Marianne

Get Help Teaching Life Skills to Kids

July 13, 2017 By Marianne Leave a Comment

We talk a lot about curriculum over on the Homeschooling With Dyslexia web site and blog. Choosing just the right curriculum that works best with our kids’ unique learning ability is one of the biggest reasons for homeschooling them in the first place!

One thing that can be really difficult when homeschooling kids with learning struggles is making time for subjects other than the basics. Teaching reading, spelling, and math to several children can take a good chunk of the day as well as the bulk of mom’s energy!

One area that we have consistently dropped the ball is in teaching life skills.

Can anyone else relate?

How many of you have taken the time to teach financial skills like making and maintaining a budget, kitchen skills like reading a recipe, automobile upkeep like checking fluid levels or changing a tire, first aid, health and wellness, manners and etiquette, housekeeping, outdoor survival skills, hygiene, childcare, gardening…or is it just me?

I often tell parents to focus on the core subjects while their struggling learners are gaining mastery, but life skills are important as well. In fact, life skills are often an area where our kids excel – if given the opportunity.

That’s why I was so excited when I learned that a friend and fellow homeschool blogger (with kids with learning struggles) created a brand new homeschool program for busy homeschool families to teach life skills.

It is called Skill Trek and it is a premium, web-based, hands-on life skills curriculum that contains over 500 lessons for students ages preschool through young adult. Yes, it is perfect for your entire family.

Categories include health and wellness, first aid, financial literacy, technology, manners and etiquette, housekeeping, maintenance, outdoor survival techniques, hygiene, childcare, gardening, crafts, and more.

New content will be added regularly to tie in with current events and holidays.

One thing I really love about Skill Trek is that it is written by the parents of 7 children, including children with special needs who wanted to provide a tool for their own family and have used the curriculum for the last several months with success.

It provides skills from the playground to the workplace and everything in between.

The program has not officially launched yet, but I have had a sneak peek at it and it is FABULOUS!!

When the program officially launches, there will be an introductory price that is the lowest you will see. It is super affordable, even for the large family.

You will be SO sad if you miss this intro price. To be notified once the program is available, click here to enter your name and email address and that will ensure that you don’t miss the introductory price.

Don’t worry- there is no commitment, they will just notify you when you can take advantage of that sale price!

Click here to learn more and be notified when Skill Trek officially launches.

Life skills are one of the greatest gifts you can give your children…and Skill Trek makes it easy.

Orton-Gillingham Reading Lesson & Free Printable Planner

June 23, 2017 By Marianne 3 Comments

If you prefer to listen to this post, click the player below:

Of all reading programs, Orton-Gillingham has the most research to support its effectiveness with dyslexic learners. Over the course of our 20-year journey teaching kids with dyslexia to read, learning about and teaching with the Orton-Gillingham method has made the biggest impact on our kids reading.

Click here to learn more about the philosophy behind the Orton-Gillingham (OG) approach to teaching reading.

Several years ago I became a certified OG dyslexia tutor to increase my confidence while homeschooling my own kids with dyslexia. I learned a lot during my training, but one of the things that I came away with was a better way to organize my reading lessons. This post will share how the OG approach recommends structuring lessons. At the end of the post, you can download a free OG reading lesson planner complete with instructions for how to use it.

Organizing an Orton-Gillingham Reading Lesson

The order of your lessons should be the same each session. A lesson plan should typically include the following five parts:

Part 1: Review

Review is critical to the success of any OG reading program. Kids with dyslexia need a LOT of review, therefore building a routine of review into every lesson is critical for making progress. Each of the drills and the review will take only a few minutes. We make review time fun by trying to go as quickly as possible with lots of smiles and laughter.

During review time, the student will practice the following:

Sight words. Review sight words until they can be read without prompting – a minimum of five times (over the course of 5 lessons). I even keep reviewing sight words until my kids can read them in their daily reading (the readers that come with our OG reading curriculum) with confidence.

Read this amazingly effective method for teaching sight words to kids with dyslexia.

Phonemic awareness. Many kids with dyslexia lack the foundational skill of phonemic awareness; being able to hear, identify and manipulate the individual sounds in words. Separating the spoken word “cat” into three distinct phonemes, /k/, /a/, and /t/, requires phonemic awareness.

Read this for ideas and resources for teaching phonemic awareness.

Visual drills. Use flash cards with graphemes (letters and groups of letters) and have your child say the phonemes (sounds made by graphemes). So for example, a flashcard has the grapheme ‘ee’ and your child says the long sound of ‘e’.

The purpose of the Visual Drill is to build automaticity (rapid naming) for matching graphemes to their phonemes. This is a very important skill for a student to be able to learn how to read (decode) words efficiently and effectively. Your child needs to be able to rapidly recall the phonemes for the graphemes in a word to be able to read (decode) the word fluently (with automaticity).

Use graphemes your child knows but needs to build fluency with and any new graphemes being taught. Put them in random order in your deck and review daily.

Auditory drills. Speak the individual phonemes (sounds) your child needs to practice. Your child repeats the sound and then writes the corresponding grapheme (letter or letters) on paper, a salt tray or on a dry erase board.

The purpose of the Auditory Drill is to build automaticity (rapid naming) for matching phonemes (sounds made by graphemes) to their graphemes (letters or groups of letters). This is a very important skill for a student to be able to learn how to spell words efficiently and effectively. The student needs to be able to rapidly recall the graphemes for the phonemes in a word to be able to spell (encode) the word fluently.

Blending drill. The purpose of the Blending Drill is to put into practice the skills they have gained from the visual drill. In the visual and auditory drills, your child worked on one grapheme to one phoneme or one phoneme to one grapheme. In the Blending Drill, they will work with two or more graphemes that they blend together into a word or syllable. The primary purpose of this drill is to learn how to blend phonemes together, not just to read a word.

We use the green word cards from All About Reading for our blending drills. We also love the Let’s Read series from Educators Publishing Service for daily blending drills. Have your kids read one 2-page spread three times in a row to build fluency.

Watch this short video clip of my 6-year old practicing reading fluency with Let’s Read.

Concept review. Review the main concept or concepts from the previous lesson. Use materials provided with your OG-based program such as letter tiles, flashcards and fluency sheets or games for this review. Use your Lesson Planner Sheet after each reading lesson to make notes of what concepts will need review in the next lesson. It is not uncommon for us to review new concepts for 3-4 lessons, especially in the younger years.

Part 2: Introduction of New Material

In this section, the student will be learning the next new concepts in their OG-based reading program. This may include new grapheme-phoneme correspondences, syllable types, syllabication rules, spelling rules, word patterns or other items. Follow your OG-based curriculum sequence for which material to introduce next.

This should include as much multi-sensory instruction as possible including guided instruction using letter tiles. Make notes on your lesson planner of what parts of the lesson you were able to cover, what you’ll do for the next lesson, and areas covered that need more review.

Part 3: Reading

In this section, the student should be practicing at the individual word level and with stories, or connected text. Controlled text, reading materials that only include words using the rules your child has already learned, should be used as much as possible. This will give him or her the opportunity to apply the decoding skills on words, sentences and running text that they have been learning.

Before reading running text (sentences and paragraphs) you should have your child practice any words that contain concepts or rules that the student is learning, but may be challenging for the student. This list should be created before the lesson.

The All About Reading program has warm up pages for each short story the child will read during his or her lesson. These prep sheets help struggling readers to feel a sense of confidence in their reading that is extremely motivating.

The reading material should provide a little challenge for the student, but not cause frustration. The student should be able to independently decode at least 95% of the material or they will struggle too much to be able to develop fluency.

For ideas on how to improve reading fluency, read this post.

Part 4: Spelling and Writing Dictation

In this section, your child will be learning and reviewing or practicing phoneme (sound) to grapheme (letter(s) conversion, syllables and syllabication, and spelling rules. They will practice words, phrases, and sentences. Follow your OG-based reading and spelling program for what and how to teach.

Part 5: Other Material

This section can include anything that the student is ready to learn that is not covered in the areas above. What is covered in this section will be dependent on the age and level of the student.

Some examples:

Reading out loud. Read out loud material that is too difficult for them to read independently, but is at their intellectual level. This offers the opportunity to help the student to continue to develop their higher order thinking skills with written material, practice visualizing and verbalizing, identifying new vocabulary, etc.

Learn new vocabulary words.

Learn grammar. Practice punctuation, grammar, sentence structure, paragraph skills, expository writing, etc.

Learn cursive (if appropriate for the student) See this post for how and why we teach cursive to our kids with dyslexia.

Take Notes!

Always take notes during and after the lesson to track where your child is showing increased skills and where they are having challenges. This is very important for preparing the next lesson. For reading lessons to be successful, they need to reinforce material previously taught, be sequential and incremental.

To learn more about the elements and ideals of the Orton-Gillingham approach to teaching reading, read this.

Also, always get feedback from your child during and at the end of the lesson. They will give you insight into what they are learning and it helps them to become more aware of what they are learning.

MY FAVORITE ORTON-GILLINGHAM RESOURCES

Programs with phonemic awareness exercises:

All About Reading Pre Level 1

Logic of English Foundations A, B, C and D

Barton Reading and Spelling Level 1

Blending Drill Work

Let’s Read by EPS

Orton-Gillingham Reading Programs to use at Home:

All About Reading and Spelling

Logic of English

Reading Horizons at Home

Barton Reading and Spelling

Cursive Writing Curriculum

Logic of English

Organize Your OG Reading Lessons With a FREE Printable Lesson Planner

It is my goal to equip you to better teach your kids with dyslexia. You should have some kind of reading lesson planner to keep track of what you have covered and what your child still needs to work on. Download the planner I use (below) or create your own planner to organize what you are teaching.

FREE OG Reading Lesson Planner

Download and print to use at home!

Get Caught up on Math This Summer

June 8, 2017 By Marianne Leave a Comment

Summer is just around the corner and everyone is talking about how to avoid the summer slide. The statistics are staggering. It is estimated that kids forget as much as 30% of what they learned throughout the school year during the blissful months of summer!

I don’t know about you but in our houseful of struggling learners, we cannot afford to lose that kind of ground. In fact, we usually spend a good chunk of summer just trying to get caught up on math!

Teaching Math so it Counts

Since I released my latest class on Teaching Math to Kids With Dyscalculia, I have been inspired to spend more time with my kids working on developing their math sense through games, puzzles, and apps as well as working a few days a week on their regular homeschool math curriculum.

Research has shown that kids who struggle with math usually struggle because they need to be taught better math strategies. Kids with dyscalculia often use immature math strategies and need to be taught more effective ways of solving problems.

Kids who struggle with math also tend to lack math sense. Math sense is an intuitive understanding of how numbers work and how to compare and estimate quantities. Math sense can be encouraged in the younger years through intentional play with toys and games that promote curiosity and problem-solving.

The best kind of encouragement that can be given at home does not include sitting our kids down and giving them extra math work or even buying them math workbooks to finish over the summer.

4 Ways to Teach Kids Math Without a Math Program

Provide a math rich environment. Blocks, puzzles, tangrams, and other toys that encourage spatial awareness or involves moving objects around, fitting objects together, or rotating objects.These types of toys and activities help kids to observe math patterns.
Provide time to sit with their own ideas. Providing the resources is important but so is providing the time to explore, build, even get bored are a big part of learning. Kids who are exploring their own ideas tend to consider more complex ideas and be more motivated to experience and learn.
A math mindset. When I was growing up, my dad (an engineer and natural mathematician) loved asking us kids riddles and math problems – just for fun. No pressure, just a challenge. I remember thinking about these problems, for days sometimes, trying to figure them out.
Real life math opportunities. A big part of developing math sense is being able to connect math to the real world. Real life provides many opportunities to calculate and estimate. How much do I need to save to go to Disneyland or to buy a Lego set? For the littlest ones just figuring out how many forks and knives we need at the dinner table is good practice.

Math Resources

100+ Best Resources for Teaching Math: I recently compiled a HUGE list of the best math resources.

Teaching Math to Kids With Dyscalculia: My latest parent class full of research-based methods for teaching math and more importantly, math sense, to kids with dyscalculia.

Mastering Math Facts: More information on teaching math facts to kids who struggle with rote memorization.

Overcoming Math Anxiety

The Link Between Dyslexia and Dyscalculia

Could it be Dyscalculia? Understanding Dyscalculia

How about you? Is your child struggling with math? What works for your family?

How to Avoid the Summer Slide in Reading

May 15, 2017 By Marianne Leave a Comment

I’m writing this post on the airplane as I return from a whirlwind weekend of speaking at the Teach Them Diligently conference in Atlanta. Encouraging families on their homeschool journies is something that gives me great joy. Interestingly, these weekends away, teaching and encouraging others, is a HUGE encouragement to me! I can hardly believe it sometimes when people come to me with tears of happiness and stories of success and overcoming fears and budding confidence because of this website!

One thing I learned this weekend is that as summer approaches, we are weary. We’re all looking forward to some long, hot days at the beach or pool, hanging out with friends and family and taking a break from the normal school routine. We need a change of scenery and some time to rest.

So how do we reconcile this with the knowledge that if we do stop teaching our kids with dyslexia, they’re going to forget as much as 30% of what they’ve learned this year? Here are some options for you.

Avoiding the Summer Slide in Reading

We have changed how we handle the summer break over the years depending on our level of progress, our level of burnout, and our family dynamic. Here are a few ideas for how to keep the learning going this summer:

Hire a tutor.

I wrote recently of how our 9 1/2-year-old isn’t making the kinds of progress we would like. He is likely on the profound side of dyslexia and so we committed to hiring an NILD educational therapist to work with him. Read more about our decision to hire a tutor for our profoundly dyslexic son here.

Continue with your usual program.

If hiring a tutor is not an option for you this summer, you can continue with your current research-based reading curriculum but cut back on how often you teach – say only 2-3 times per week. This is enough practice to keep your child from forgetting while easing up on the schedule enough to get 4 or 5 days of rest each week.

Add in some games and apps.

Check out the extensive list of apps available for supplementing your reading instruction in this post – 100 Resources for Teaching Kids With Dyslexia. Our boys (ages 6 & 9) are both loving the Nessy Reading and Spelling online reading program. Read my review of Nessy and a special discount for Homeschooling With Dyslexia readers here.

Use a new program for the summer.

One way to sidestep burnout is to switch programs for the summer. Sometimes this small change can give our kids that boost in motivation they need as they try something new. My recommendation for an excellent, online, complete, Orton-Gillingham-based program is Reading Horizons. You can read my complete review of Reading Horizons Elevate here.

Whatever you choose, we’re in this together!

How about you? What are your plans for summer reading?

100 Best Resources for Kids Who Struggle With Math

May 11, 2017 By Marianne Leave a Comment

Just like with teaching reading to kids with dyslexia, finding the right resources and methods for teaching kids who struggle with math can make a tremendous difference in their learning.

The following 100+ resources are books, websites, games, apps, and curricula that teach math in a variety of multi-sensory ways that will provide effective tools for teaching math.

Some of the links below are affiliate links. I earn a small commission when you purchase through these links. Please know that I never recommend products that my own kids haven’t benefited from. Thank you for your support of Homeschooling With Dyslexia!

Math Resources From Homeschooling With Dyslexia

Teaching Math to Kids With Dyscalculia Parent Class: This is our 8th parent class and covers in depth the causes of dyscalculia, why some kids struggle, what signs you may be seeing, simple strategies and effective activities to do with your kids at home to improve their math sense. Online video and downloadable audio formats with downloadable pdf for notetaking and access to our private Facebook group for class members only. Learn more and purchase here.

Math Posts from Homeschooling With Dyslexia

Understanding Dyscalculia

10 Ways to Help Kids Overcome Math Anxiety

The Link Between Dyslexia and Dyscalculia

Homeschool Math Curriculum for Students With Dyscalculia

How We Teach Homeschool Math

Books About Teaching Math

Mathematical Mindsets: Unleashing Students’ Potential through Creative Math, Inspiring Messages and Innovative Teaching By Jo Boaler and Carol Dweck

Mathematical Mindsets provides practical strategies and activities to help teachers and parents show all children, even those who are convinced that they are bad at math, that they can enjoy and succeed in math. Jo Boaler—Stanford researcher, professor of math education, and expert on math learning—has studied why students don’t like math and often fail in math classes.

Family Math Books: The FAMILY MATH books frequently are used and recommended by teachers to help families rediscover the fun and excitement in making mathematics discoveries together. With an emphasis on four-to-eight-year-old children, activities in the FAMILY MATH for Young Children book use commonly found items and bring family members together in the process of learning from each other.

With over 300 pages of lively activities, the classic FAMILY MATH book represents one of the greatest strides taken to involve parents in the mathematics education of their children. Using easy instructions and simple objects such as beans, blocks, pennies, buttons, and string, parents, and kids solve problems together. For students in grades K-8.

Multiplication and Division Facts for the Whole-to-Part, Visual Learner by Christopher Woodin of the Landmark School

This program utilizes semantic reasoning strengths, and a combination of whole-to-part processing and gross motor-kinesthetic therapies to compensate for deficits in working memory, expressive language mechanisms, and executive function. By establishing a strong conceptual base, students are able to learn, store, and retrieve facts accurately and efficiently apply them to solve problems.

The Everything Kids Math Puzzles Book by Meg, Glenn, and Sean Clemens
Solving math puzzles stimulates thinking in a low-key way. No tests, no lessons, just thinking and solving. Fun for the whole family. BREAK BREAK BREAK

Web Sites About Teaching Math

Dyscalculia.org
Tons of resources and links for learning more about dyscalculia.

Understood.org
Search the Understood website for tons of information on dyscalculia, dyslexia and other learning struggles.

Woodin Math
Chris Woodin is a specialist in the fields of mathematics and learning disabilities. A graduate of Middlebury College and Harvard Graduate School of Education, he has taught extensively at Landmark School, where he holds the Ammerman Chair of Mathematics. This site is full of innovative teaching tips and methods.

Homeschool Math Curricula for Kids With Dyscalculia

Teaching Textbooks: (beginning in 3rd grade) Like having the ‘good’ math teacher year after year. Teaching Textbooks is computer based (no Internet required). Each lesson is taught and followed by 5 practice problems. Kids then work each lesson right on the computer. Immediate feedback allows students to watch the solution to any incorrect answers – after 2 tries. Read my full review of Teaching Textbooks here.

Math U See: An uncomplicated, hands-on, time-tested program for teaching math. Children learn each mathematical concept by building it, writing it and saying it. Used with base 10 math manipulatives, many dyslexic children find success with Math U See. We use Math U See until 3rd grade and switch to Teaching Textbooks.

Right Start Math: Another hands-on program that de-emphasizes counting, uses visualization of quantities, and provides strategies and visual pictures for learning the facts. Understanding and problem solving are emphasized throughout the curriculum. The primary learning tool is the Abacus, a specially designed two-sided abacus that is both kinesthetic and visual.

Touch Math: A highly visual, hands-on program designed for kids who struggle with math.

Shiller Math: A Montessori-based math curriculum that focuses on the multi-sensory learning of basic math concepts.

Resources for Learning Math Facts

Times Tales: Times Tales is a creative, innovative mnemonic-based program that makes it fun and easy to memorize the upper multiplication facts. Times Tales uses cute, simple stories to provide students with a “memory peg”, allowing them to quickly recall otherwise abstract facts.Math It

Math-It: A wonderful, activity-based program to help your kinesthetic learner master the facts! A combination of mental math “tricks” (ie, to add nine to any number, count one back and add “teen”) or shortcuts and hands-on drill.

Skip Counting Songs: Skip counting has saved my older kids when they needed to know (but struggled to remember) their multiplication facts.

YouTube Channels for Teaching Math

Kahn Academy: 1000s of videos on every subject. Also, visit the Kahn Academy website for more math videos.

Jo Boaler’s Number Talks: Stanford professor Jo Boaler demonstrates number talks and how to teach kids to decompose and recompose math problems to increase math sense.

Chris Woodin of Woodin Math: Tons of creative, hands-on math teaching ideas from math expert, Chris Woodin.

Landmark School: Kinesthetic Learning: Chris Woodin is an accomplished teacher in the world of students with language-based learning disabilities. With a Masters in Education from Harvard Graduate School, Chris Woodin has brought innovative kinesthetic learning techniques into the lives of Landmark students. Kinesthetic learning is based on doing rather than observing.

Parent Teacher Education

How to Learn Math is Stanford University’s Jo Boaler’s class on teaching math.

Maths Explained Video tutorials to help with dyscalculia and math difficulties.

Math classes from Triumphant Learning Video course that teaches hands-on activities for learning math facts.

Math Puzzles and Games

Tangrams
Explore shape, size, comparison, spatial reasoning, patterns and designs using these brightly colored plastic geometric puzzles.

Wooden building blocks
Studies show that kids who played with building blocks as young children did better with math throughout their entire school career!

Rubik’s cube

ThinkFun Math Dice Jr: Kid’s First Mental Math Game
Simple rules and chunky, brightly colored dice make this game fun for early math learners.

ThinkFun Math Dice: The Fast Fun Game of Mental Math (for older kids)

Players try to get closest to the target number by creating different equations using addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, even powers.

Sum Swamp

Journey through the swamp by adding and subtracting numbers on the dice.

Money Bags Place Value Game

For ages 7+. Includes plastic coins and paper dollars.

The Allowance Game

Perfect for teaching kids to identify money values, add & subtract money and more. For ages 5-11.

Sequence Numbers

The cards have the equations….the game board has the answers. Each card has an addition or subtraction equation. Match a card to its correct answer on the board, then place your chip there. Groups of numbers are color-coded to help with number recognition.

Math Card Games

All three of these games are easy to learn, fast-paced, and encourage flexible thinking – a foundational skill for success with math.

Blink II Uno II Set

Math Manipulatives

Kids who struggle understanding math concepts benefit tremendously from the hands-on learning provided by using 3-dimensional manipulatives when learning math.

Using manipulatives makes it easier for kids to discuss their math thinking, encourages them to ask questions, enables them to understand concepts, find multiple ways to solve problems, and helps them to demonstrate their new knowledge and skills.

You can use low-tech items such as beans, coins, buttons, and Legos. There are a ton of fun and affordable math manipulatives available along with teaching resources. Here are some of our favorites:

Transparent Color Counter Chips

100 Animal Counters

Two Sided Counters

And Magnetic 2 sided counter ten frames

Pattern Blocks

Pattern block activity packs

Colored Wooden Blocks

Unifix® Cubes

Unifix Cube Pattern Kit

Base Ten Blocks

Math U See base 10 blocks are the best because the different numbers have different colors

Less Expensive Options for Base Ten Blocks

322 Piece Place Value Set

Magnetic Base 10 Set

Fraction Circles

A physical representation of fractions as parts of a circle helps students to recognize equivalences.

Geoboards

Large Geometric Solids

Attribute Blocks

100s Chart

100s Chart with Pockets

Individual sized laminated 100s charts

100s Chart Teaching Activities

30 Things to do with a 100 chart

More 100s Chart Teaching Ideas

Abacus

See this informative post on how to teach math with an abacus.

Cuisenaire rods

Cuisenaire Rod Teacher Resource

Place value mats

Play money

Magnet numbers

Dominoes

Domino Addition Game Book

Mini clocks

Learning Clock

Playing cards

Card Games for Kids (book)

Edible Math Manipulatives

M&M’s

Skittles

Dry cereal

Chocolate bar for fractions

Operation Math (iOS $2.99, Android $1.99) This app turns your students into spies who travel around the world on different missions. Kids can choose which operations they want to practice as they make their way through the app.

Number Frames (free for iOS, Chrome, and other web browsers) The Math Learning Center has lots of great resources for students, including interactive math tools to help students practice skills. With this tool, students explore the relationships between numbers as they represent each operation with virtual manipulatives. This free app gives kids the space to build a foundation that makes math fluency practice most meaningful.

Sushi Monster (iOS free) Scholastic’s app offers children multiplication and addition problems. They have to reach a target number by picking the correct factors and addends listed on different pieces of sushi.

Quick Math – Arithmetic & Times Tables (iOS $1.99) With this app, kids answer traditional skill-and-drill questions—but they don’t have to enter answers using a keypad. Instead, they can write the answer anywhere on the screen of their device, and the app reads their handwriting and records their response.

Number Line (free for iOS, Chrome, and other web browsers) This mobile and web app is perfect for helping students model their thinking as they explore different operations.

Pet Bingo by Duck Duck Moose (iOS $1.99, Android $1.99) In this game, children answer addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division questions and place their answers on a bingo board. The app is full of colorful cartoon characters and offers visual models to help students understand each problem.

Meerkat Math HD (iOS $1.99) This adventure app asks students to complete different races using math facts. In order to make their meerkat avatar run and jump fast enough to be a winner, they have to answer each question quickly and correctly.

10monkeys Multiplication (iOS $1.99, Android free) Kids can practice multiplication facts with this animated app. The goal is to help monkeys trapped in a tree escape by answering a set of questions correctly. This app is broken down into different times tables and includes a reference chart so kids can review facts.

Math Vs Zombies (iOS $4.99, Android free) This silly app asks children to add, subtract, multiply, or divide one- and two-digit numbers. Students need to answer each question correctly in order to zap the zombies back into humans.

YodelOh Math Mountain (iOS $2.99, Android $1.99) A virtual take on a traditional carnival game, this app helps children practice all four operations. They have to work quickly so that the yodeler doesn’t fall from the top of the mountain.

Karis Math Online, highly visual math games that promote math sense.

Duck, Duck, Moose A variety of free, award-winning educational apps

Apps that teach about time:

Activity Timer

Talking Clocks

Tech Finder at understood.org

Chrome Apps and Extensions

Here are six Chrome apps and extensions to check out. (Extensions add functions to the Chrome browser.) They can be used on Chromebooks or on any device with a Chrome browser. The best part? They’re all free.

Simple Chrome Calculator opens in a pop-up window in Chrome. It can do basic arithmetic, but it also has many advanced functions, like exponents, logarithms, and sine, cosine, and tangent. It requires kids to use a mouse or trackpad to click on buttons—they can’t type in math problems. If your child prefers to type in math problems rather than click, she may want to try the official Chrome calculator tool.

Cloudy Calculator also opens in a pop-up window. It’s a flexible tool that kids can use for many different math problems. If they type in words (“five times five”) the answer will be in numeral form. Kids can create their own variables and even get basic facts like the population of a city.

Search engines like Google can also do these things. But this tool gives simple one-line answers that are stored in the tool’s history. This way kids can access them for further calculations. Kids can also enlarge text and change fonts. To learn how to get the most out of this tool, kids should review available commands by clicking “Help.”

gMath is an add-on for Google Docs, the word processor for Chrome. With gMath, kids can type out or dictate math problems or equations. They can also insert graphs and statistical charts, and create drawings. These tools can be useful for kids who need to show their work. Kids can also print out or save their Google Doc, along with the math work they’ve done.

Graspable Math opens in a sidebar window in Chrome. It lets kids manipulate math equations. Kids can pull equations from websites, or type in their own. Then with special click commands, they can move, combine and separate the numbers and variables. (This can be especially helpful for kids who struggle with handwriting.)

The tool can also do basic math like adding and subtracting. That includes math problems with fractions. It can also be used with equations that have powers and exponents. Each command has an accompanying video on the Graspable Math website that shows how it’s used.

The Math Learning Center has 10 stand-alone Chrome apps for math manipulatives. These are virtual objects like number lines and blocks that kids can manipulate to understand math concepts.

Each of these apps opens in a separate Chrome window. The apps include fractions, money pieces, number lines and more.

Wolfram Alpha is a powerful computation engine. Kids can type in math problems, definitions, and equations. The tool will do the computation and give detailed answers in a new tab. For example, if kids type “calculate the area of a circle,” the tool will bring up a formula where they can input the radius and get an answer. The Pro version will show a step-by-step solution for the problem.

Search engines like Google can also compute answers and give formulas. But this tool does it without giving all the search results, which can be distracting.

Price: Free (Pro version for students is $4.95/month)

Assistive Technology

FX MathPack (includes FX Draw, FX Equation, FX Graph and FX Stat): $65 (Mac or Windows)

Includes: math notation, graphing tool, and drawing tool

With the math notation:

FX Equation lets kids write out equations very quickly. Kids can type in the equation using their keyboards. They can also easily insert the equations they create into Word, PowerPoint, and other programs.

With the graphing tool:

Kids can type out an equation and plot it or draw various lines and curves directly on virtual graph paper. They can then print out the results.

Kids can also view the plot in 3D, add math notations, shading and notes to different sections.

(You can also buy the individual programs separately.)

Geogebra: Free (Mac or Windows)

Calculator, graphing tool, drawing tool, equation solving tool

With the graphing tool:

Kids can plot the path of equations. There are many options for viewing and annotating the plotted graphs.

With the drawing tool:

Kids can draw lines, points, shapes and other features. When they do, the program gives the corresponding equation.

With the equation-solving tool:

The program has a simple equation solver. By clicking on an equation, kids can solve for one or more variables.

Kidspiration: $39.95 (Mac or Windows)

Virtual manipulatives, graphic organizers

With the virtual manipulatives:

Aimed at grade-schoolers, this program has several sets of virtual objects. These include fraction tiles, base ten blocks and more. After kids use the objects, they can save their work as image files.

With the graphic organizers:

The program has a “Step Workspace” that lets kids show and explain their steps as they do math problems. Kids can add as many steps as they need.

MathTalk: $295 (Windows)

Math notation and dictation

With the dictation:

Kids can dictate math symbols and equations. They can use their voice to type out everything from pre-algebra to high-level calculus.

MathTalk requires that a computer has Dragon (formerly Dragon NaturallySpeaking) installed, as well as the program Scientific Notebook (which is included with the software).

MathType: $57 for students (Mac or Windows)

Math notation program. By typing out or clicking on commands, kids can generate complex math equations using thousands of symbols.

MathType can handle advanced math like derivatives, statistics, and matrices. Once kids type out their answers, they can print or save and email their work.

Matti Math: $29.95 (Mac or Windows) (The tools in this software are also available for free online at the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives.)

Kids have access to dozens of virtual objects like number lines, pie charts, algebra balance scales and more to help them understand math concepts.

Assistive Technology Finder

Visit this Assistive Technology Finder on the amazing Understood website.

Graph paper – with larger boxes

Graphic organizers to help with math – free printable from Understood.org.

Online Math Resources

Basic Math Resources

AAA Math has numerous interactive arithmetic lessons. Topics covered include addition, counting, comparing, decimals, equations, estimations, graphs, fraction, multiplication, and more. You can also sort topics by grade level, starting in kindergarten and ending with eighth grade.

Aplus Math caters to grades K-12 so you will find a wide variety of math topics here. The site has flashcards, games, homework help, and practice worksheets.

Math Reference Tables covers general math, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and above. Its general section includes number notation, addition, multiplication, fractions, and units and measurement. This site can also be translated into Spanish!

Elementary Mathematics is organized by grade level (K-5). Each grade has different math activities specifically targeted to that age group. Grade 1, for instance, includes information on addition, subtraction, estimating sums, fractions, and much more. Grade 5, on the other hand, has info on measurements, graphs, angles, and dispersion.

KidZone Math offers helpful math resources in fun, kid-appropriate formats. A range of free, printable worksheets is available, organized by grade level, activity type, and theme, allowing kids to find a worksheet that suits them best. In addition, this site provides timed quizzes on addition, subtraction, and multiplication.

Math Arcade has a plethora of games for kids kindergarten to eighth grade to practice their math skills. The site includes addition, subtraction, fractions, division, and much more.

Math is Fun! as evident from its name, attempts to present math to kids as an enjoyable, interactive subject. Simple explanations are supplemented by practice problems in the following topics: numbers, algebra, geometry, data (mean, median, mode, surveys, tables), and measurements. Also included are puzzles and quizzes, as well as an elaborately illustrated dictionary of basic math terms.

Multiplication.com focuses, as one may expect, exclusively on multiplication. The site features games, self-correcting timed quizzes, resources, and instructional videos. This is a great site for any child struggling with multiplication tables.

Educational Math Games Online

Cool Math Games tests younger kids’ math abilities in a variety of challenging ways. Find games that will strengthen different skills useful in math, such as numbers, strategy, logic, and memory.

Funbrain is a fun resource for kids, kindergarten through eighth grade. At funbrain, you can challenge your math knowledge playing enjoyable games like math baseball or by visiting the math arcade.

Math Games for Kids tests basic knowledge of math in skills like addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. The games are organized by subject so you can really strengthen a child’s weak area.

Math Playground allows you to explore many levels of math in many fun ways. Try practicing your Cartesian coordinates by saving the Zogs or guiding the gecko through a vast land of fractions.

Online Math Learning allows for kids to test different math skills in ways that will make them feel like they’re playing video games rather than being forced to learn. This resource is conveniently organized by subject, and has games for preschool kids all the way up to high school kids.

Online Algebra Resources

Algebasics has video tutorials explaining the basics of algebra, equations, ratio and proportion, absolute value, polynomials, factoring, linear equations, radicals, applications, and much more.

Algebra-Class.com offers help with solving equations, graphing equations, writing equations, inequalities, functions, exponents and monomials, polynomials, and the quadratic equation. It also has a list of resources.

Algebra.help contains lessons on topics that include equations, simplifying, factoring, distribution, and trinomials, as well as equation calculators and worksheets. This site also has an extensive list of math resources and study tips.

Algebra Help covers topics such as fractions, percents, decimals, algebraic expressions, addition, multiplication, and word problems. Each section includes explanations and examples.

College-Cram.com allows students to choose the algebra subject they are struggling with from a drop-down menu, select the appropriate chapter, and pick your resources. The pages will feature formula solvers, bottomless worksheets, flashcards, quizzes, interactive overviews, and brief lessons and study sheets.

Interactive Mathematics has a large section on algebra, including information on factoring and fractions, the quadratic equation, exponents and radicals, systems of equations, matrices, and determinants, and inequalities.

Math Expression has videos, worksheets, and lessons to help you develop your algebra skills. Math topics include algebra, exponents, symmetry, fractions, measurements, angles, and more. The site also includes a list of useful resources.

Online Geometry Resources

AAA Math: Geometry: This site includes basic geometry facts and calculations, as well as instructions for calculating the area, perimeter, circumference, surface area, and volume of various shapes.

Class Zone: Class Zone is a fantastic site for any geometry student. It covers proofs, basics of geometry, quadrilaterals, transformations, circles, surface area and volume, and much more.

Discovering Geometry: Discovering Geometry has explanations, condensed lessons, practice sections, a guide specifically for parents, and student Web links.

EdHelper.com: Looking for free, printable geometry worksheets – with optional answer keys – for both middle school- and high school-level geometry? This site is the place for you!

Elementary Geometry Resources: Elementary Resources splits up their resources by grade level from grades 1-5. Lessons vary drastically by age level, but all are easy to understand and should help any struggling geometry student.

Learning Math: Geometry: The geometry of Learning Math has information for students and teachers K-8. Video tutorials cover topics such as triangles, polygons, geometry basics, dissections and proofs, and the Pythagorean theorem.

Math League: The geometry section of this website is perfect for anyone desiring straightforward explanations for concepts under the following categories: basic terms, angles, figures and polygons, area and perimeter, coordinates and similar figures, and space figures and basic solids.

SparkNotes: Contains everything you need to know about geometry proofs: terms, the structure of proofs, sample problems, and more.

Online Trigonometry Resources

Dave’s Short Trig Course: Easy to navigate, this site has a table of contents containing sixteen different topics, including applications of trigonometry, angle measurement, chords, sines, cosines, tangents and slope, right triangles, trigonometric functions, and the area of a triangle. All sections contain in-depth explanations as well as graphs and diagrams.

S.O.S. Mathematics: Trigonometry: This site is equipped with detailed explanations and examples of angle measures, trigonometric functions, and trigonometric equations. In addition, there is an entire section devoted to solving equations, with sample problems and solutions. A table of trigonometric identities is also available as a helpful reference.

Trigonometry Help is a comprehensive resource for students of trigonometry, complete with detailed descriptions of basic terms (including types of angles, laws, and formulas), lists of trigonometry identities, tips for picking a tutor, and even a brief history of the subject.OnlPre-Calculus Resources

CliffNotes: Pre-calculus contains detailed explanations of the following topics: relations vs. functions, combining and composing functions, inverse functions, factoring polynomials, quadratic equations, exponential functions, and logarithmic functions.

Graphing Calculator Help part of Prentiss Hall’s website, allows you to select your brand or model of calculator, and then offers instructions on how to perform many different operations on that specific calculator.

Texas Instruments: Equipped with tutorials on graphing calculators, explanations and practice problems on a range of concepts, test preparation advice, and more, this site is sure to be an invaluable tool for any student of pre-calculus – or, indeed, any level of math.

Tulyn: Math For All is designed to aid the pre-calculus student through video tutorials, worksheets, and word problems. This site also contains discussions, allowing students to both ask and respond to questions.

Online Calculus Resources

Calculus Help presents explanations for topics ranging from the chain rule to integration by parts.

Calculus-Help.com contains tutorials with audio clips on limits, continuity, and derivatives. This site also offers sample problems and other calculus tips.

The Calculus Page offers problems with step-by-step solutions, as well as information on derivatives, exponents, and logarithms and a glossary of terms.

S.O.S. Mathematics: Calculus provides detailed descriptions for the following topics: sequences, series, limit and continuity, differentiation, integration, techniques of integration, local behavior of functions, Power Series, and Fourier Series. Numerous examples and sample problems are included.

Visual Calculus: This site contains explanations, tutorials, and animations covering the following topics: limits and continuity, derivatives, applications of differentiation, integration, applications of integration, and sequences and series.

How about you? What are your favorite math resources?

10 Ways to Help Kids Overcome Math Anxiety

May 5, 2017 By Marianne 4 Comments

For kids who struggle with math – the ones who have trouble with math no matter what they try – it is not uncommon to feel anxiety when even simply thinking about math. As the mom of a handful of kids who struggle with math, sometimes called dyscalculia, I have had a ton of practice helping them not only to figure out how to solve math problems but to overcome their unnecessary worrying about math. Whether your child is six or 16, these 10 tips will help them to build their confidence and ability in math class.

10 Ways to Help Kids With Math Anxiety

Normalize their challenges. I often laughingly refer to myself as my kids’ life coach. How encouraging is it to a struggling learner to hear that many students have a hard time with math. Research shows that up to 50% of students nationwide are experiencing some degree of math difficulty. Remind kids that “All kids can learn math, we just need to figure out how you learn best.”

Read this post on learning styles for more information on the different ways kids learn.

Play math games. Playing games calms kids who are naturally math anxious and allow them to practice skills in a non-threatening environment. Games also tend to be more engaging than your typical math curriculum and engage multiple senses which speeds learning.

Encourage questions. When your child comes to you exasperated with a math problem or assignment, resist the temptation to tell them what to do, rather ask a question. What do you think you should do? Why? Is there another way to solve this problem? What is the problem asking? Don’t be too quick to help them out. Once they realize that they can figure out how to solve math problems by thinking them through, their confidence will grow.

Remember the concept of a growth mindset. Research has shown that when parents or teachers praise a child’s level of effort rather than their level of success or correctness kids respond by developing a growth mindset – or the belief that they can learn and that they are not limited by a set amount of intelligence.

Slow down. Research has shown that timed tests in the early years were a major turning point for many students who needed more time or needed to understand what they were learning as opposed to simple rote learning. Stanford professor, Dr. Jo Baker, talks about the importance of teaching math strategies over math speeds.

Remediate but allow accommodations. While our kids are school aged, particularly in the elementary years, it is wise to continue to remediate areas of weakness that we observe in our kids. We practice math facts just as we may have our kids with dyslexia practice reading fluency or learning sight words for reading. As time goes on, when appropriate, we introduce assistive technology and other accommodations that help our kids to compensate for their areas of weakness.

Educate yourself so you can educate your child!

Take a class. Teaching Math to Kids With Dyscalculia is a one-hour, online, parent class full of the latest research and tons of effective teaching tips for kids who struggle with math.

Teaching Elementary Writing: WriteShop Junior Review

April 30, 2017 By Marianne Leave a Comment

Teaching writing to my kids with dyslexia has always been a struggle in the elementary years. Their difficulties with reading and writing have a huge impact on their ability to write sentences, paragraphs, and stories.

My goal for teaching writing to my dyslexic elementary aged kids is to teach them writing skills in an engaging way so they really learn while accommodating their weaknesses with handwriting, reading, and spelling.

WriteShop Junior has helped me to do that!

This is a sponsored post on behalf of WriteShop. All opinions are my own. I was not required to write a positive review and as you know, I never recommend any product or service that my own dyslexic kids have not used and loved. This post also includes affiliate links. I earn a small commission on any product you buy through those links. Thank you for supporting our work here at Homeschooling With Dyslexia!

My main goal here at Homeschooling With Dyslexia site is to teach parents how their outside-the-box kids learn so that they can teach them in ways that are more interesting and effective. I have already written about how WriteShop Junior fits the learning style of many dyslexic kids because it teaches writing explicitly, systematically, sequentially with multi-sensory methods that are easily individualized. Today I’ll share the details of this fun and effective homeschool writing program.

Overview of WriteShop Junior

WriteShop Junior D

Who: WriteShop Junior is for kids in grades 3-6. The WriteShop website has a guide for knowing on which level to start. I chose Book D for my 9-year old dyslexic, reluctant writer and it was an excellent fit even though we did much of the work orally.

What: The core of the WriteShop Junior program is the Teacher’s Guide. It is an impressive resource for teaching how to teach writing to every kind of learner, whether writing comes easily or not.

The Teacher’s Guide contains:

ideas for how to schedule your teaching
ideas for organizing your materials
lists of all the supplies you’ll need
a nice list of additional (optional) books to read with each lesson
lots of tips on how to scale the lessons for reluctant writers, and
a detailed description of how to teach each lesson with the reasons why each step is important

As I said, it is an excellent resource that will help you feel more confident as you teach your kids how to become more independent writers.

I also highly recommend purchasing the accompanying WriteShop Junior Activity Pack with preprinted worksheets needed for each lesson and the colorful Fold-N-Go Grammar Pack. We also purchased one of the suggested (optional) grammar supplements Grammar Manipulatives Kids Love! for some extra hands on grammar practice.

How: Each lesson includes the same series of eight activities.

Pre-writing which introduces the new writing concept
Model and Teach which demonstrates writing techniques
Skill Builders introduce and practice new writing skills
Journal Writing for practicing writing skills independently
Brainstorming for generating lists of ideas and getting them organized
The Writing Project where the student creates a story, poem, article, or short report using their newly learned skills
Editing and Revising for learning how to proofread and self-edit
Publishing the Project in a fun or creative way

What I Liked About WriteShop Junior

I felt equipped. I’ve never felt confident to teach writing to my kids. Ironic isn’t it since I am a writer? I know that many other parents feel this way as well. The many tools and tips in the Teacher’s Guide gave me tons of ideas for how to implement and individualize each lesson.

Uses the same eight steps for each lesson. This systematic approach to teaching not only makes it easier for mom to organize and teach, it also was nice for my son who began to anticipate the steps for each lesson.

Teaches different genres. Each lesson teaches different grammar and writing concepts using different genres. Because of this, we covered a lot of material and my son, prone to boredom (ADD anyone?) enjoyed the variety.

Genres and concepts taught in each lesson:

Letter of Invitation with a focus on punctuation
Humor with a focus on narrowing a topic
Adventure with a focus on adding details to a story setting
Science Fiction with a focus on adding details to the middle of a story
Mystery with a focus on choosing strong verbs
Haiku with a focus on choosing strong adjectives
Folktales with a focus on developing voice through emotions
Historical Fiction with a focus on developing a strong voice
Personal Narrative with a focus on using emotion and sensory detail
Expository Writing with a focus on learning to use references

Games and multi-sensory activities. All brains are wired to learn through multiple senses, but for kids with learning challenges, this is all the more important. For example, in Lesson 6, how to choose strong adjectives, the Pre-Writing activity recommends going on a nature walk, collecting items, and taking turns describing each object to teach what an adjective is. My son, who could never remember his parts of speech totally understands adjectives now!

Smaller Steps and Flying Higher. Each lesson contains a ‘Smaller Steps’ box with suggestions for adapting lessons to kids individual needs and a ‘Flying Higher’ box with activities for making the writing project more challenging. Both sets of tips helped me tailor the lessons to my son’s unique interests and needs.

Brainstorming. Brainstorming has been a lifesaver with my dyslexic kids to help them organize their thoughts. My 9-year old was eager to brainstorm and was able to complete what I thought would be a complicated assignment (Haiku) with little effort by referring to his brainstorming sheet. I did scribe for him since he is full of great ideas but very dysgraphic.

How we Modified WriteShop for Kids With Dyslexia

For my profoundly dyslexic son who also struggles with writing and spelling, we did most of the lessons orally with me scribing. This is all that was necessary for him to complete the lessons with enjoyment and ease.

More About WriteShop

Visit the WriteShop website and follow them for teaching tricks and tips on:

Facebook
Instagram
Pinterest
Twitter

Make Reading Practice Fun: Nessy Reading and Spelling Review

April 28, 2017 By Marianne 17 Comments

I was compensated for this review. All opinions are my own and as you know, I never promote anything that my own struggling readers haven’t truly benefited from. This post also contains affiliate links.

This website exists to educate parents on the best methods and resources for teaching their struggling learners to learn. The reality is though that we can be the best teachers and use the best curriculum but learning for our kids is still hard. And honestly, who does enjoy doing what is hard? Not me!

This is why I was so excited when my two sons with dyslexia (ages 6 and 9) tried and loved the Nessy Reading and Spelling online reading program.

Why Nessy Reading and Spelling Works With Kids With Dyslexia

There are hundreds of online programs for teaching reading. What sets Nessy Reading and Spelling apart from other programs is their approach to teaching reading.

Unlike most online reading programs, Nessy Reading & Spelling is Orton-Gillingham-based. The Orton-Gillingham (O-G) approach to teaching reading is one of the only approaches that has been proven to be effective with dyslexic kids. For more information on the O-G approach, read this.

Why my Kids Love Nessy Reading and Spelling

Kids begin their adventure in learning by taking a short placement test in spelling and reading called the Nessy Challenge. This helps parents to know where to start the program.

Visit the islands of Nessy, play games, and win nuggets

Next, kids visit the islands of Nessy, watching short, simple, animated videos to teach phonetic concepts. The videos are engaging and a little silly which helps my little guys remember.

The strategy videos are followed by fun games that practice the concept for both reading and spelling.

Nessy Reading & Spelling Banana Wheels Game

Hands Off My Bananas Game – Nessy Reading and Spelling

Sorting game – Sir Minky – Nessy Reading and Spelling

There is enough variety in the games that kids don’t get bored, but not so many different games that they become overwhelmed. Kids collect golden nuggets for playing which adds another layer of motivation. Also, games only review one concept at a time which provides some laser-focused learning time that my kids need.

Why Moms Will Love Nessy Reading and Spelling

Printable worksheets. While I’m not usually a fan of worksheets for my kids with dyslexia, one thing that I appreciated about the program as a homeschool mom was the amazing free, full-color, printable worksheets and card games that coincide with every concept taught. These have been fantastic for review between the kids’ sessions on the computer. I slipped the worksheets in plastic page protectors and my sons use dry-erase pens to complete them.

Nessy Reading and Spelling has over 1,000 free worksheets

Kids are really learning. Another reason that parents will love Nessy Reading and Spelling, is that their kids are really learning.

Kids with dyslexia need a LOT of practice with reading and spelling to become fluent. With Nessy Reading and Spelling, my kids are having so much fun they don’t realize how hard they are working. This is a win-win.

One thing to note is that while Nessy Reading and Spelling can be used to teach any kind of learner to read, dyslexic or not, it may not be suitable for a stand-alone reading curriculum for kids with dyslexia.

My 9-year old is on the more profound side of dyslexia. He uses Nessy Reading & Spelling purely for review and fun. My 6-year old is more mildly dyslexic and seems better able to keep up with the pace of the program. If he starts to move too quickly and forgets the concepts he’s learned, I print off some worksheets and card games for review before he practices on the computer again.

Affordable. At $12/month, Nessy Reading and Spelling is well worth every penny. They are even offering a 15% discount off your first month for Homeschooling With Dyslexia readers with discount code – BLOG17. The best deal is to purchase a yearly subscription at 15% off which reduces the monthly price to about $7.00/month! Or purchase the complete Parent Pack which includes the following 5 Nessy products for 15% off.

About Nessy Learning

The people at Nessy Learning created Nessy Reading & Spelling to help children who learn differently. They know what works and have a sincere desire to help kids and educate parents. Download a free copy of the Nessy Dyslexia Explained e-book.

Follow Nessy Learning on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and YouTube for more educational information and encouragement on your dyslexia journey!

With summer right around the corner, Nessy Reading & Spelling would make an excellent resource for summer reading review that is not only effective but fun!

The Link Between Dyslexia and Dyscalculia

April 26, 2017 By Marianne 2 Comments

Imagine my joy at discovering that my kids were a part of the 20-60% of kids with dyslexia who also have dyscalculia! Now alongside teaching struggling readers, I’m teaching kids who struggle with math as well. Sigh…

If you prefer to listen to this post, click on the player below.

The longer I teach my kids with dyslexia, the more I learn about the complexities of this brain-based condition and its impact on how my kids learn.

It’s really no surprise that many kids with dyslexia also struggle with writing (or dysgraphia), organization (or executive function), and math (or dyscalculia).

The Link Between Dyslexia and Dyscalculia: 4 Underlying Areas of Weakness

Students with dyslexia, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia all have underlying weaknesses in the same areas:

auditory processing
visual processing
working memory
executive function

Understanding Processing Issues

Typically, students with slow processing speeds (either visual or auditory processing) lack the underlying perceptual and associative processing tools that enable them to successfully process numbers and math.

In essence, processing means information in, information out.

For example, how we:

receive information,
make sense of it,
store it,
retrieve it,
and express it.

These processing ‘tools’ help us to express what we know.

If the mathematical processing skills are not developed, then it appears as if we do not know the math. So while our kids may have perfect vision and hearing, once the information enters the brain through the eyes or ears, things get messy and the information doesn’t quickly and efficiently go where it needs to go.

Understanding Working Memory Issues

Working memory refers to the brain processes used for temporary storage and use of information and affects our ability to remember instructions and recall rules such as in games, reading or math.

It is similar to processing as in the previous example but involves manipulating the information that is being taken in as well – therefore the term ‘working’ memory.

Working Memory operates over only a few seconds, and it allows us to focus our attention, resist distractions, and guide our decision-making.

Doing math in “your head,” or mental math, requires significant amounts of working memory. Children need to store the information, hold it in mind for the time necessary to use it, retrieve the math facts that they have presumably learned, and then process the information.

Consider doing a math word problem in which one needs to keep in mind all of the facts that they have just heard, engage in calculations, and then recall additional math facts in order to arrive at a solution

Example problem: There were 1768 cars in the convention center parking lot. Half of the cars left after an afternoon concert and 1020 more cars came in for the evening show. How many cars were there before the evening show let out?

Word problems can be particularly difficult. Our kids may know how to do different kinds of calculations. However, many kids can run into trouble with word problems. It’s difficult to listen for clue words that indicate which operation to use, while at the same time remembering the numbers that need to be plugged into the equation.

Low working memory causes problems with the efficient learning of both calculations and higher level problem-solving.

Research shows that the most common deficit among all students with dyscalculia, with or without co-occurring dyslexia, is their difficulty in performing on working memory tasks.

Understanding Executive Function Weaknesses

Executive function refers to the network of the brain that is responsible for planning, organizing, prioritizing, and recognizing errors and also involves working memory.

Executive functioning issues can produce a wide range of symptoms. Depending on which skills your child struggles with the most, and the particular task he or she is doing, you might see the following signs:

Finds it hard to figure out how to get started on a task
Can focus on small details or the overall picture, but not both at the same time
Has trouble figuring out how much time a task requires
Does things either quickly and messily or slowly and incompletely
Finds it hard to incorporate feedback into work or an activity
Sticks with a plan, even when it’s clear that the plan isn’t working
Has trouble paying attention and is easily distracted
Loses a train of thought when interrupted
Needs to be told the directions many times
Has trouble making decisions
Has a tough time switching gears from one activity to another
Doesn’t always have the words to explain something in detail
Needs help processing what something feels/sounds/looks like
Isn’t able to think about or do more than one thing at a time
Remembers information better using cues, abbreviations or acronyms

That’s nice, but now what?

Knowing about these co-existing weaknesses helps us to understand the bigger picture when it comes to these outside the box thinkers of ours, doesn’t it? We can’t fix the problem unless we know what’s broken.

If you’ve been around this site for long, you know that I don’t for one second think that our kids are broken. To the contrary, I believe that our kids (and husbands or wives) have been created this way for a purpose – for great purpose. See all of these dyslexia success stories.

The reality is though that we need to teach these guys how to read and write and do math. When parents take the time to learn how their kids learn (and don’t learn) they are better able to teach their kids.

Teaching Math to Kids With Dyscalculia

Take a class. Teaching Math to Kids With Dyscalculia is a one-hour, online, parent class full of the latest research and tons of effective teaching tips for kids who struggle with math.

How about you? Do your kids struggle with math?

Teaching the Profoundly Dyslexic Child

April 21, 2017 By Marianne 2 Comments

If you prefer to listen to this post, click on the player below.

Every child with dyslexia is unique. There is no one profile of strengths and weaknesses that typifies every person with dyslexia. There are signs of dyslexia that can be known, but not every person will have all the signs or struggle with the same things. One of the reasons for this is that there are a variety of underlying weaknesses that affect dyslexia.

Almost every person with dyslexia will have weaknesses from one degree to another in the following areas:

visual processing
auditory processing
working memory
executive function

Intelligence also plays a role. It can be difficult to detect dyslexia in dyslexic people with higher than average intelligence because they often figure out compensation strategies that can mask dyslexic weaknesses. The degree of dyslexia a person has will be affected by their relative strengths in each of these areas and result in either mild, moderate, or profound dyslexia.

Mild Dyslexia

Having seven kids (and one husband) with dyslexia, I’ve just about seen it all. My mildly dyslexic kids learned to read independently, despite my early years of bumbling through programs that didn’t work, at about 9 or 10 years of age. The more they read, the better they spelled, and today as teenagers and adults you cannot tell that they are dyslexic except for the occasional incorrect homonym spelling (too, to, there, their, your, you’re).

Moderate Dyslexia

My moderately dyslexic kids learned to read independently (without intervention with an OG reading program) when they were older – between 11 and 12 years old. They seemed to have more coexisting learning issues, like dysgraphia, dyscalculia, and attention issues (executive function weaknesses).

They can read, but they don’t enjoy it much and prefer to listen to books and podcasts and watch YouTube videos to learn. Their spelling, even as adults, still has errors although they are all becoming masters of assistive technology helps such as speech-to-text apps and phonetic spell checkers.

For a list of the best assistive technology for people with dyslexia, visit our Resources Page.

Profound or Severe Dyslexia

I have two kids who are profoundly dyslexic. They have a lot more confusion about just about everything. One of my kids simply could not remember how old he was even at 9 years old with much prompting!

They definitely had more co-existing learning issues but their weak executive functioning skills were by far the most debilitating of their issues. Executive functions help us to plan, organize and prioritize our thoughts. This disorganized thinking, in addition to dyslexia, makes learning that much harder.

How to Test for Different Degrees of Dyslexia

There is no clear set of criteria for determining an individual’s degree of dyslexia. It can be predicted by how far certain test scores are away from each other, or standard deviations. Every case is relative and will depend on how the diagnostician determines it. We were not told a level with our profoundly dyslexic son. Yes, his test scores had some extreme numbers, but it was the long-term struggle he had learning to read even with the right kind of dyslexia instruction that led to him being labeled as profoundly dyslexic.

Dyslexic kids will grow up to be dyslexic adults, but with help, they can increase cognitive functions and can move out of the mild, moderate, or profound levels which is why many diagnosticians don’t classify.

How to Teach Profoundly Dyslexic Kids

The number one warning sign of a profoundly dyslexic child is their painfully slow progress, even with solid, professional dyslexia tutoring. By the time our first profoundly dyslexic child was school-aged, we knew a lot more about dyslexia.

We knew that he was dyslexic, but when he wasn’t learning well at home, we found a local certified dyslexia tutor. Progress was slow so we upped his sessions to 3 times a week. He even went to the tutor all summer with little improvement.

After three years, he still couldn’t pick up a book and read. He was almost 12 years old.

We switched to a program in our area that incorporated more working memory exercises, visual and auditory memory exercises and crossing the midline activities. His reading took off that year!

That awesome multi-sensory, Orton-Gillingham program is called NILD. Visit the NILD website to learn more or to find a tutor in your area.

Besides finding a qualified educational therapist to teach, these are other support strategies for teaching the profoundly dyslexic student:

Scaffolding: Scaffolding providing additional support for kids while teaching. It could mean breaking up the learning into chunks and then providing individualized instruction with each chunk. When scaffolding reading, for example, you might preview the text with your child, discuss key vocabulary, or chunk the text and read and discuss as you go.

Teach them strategies: One hallmark strategy across all subjects for kids with profound dyslexia is to explicitly teach them strategies for completing their work. Examples of useful strategies are: mind-mapping for organizing their thoughts, lists of procedures and ‘cheat sheets’ for math, acronyms for remembering facts, and so on.

For more information on teaching strategies and providing scaffolding for dyslexic learners, check out my Parent Course: Teaching Organization with tons of tips for teaching organization to kids with executive function weaknesses.

Accommodations: Maybe your child your child is not able to read their assignment at all. In this case an appropriate accommodation would be to give them an entirely different piece of text to read, read it to your child, or allow the use of an audio version, and you may modify the writing assignment that follows. For more on the best accommodations for dyslexia, read this.

Assistive technology: Since kids who are profoundly dyslexic will be reading below their grade level longer, introducing assistive technology as soon as needed is super helpful. Speech-to-text apps record their words so they can express their true thoughts on a subject without worrying about spelling. Text-to-speech apps can read text online or e-books out loud to them. Phonetic spell checkers can actually decipher their attempts to spell and help them find the correct word.

For lists of the best assistive technology for people with dyslexia, see our Resources Page.

Some Encouragement for Parents of Profoundly Dyslexic Kids

Yes, these kids need a lot of support!

It is important to remember that dyslexia and its accompanying learning struggles make school endeavors difficult. That is why it is called a learning disability my many.

In my experience, dyslexia is a learning difference. Our friends and family that have so much trouble in school often take off once they leave school. The reason for this is that their strengths often lie in non-academic areas. That is not to say that they lack intelligence. It is to say that we are all created for unique purpose with a unique set of strengths that equip us to achieve that purpose.

For more information on the strengths unique to people with dyslexia, read this post on Dyslexic Strengths.