Somewhere between one in five and one in 20 children are believed to have such profound problems in understanding basic maths that the child can reasonably be called “dyscalculic”.
Although there might be some doubt about the numbers involved there is certainly no doubt that dyscalculia is a special need that affects a large number of children.
The problem is, however, that whereas a large number of resources exist for dyslexic children the number of resources for teachers and teaching assistants which relate to dyscalculic children is much smaller.
Practical Activities for Children with Dyscalculia by Tony Attwood was written for teachers working with individuals or small groups of such children. The book provides a series of activities that will resolve the mathematical “block” that many of these children face, in a series of small group or individual lessons.
By working through these activities children who have fundamental problems in handling the most basic of mathematical concepts will learn how to handle numbers, sequences, addition, multiplication, subtraction and division. The book takes the child from the concept of “higher” and “lower” to division by numbers over 12.
Practical Activities for Children with Dyscalculia works from the basis that just as the standard methods of teaching literacy to dyslexic children are not very effective, so the standard methods of teaching numeracy to dyscalculic children are also ineffective.
For this reason, these children continue to fail even when given intensive one-to-one tuition in maths using the traditional approach is used. And thus an alternative “multi-sensory” approach was devised for this book.
A school using this system will need to provide a series of coloured counters (such as those used with games of Ludo or tiddlywinks) and for some of the later work, a set of cards. (These can be purchased from the publisher, along with the book).
Practical Activities for Children with Dyscalculia is photocopiable throughout and available on CD Rom so that, where it is deemed desirable, sections may be copied and handed over to parents so that they can work with the child at home on simple exercises. The book can also be stored on the school’s network for use throughout the school.
Sample pages of the book may be viewed at http://pdf.firstandbest.co.uk/dyscalculia/T1654.pdf
Publisher’s catalogue number T1654emn; ISBN: 978 1 86083 710 4
Format of the book
- Photocopiable book: £24.95 plus £3.95 delivery
- Text on CD: £24.95 plus £3.95 delivery
- Both photocopiable book and text on CD: £31.94 plus £3.95 delivery
Methods of ordering
- By post to First and Best, Hamilton House Mailings plc, Earlstrees Ct., Earlstrees Rd., Corby, Northants NN17 4HH
- By fax on 01536 399 012
- By phone with a credit card or with an official school order number on 01536 399 011
- On line with a credit card at http://tinyurl.com/lvceqn
