a boon for people with dyscalculia, we will still ask you to not give up on the analog watch just as yet. It is important to know how to read them primarily because they have yet not become completely obsolete and also because getting to read the clock will help you get a step ahead of your number problems in other aspects as well.

• Don’t lose heart: If after all your efforts, you still are not able to achieve the level of efficiency you desire in clock reading, do not lose heart. Dyscalculia is a minor glitch in your life journey and not at all the central core of your story. Technology today is moving at a fast pace and what is impossible today can very well be the mundane of tomorrow.

So keep the spirit high and own the time.

Manpreet Singh

An engineer, Maths expert, Online Tutor and animal rights activist. In more than 5+ years of my online teaching experience, I closely worked with many students struggling with dyscalculia and dyslexia. With the years passing, I learned that not much effort being put into the awareness of this learning disorder. Students with dyscalculia often misunderstood for having  just a simple math fear. This is still an underresearched and understudied subject. I am also the founder of Smartynote -‘The notepad app for dyslexia’, 

The post Dyscalculia and Reading The Clock: How to manage? appeared first on Number Dyslexia.

If people find it difficult to tell words that are not voiced out as they are spelled, it is the sign of surface dyslexia. For example, the words like island, honor, bought, Right, etc, are words that differ in grapheme and phoneme. Hence, this disorder is like the subliminal level of difficulty to read. A dyslexic person may have learned basic reading, but they are likely to get confused when the print and pronunciation of the words differ. It was recognized first by Marshall and Newcombe in 1973.

In this post, we intend to cover:

• Signs of Surface Dyslexia
• Surface Dyslexia Examples
• Management Strategies for Surface Dyslexia

So, let’s begin!

Signs of surface dyslexia

You must understand that surface dyslexia is not confined only to reading difficulty. It can gradually manifest into an inability to perform a correct move or perceive coordinates. Hence, surface dyslexia signs largely comprise:

1. Reading-related issues

You may spot a surface dyslexic person/child by these signs:

• Late speech: It is considered one of the results of surface dyslexia. The child is not able to form words because of a lack of ample reading or an inability to read words as a whole.
• Inability to read words by sight: You will find the person always breaking the word into letters first before voicing out; it causes interrupted reading.
• Spelling the same words wrong: You are looking into the copy of a surface dyslexic when the same words repeated in the paragraph are spelled incorrectly. You may find bad and dab as spellings for the word ‘Bad’, for instance.
• Inability to sound out words that differ in spelling and pronunciation: Surface Dyslexic readers may find it difficult to read words whose pronunciation differs from spelling. In the case of repeated words, the dyslexic cannot correctly pronounce those words that differ in spelling and sound.

2. Behavioral difficulties

Surface dyslexia is one of the possible reasons for semantic dementia. Surface dyslexia is not limited to reading disorders only. Going forth, the person may show an inability to do the following activities as well:

• Remembering dates: A person suffering from surface dyslexia may tend to forget dates. So, be ready to tackle situations where the person has forgotten anniversaries birthdays, or bills’ due dates.
• Daily schedule: Surface dyslexia may interfere with the ability to stick to a daily schedule. The dyslexics may tend to forget to-dos from the list of actionable.
• Inability to associate pictures with words and vice versa: When suffering from surface dyslexia, the person may not be able to recall a picture corresponding to a word, or tell the word by looking at the picture, some researchers suggest.

3. Other affected skills

Communication skills get the hit when surface dyslexia shows its impact. One can observe the impacts in the following activities:

• Words’ arrangement in a given order
• Word recall
• Information retrieval
• Word pronunciation
• Homophenes differentiation
• Vocabulary build-up

In a typical WIAT test for checking basic proficiencies, the examiners assess the students on all the above parameters before suggesting the relevant IEP course.

Surface dyslexia examples

If we take a look at all examples of surface dyslexia, we will find that there is a distinct loss of perceptual wisdom. The subjects cannot read by sight, or perform organization activities, to begin with. Other examples that show how surface or orthographic dyslexia manifests are:

• Omission of letters in spellings where similarly structured phonemes appear. For example, you will find mostly ‘e’ omitted in spellings where it comes along with cursive ‘l’.
• Confusing between letters like small-case qs and ps, or b and d, m and w, and cursive h and p, and other similar ones.
• Tendency to incorrectly sound out all letters; low to nil understanding of the concept of silent letters in the English language
• Loss of speaking and reading skills due to a brain injury. Sometimes, due to brain injury, a person loses the ability to read and write like a normal person. It is called orthographic dyslexia. Such patients need to re-learn these skills from scratch.
• Showing average proficiency in some of the reading skills, but failing when the discrimination part is to be employed.

Management strategies for surface dyslexia

Surface dyslexics require the support of therapies and various types of practices to reduce the impact of this disorder. The most effective key lies in practice and imparting the correct remediation activities. Some of the effective activities worth doing with a surface dyslexic are:

• Repeat writing tasks: You can ask the surface dyslexic subject to increase the number of repetitions of practicing the words that prove confusing.
• Play word recall games more often: Once the child or a developmental dyslexic recalls the word from the given picture, you can repeat the process using flashcards. The idea is to work up memory retention and recall by practice and mitigate the impact of neurological complexity.
• Give repeated reading sessions: Helpers or remediators can introduce reading apps, sight word books, or dyslexia-friendly reading books to the surface dyslexics and ask them to read them often and at regular intervals. Thus, the activity helps train the brain to recognize the sentence and develop reading ease.
• Complete the sentence activity: When the reading session interventions are done amply, the practitioners may take the task of completing the sentence activity. They can write the missing tail of a sentence and repeat the activity to build the skill through neuroplasticity. It helps the most when the disorder results from a traumatic injury.

Summing up,

Surface dyslexia is not an in-borne problem always. It may also occur due to an unaddressed reading disorder, or sometimes due to traumatic brain injury.

The problem is manageable up to a great extent if the counselors intervene in correct remediations. It is rather easy to recognize this disorder if involved agencies pay timely attention.

Hence, keep giving your children reading tests to ensure that no aspect of reading inefficiency is ever missed. Though might not be completely curable, it is certainly possible to manage effectively.

Shradha Kalyani Kabra

Armed with a degree in Psychotherapy, CBT and Happiness coaching I have been a counselor for troubled children and their parents for over 4 years. Having a dyslexic child at home made the journey more personal. I have worked at Manovikas kendra for a year as a part time volunteer. In the process I have helped many children overcome learning disabilities and other psychological constraints to lead a fulfilling life! My most tangible victory is my dyslexic child has completed her plus two with over 80% marks and now has trained as a chef from the best college in Asia.

The post What is Surface Dyslexia: Its Signs, Examples, and Management Strategies appeared first on Number Dyslexia.

Dyscalculia is a learning disorder where the child cannot process the numbers or related operations in the mind using conventional methods. The dyscalculic children need alternative ways of learning math concepts. Such alternatives include activities that drive the children towards building number literacy and early math skills.

Dyscalculia activities are helpful for home-schooling children. These can also be used to give more practice of the concepts learned in school.

Main aim of dyscalculia activities is to prepare the child for daily life situations that involve numbers. Child has the intelligence but the tool is lacking for apply that intelligence. The activities, therefore, are designed in such a way that every normal object they come across on a daily basis provides certain learning. Some of the very easy-to-put dyscalculia activities are:

1. Using math manipulatives

Manipulatives are the objects that the children maneuver, arrange, or sort physically to achieve a learning goal. The best math manipulatives involving dyscalculia activities are:

• Learn place value using number strips: In this activity, numbers 0 to 9 are written vertically on two card paper strips. You can insert these strips on date scroller of a calendar. Your arrangement will look something like this: Using this handy scroller, you can ask the child to determine the ten’s and one’s place value of the numbers. This activity can help in multiple ways. It offers the facility to learn counting, sequencing, and place value of the numbers.

• Play board games: Board games are the fun activities that every family member enjoys. Children with number learning difficulty can learn a lot from board games. The parents can design a board game of their own too, by including various math operations at different numbers of the board game.
• Bucket-fill challenges: Make a mini-bucket and stuff it with plastic bears of different colors. You can ask child to take out bears one by one. It serves three purposes – promotes counting ability, it can also be used to teach subtraction. You can also make two buckets of such kind to teach the concept of heavy and light.

2. Play-time activities

How about making playtime the learning time for kids? Here are some playtime activities that can be performed to meet the objectives of building math intelligence in dyscalculic kids.

• Jump down the stairs: Staircase of a garden or a patio/entrance of the house may also act as a learning ground for the child. You can number the stairs as 1,2,3 and so on. Moving up and down the stairs can help the child learn – addition-subtraction, ascending-descending order, dodging number by 1, and number sequences.

• Play with marbles: Collect marbles and give your child 10 of these. Ask him/her to give you back one by one. This simple activity can help learn subtraction. You can also use marbles to make shapes of different kinds like circle, rectangle triangle. Make a few lines using marbles and tell the child to identify bigger and smaller lines or ask to make lines using marbles starting from smaller to bigger. Marbles can be employed in a variety of ways to build number skills in a child.
• Role play – shop owner and customer: You can bring in a little bit of drama into the playtime by donning the role of a customer and assigning the role of a shopkeeper to the child. You arrange some items on the table, assign some price to those. Now, pretend to buy them and let the child do the counting, etc. You can also make some currency bills and coins to give a more real feel to the process. It allows learning the concept of change and familiarizes the child with the bills’ identification process.

3. Activities that promote life skills

Various activities that people learn from childhood stays with them forever as habits. These are also called life-skills. Such activities include:

• Making a pocket diary: Make a pocket diary where a child is encouraged to write expenses made during the day. Give some money to the child at the start of the day. And, encourage to spend on things like buying stationery, balls or eatables. The kids can make a note of expense right after doing some buying. At the end of the day, ask the child about each and every expense made. This enables to build memory retention capabilities in the child.
• Maintaining a piggy bank: Give your kids a piggy bank to save pocket money. The piggy banks can be made openable using a lock and key. Every week, the child can take out all money and count it and leave the score written in a sticky note. The next week, just give a nudge to encourage the child to tell you what the amount was last time and repeat counting exercise. So, you give the child a chance to recollect the last activity and also teach addition. By this activity, you are giving introduction to banking and budgeting to the child.

To sum up,

Dyscalculia activities offer the children a fun-filled way of building number learning abilities. The activities help internalize the concept and build concept memory. Since a lot of application is involved, these activities prepare the child for later life.

Manpreet Singh

An engineer, Maths expert, Online Tutor and animal rights activist. In more than 5+ years of my online teaching experience, I closely worked with many students struggling with dyscalculia and dyslexia. With the years passing, I learned that not much effort being put into the awareness of this learning disorder. Students with dyscalculia often misunderstood for having  just a simple math fear. This is still an underresearched and understudied subject. I am also the founder of Smartynote -‘The notepad app for dyslexia’, 

The post Dyscalculia Activities: A different take on improving early math skills appeared first on Number Dyslexia.

One such issue that is addressed in a wholesome manner is that of learning difficulties, like dyscalculia. People on a similar journey look up for strategies and tips online to apply to their daily lives. They are more likely to find someone struggling with the same situation online than in real life. Must-recommended for parents and teachers not much aware of this issue. So, here is the list of the top 5 websites that have become the trusted source for helping children and adults facing this difficulty.

1. AAA Math

This is not just another website, but an inexhaustible source of knowledge. The site features thousands of interactive lessons dedicated to various arithmetic concepts. It inculcates mastery of math topics in a progressive manner by providing grade-wise segregation of topics.

The students can find and learn ways to solve arithmetical problems according to their level of learning. The best part is that it offers the students ample preparation for using math in real-life scenarios. Thus, this website for Dyscalculia is doing its bit in making the learning process easy and interesting in the most productive manner.

Official site

2. Number Dyslexia

Agreed that we’re being a little biased but we are proud to position ourselves in the list as per great reviews from the dyscalculic community online. Our informative blog is designed in a very sorted manner to give quick access to almost every piece of information a parent or a teacher may need for helping the child in attaining math intelligence. The website, while providing reliable support for dyscalculia, has gone a step further, and is also working around the solutions needed for other early learning issues.

With the help of information on manipulatives, board games, listicles, etc., the website is doing its phenomenal best in acquainting its reader with alternatives they can use to develop numeric literacy in dyscalculic children. In addition, the experts provide insight based on in-depth research on a regular basis. The site provides a discussion forum, too, so that everybody can get expert guidance and also help each other through community learning.

Official Site

3. Dyscalculia.me

Dyscalculia does not disappear on growing up; it is a hard reality. The adults who need to deal with this difficulty are not so open about sharing their problems. This website proves to be the best friend they always looked for.

It is the website that has outlined the problems of adults in no uncertain words and has suggested the corresponding programs and activities that people can join to tackle those. Thus, the users of this website, with its regular use, can have the required acquaintance with problem-solving strategies required to attain ease with mathematics.

Official Site

4. Dyscalculia Services

Dyscalculia services is a site fully dedicated to easing the life of people facing this difficulty in some or the other capacity. You can be a teacher or tutor, an educator or researcher, or just a parent, and this site stands by you in all possible ways. It talks about diagnosis, treatments, and various learning resources.

With its resourceful platform comprising worksheets, practice papers, activities, podcasts, and a lot more, the website proves to be the trusted destination for people directly or indirectly affected by Dyscalculia.

Official Site

5. AdaptedMind

AdaptedMind is a website for dyscalculia based on a fun theme. It has used some goofy monsters to help the children steer away from the math scare. Designed for the students of standard first to eighth, this resource has put together hundreds of math activities and exercises that one can do to internalize and master the concepts.

Right from number sequencing and ordering to applying various operations, the website proves its utility in developing numeric and mathematical intelligence. Numbers are not going to boggle the students anymore; such is the confidence level that this site builds in the students.

Official Site

Conclusion

There is no doubt a plethora of information available for Dyscalculia on the internet. But the authenticity and reliability as well as the expertise of the author can raise some questions. Also, important is the brain space the parents have to sometimes sacrifice to trace these authentic sources of information. The websites above will smoothen your digital journey and provide reliable data for most questions so that you can then save your energy to implement these information gems in the best way possible.

Manpreet Singh

An engineer, Maths expert, Online Tutor and animal rights activist. In more than 5+ years of my online teaching experience, I closely worked with many students struggling with dyscalculia and dyslexia. With the years passing, I learned that not much effort being put into the awareness of this learning disorder. Students with dyscalculia often misunderstood for having  just a simple math fear. This is still an underresearched and understudied subject. I am also the founder of Smartynote -‘The notepad app for dyslexia’, 

The post Top 5 Websites for Dyscalculia appeared first on Number Dyslexia.

Initiatives like the individualized education program(IEP) that came into effect with the passage of updated form of IDEA 2004 (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) play a key role in offering the below mentioned valuable service to the children. Explore to know about IEP, and it’s writing goals.

What is IEP?

The Individualized Education Program, or the IEP, is a legal plan or procedure that is documented under the law of the United States. It was initiated to cover every public school child in the United States who is in need of special education. Created for both professional and personal growth, the act adheres to the needs of a child by having a team consisting of the child’s parent as well as district personnel who understand the child’s needs.

Writing Goals:

Each and every aspect of IEP, right from evaluation to gaining the required support for children from their educational institutions, is completely focussing on a single aim – “analyzing the actual needs of the child and rendering fullest support to their needs.”

The evaluation team comprises of the professionals to understand the exact needs of the child, and a precise report is drafted. Then, the required services are offered by institutions, in accordance with the report.

1. Expert Evaluation Team in analyzing needs

The professionals who would constitute on the evaluation team are, the child’s parent,  a psychologist, an occupational therapist, a physical therapist, a special educator, a speech therapist, a vision or hearing specialist, and others, if any required, based on the child’s specific needs.

A parent would sign the permission form offering the contest for professionals to undertake tests about the child’s abilities. The major tests check the amount of required specific school skills( reading /math) and also overall developmental skills(speech/language). A comprehensive evaluation report (CER) would be drafted by the professionals that enlist their findings and emphasizes the skills and support the child will need.

2. Target group

The major groups of children who would gain enormous benefits as a result of IEP are children with learning disorders, emotional disorders, autism, visual/speech/ language and/or hearing impairment, cognitive challenges, ADHD(attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), developmental delay, and physical disabilities.

3. Timely, required Services and aims

There are two twin key goals for IEP:

• First is proposing the scalable and measurable yearly/ annual goals for a child in need.
• Next is stating the special and required education and other related services as well as supplementary aids and various other services that the public educational institutions would provide to, or offer on behalf of, the child.

Thus, IEP aims to offer the child with timely and required services that would fine-tune them and help them cope better with the world. For that, the schools and teachers are guided as to what measures they have to undertake, and progress is noted, and regular updates are received. But, IEP doesn’t force as a contract but rather is just a sample of legal and proper documentation that would push forward the growth of the child.

Also, measurable goals that a child can be made to accomplish in one year are listed, and the child is helped in those aspects. These goals are completely based on analysis and are from what was grasped from the child’s performance in the tests.

These are proposed after 2 phases. Firstly, discussion with parents and after documentation understanding the current levels of performance and focus of the child. The goals aren’t necessarily academic. They might help to add more progression to the general curriculum and can be academic, but can also be emotional/ physical/social/ behavioral/ self-help, or in any other sphere, they require.

4. Offering Legal Rights

Legal rights are offered to caretakers to find what the child has obtained, is yet to obtain, and there are many professional experts to help out to represent their rights. They can check the process, suggest alterations if needed, disagree if inadequate policies are proposed.

To help legally, even, Attorneys as well as the paid advocates accustomed and having knowledge of the IEP process, would offer representation and voice if a caretaker needs it. Thus, offering the essential space and role for a parent to understand and verify the know-how of the process is also a part of the IEP’s major aspects, whereby the parent is also involved in inculcating the best knowledge and skills in such children.

Final words

IEP might seem a bit tough nut to crack, but it is actually a great investment for the child’s future if done step by step. It is up to the caretakers to make the best use of all the available opportunities like IEP.

Manpreet Singh

An engineer, Maths expert, Online Tutor and animal rights activist. In more than 5+ years of my online teaching experience, I closely worked with many students struggling with dyscalculia and dyslexia. With the years passing, I learned that not much effort being put into the awareness of this learning disorder. Students with dyscalculia often misunderstood for having  just a simple math fear. This is still an underresearched and understudied subject. I am also the founder of Smartynote -‘The notepad app for dyslexia’, 

The post IEP and its goal for writing skills appeared first on Number Dyslexia.

List of 10 best phonemic awareness activities

1. Segmenting and Blending

An awe-inspiring activity for enhanced phonemic awareness is the segmenting and blending activity.  The activity aims at splitting/segmenting, recognizing, and blending a wide range of sounds. Blending and segmentation of the sounds, specifically in three-sound words, are for the best interest of kindergarten students with less phonemic awareness.

The major tool used in the activity is the vibrant Elkonin (sound boxes). These boxes make the understanding process easier and fun-filled, and the children practice segmenting, even without actually knowing it.  Some favorite soundbox kits of children are Carrot Sound Boxes, Snowflake Mat, Spider Web Segmenting, and much more. For blending, the learner runs a car/truck on the road as the individual blends the sounds one after the other.

2. Tapping Syllables

Tapping syllables activity takes this as its very mission, and it is a very practical resource for teaching the breakage of words into syllables. Children tap with a single finger on both hands to recognize the number of syllables in a word. Different properties such as hand clappers, tennis rackets, or drums can be used to make the learning livelier.

The child finds the number of syllables found in a given word, say a drum is tapped twice for the term “sister” as it has two syllables. For enhancing the difficulty levels and interest in the game,  the drum can be tapped a specific number of times. Then, the child can guess the word, which would have the same specified number of syllables.

3. Clapping a pattern

Phonemic awareness can be improved by inculcating necessary skills like breaking words into segments, sounds, and syllables and understanding the deepest things than learning on the surface. Clapping a pattern activity actually does that by aiding in easier recognition of a pattern, which is the very basic step in listening to the separate parts of a word and also the individual sounds. A caretaker or instructor can make a clapping pattern, and the learner would repeat it. Then, the learner should be asked to do a pattern, and the instructor would repeat it. It will make the learner think if the instructor has rightly received their pattern right or not.

4. Count the Words in a Sentence

Phonemic awareness, an important subset of vital phonological awareness, requires the listeners to listen, recognize as well as manipulate and have a hold over the phonemes, the tiniest mental units of sound. The major dimensions of phonemic awareness include the syllables, rhymes, and initial sounds, which the learner should manipulate for beginning to read.

‘Count the words in a Sentence’ is a great activity that helps in the recognition and manipulation of rhymes and words, units comprising phenomes. The game involves the usage of nursery rhymes, and the number of words in a phrase is counted. For example, the phrase, ‘Jill came tumbling after’ constitutes four words.

5. Phoneme Manipulation

The phenome manipulation is an excellent activity to indulge the learners in their way to reach maximum phonemic awareness potential, as it helps in great manipulation of phenomes, as the title suggests. The activity basically involves syllable deletion from one portion of a word to see what the results look like. For example, the activity involves questions like what word would be left if the sound “p” is taken away in the word “pie.”

It includes the identification and manipulation of syllables and increasing the frequency with which they are seen and used. Words like pie, chart, take cape, etc., with hidden words found in them, can make the game at its best. The first sound, the last sound, and then the middle sound can also be deleted and played.

6. Listening

One of the greatest skills that most people lack is listening skills. It’s important for all and highly important for anyone who needs to increase their phonemic awareness. A great activity that can be interesting for early learners/ children for reflecting on their phonemic awareness is by listening. That means giving attention to even the smallest of noises and recognizing and learning from them.

It emphasizes becoming sound spotters, rendering ears to everything rather than using eyes. A teacher/ caretaker can initiate this and ask the learner or group of learners to crave sounds. The key phrase, of who can find it can trigger more enthusiasm and by that more listening and more learning.

7. Nonsense

The basic aim of the game is to increase phonemics awareness by developing the learner’s ability to differentiate between what he/she expects to hear from an audio source and what he/she actually hears. A familiar story or poem would be read or recited aloud to the learner but, frequently by the words or changed or reversed, changing its real sense to nonsense.

The learner has to detect all the changes whenever and wherever they occur. They can also explain the thing which went wrong. Giving attention to these subtle differences, their phonemic awareness steadily increases as they recognize the phonology, syntax, words, as well as semantics of the language. Switching unpredictably adds to the interest of the game.

8.  Objects and syllables

Since phonemic awareness generally aims at an auditory process against a visual process (where no actual words are seen), an object can physically act as a great tool. There are a plethora of tools for accomplishing complete a more tactile and engaging phonemic awareness activity. The little bottlebrush trees and pom poms are great examples of such tools.

A word would be stated by the instructor or caretaker, and the learner would enunciate all the syllables in the word. But the interesting rule is that they won’t say it, but rather they would touch/ push/lift the objects that pertain to those sounds. A joyous game for continuous and comprehensive learning!

9. Finding things: Initial phonemes

‘Finding things: Initial phenomes’ aims at extending a  learner’s awareness of the earlier/ first phonemes by making the learners so comparing and contrast work. It would eventually make the learners recognize the first few sounds in a wide range of words.

The picture cards with few pictures on them would be spread out.  The learner/ group of learners has to identify the pictures whose names would start with the same initial that they work/ discuss presently. If one picture is found, the learner would say the picture’s name and its initial phoneme( like f-f-f-f-ish, /f-f-f-f/ fish). Many variations are found in this game and can modify according to one’s creativity and comfort.

10. Rhyming words

The ability to manipulate and fiddle with words, especially rhyming words, is one of the finer and refining points of phonemic awareness. Being able to have the precision to distinguish between individual segments of a word and understanding how different words are linked by the same phenomes is the ultimate benefit of this activity. The teacher/ caretaker would take the lead of the game by asking questions like which word would share the same phenomes. The words like cat, bat, and hat, can be proposed as examples, and the rest can be asked by the learner. Difficulty levels and interest in the activity can be boosted by giving unfamiliar words.

Games and activities for building phonemic awareness (what research says)

Games and activities for building phonemic awareness offer doable ways to put concepts into action. Instead of simply mugging up the basics, learners acquire phonemic awareness by doing something that yields them measurable results too. Thus, they are more convinced of the knowledge gained; assurance replaces assumption!

A few impacts learned about the role of games and activities in building phonemic awareness are (Extracted from Phonemic Awareness: It’s all in the sound of language):

• These promote teacher/student engagement in class
• Help build and reinforce phonemic awareness sustainably and in a measurable manner
• Suitable for learners of English as Second Language as well
• Build a strong scaffold for spelling and vocabulary skills

Conclusion

Phonemic awareness activities can be done in classrooms, and as a part of the homeschooling curriculum too. These are applied in the learning curriculum after researching their impact on the learning pace. Designed to melt away the hesitation surrounding the learning of a new language, adult language learners can also find a doable way of building their English reading and writing skills. The only thing to ensure is that learners understand the demonstration and that teachers are amply trained for successful implementation.

Manpreet Singh

An engineer, Maths expert, Online Tutor and animal rights activist. In more than 5+ years of my online teaching experience, I closely worked with many students struggling with dyscalculia and dyslexia. With the years passing, I learned that not much effort being put into the awareness of this learning disorder. Students with dyscalculia often misunderstood for having  just a simple math fear. This is still an underresearched and understudied subject. I am also the founder of Smartynote -‘The notepad app for dyslexia’, 

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