For some reason we have two toolboxes in our garage, an old small metal toolbox, and a large plastic one with an unreliable latch. The frustrating thing about this is that there is no rhyme or reason to what tools are in either toolbox. You never know if the specific tool you need is in the toolbox you grabbed from the shelf.

Having Dyscalculia is much like opening a toolbox only to discover that the tool you need at the moment is not available. You have to quickly improvise and go with what you do have to work with.

The other day my dyscalculic daughter and I were playing a dice game. My daughter stopped and puzzled over the dice, 6 and 4. The goal was to quickly add them together by recognizing the dot patterns, instead of individually counting each dot. This is a method she has learned from Ronit Bird’s e-book on Recognizing Numbers Through Dot Patterns.

She paused and said to me, “I want to start at the 6 and count up to the 4, but I know that I’m trying to work on adding without counting that way.”

I nodded, letting her know she was on the right track.

She continued to process out-loud, “Oh! I see a 7 and a 3, which I know is 10!”

I felt puzzled for a moment, “How does she see a 7 and a 3, the dice are clearly a 6 and a 4?” Looking at the dice again, I saw it. She recognized the 4 dots on one of the dice as a dot pattern making a square box, and she recognized the 3-dot pattern on half of the 6-dice. In her mind the 4-dot plus 3-dot pattern is something she recognizes as a “toybox” or 7. She then noticed she had 3-dots left over on the second dice. The math fact that was available to her mind in that moment was 7 + 3 = 10.

Now, with Dyscalculia, all the learned number facts are not accessible in the same way all the time. They disappear and reappear without warning. This is critical to know and remember! Otherwise you may find yourself frustrated, confused, and yelling at your child, “But you KNOW this!”

Well yes, they may have known that particular fact yesterday, but that doesn’t mean they know it today!

My daughter had learned that 4 + 6 = 10, and usually she could remember that easily. But not today. Today she looked at 4 and 6 and it didn’t ring a bell. It’s as if the flathead screwdriver was missing from the toolbox, and she would need to use a different tool. Her way to solve this problem was to move on to something she could use instead, which was the accessible fact that 3 + 7 = 10.

Another example of this: 4 + 5 = 9 seemed to be one number fact that was solid in my daughter’s mind. She rarely struggled to recall this. Then one day she kept stumbling over 4 + 5 as if it was something new she had never learned!

This is why teaching how to reason from what can be recalled is so important for those with Dyscalculia, and why focusing on memorization is a nearly impossible task. In her e-book, “Exploring Number Through Dot Patterns” Ronit Bird, a Dyscalculia educator, writes:

“By promoting visualisation techniques, by carefully managing the transition between practical exploration and pictorial representations, and by explicitly practising reasoning methods by which one numerical fact can be derived from another, all children can be taught to develop simple calculation strategies that are logical, reliable and efficient.” - Ronit Bird. Exploring Numbers Through Dot Patterns, 2013.

Developing skills in critical thinking and problem solving enables dyscalculic learners to flex with whatever is available to them. This method goes against what is usually taught in schools. For most students, traditional teaching methods place an emphasis on memorizing math facts. “Math fluency” is an emphasized goal used to describe the automatic retrieval of number facts. This memorization is fine if you are a neurotypical child, but if you are dyscalculic this way is a recipe for high anxiety and defeat. This means that in order to do what’s best for your dyscalculic child, you need to know it’s okay (and even best) to deviate from traditional teaching methods, and instead focus on teaching for understanding using critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

To learn more about visualization for dyscalculics, check out my Coaching Packages for teachers, parents, or dyscalculic adults.