When Playing Games Isn't Fun
As a parent of a child with a learning disability in math, I've received a lot of advice about how important it is to help develop math skills by playing games together. While I don't disagree with the recommendation and do agree it’s important, I want to talk with you about the reality of what that looks like when your student is dyscalculic.
There are some considerations to be made before playing games with a dyscalculic child.
Before we knew our daughter was dyscalculic, we would often become frustrated when playing games together. While she was interested in playing games, she would become frustrated because she could never do very well and would be easily confused. It was hard that she didn't know how to quickly add dice or keep score.
For example, she always lost at the game, Connect Four. She didn’t know the game was over when someone one, unless we told her it was over. Games like Shoots and Ladders were overwhelming to her. We couldn’t figure it out. We would play a game called, I See Ten. It was a fishing game and you would try to make the number 10 with different numbers. It only caused frustration and confusion, and not just on my part as the parent playing the game with my child, but my daughter was confused too. She didn't know why she couldn't do it things that others seemed to do so easily. She quickly lost interest in playing many of our games.
This is where some of the games can end up being a more harmful than helpful experience, because I didn't understand. I didn't understand her struggle with numbers. I didn't understand why it was so difficult to play many games, not just Monopoly. These cames only caused further confusion and stress.
It wasn't until I had a better understanding of her lack of sense of numbers and quantities, her inability to subitize (see small quantities and know how many there were), her struggle to do simple math calculations. It wasn't until I really understood dyscalculia and the impact it had on her, that we were able to choose games that were more fun, and that made more sense.
She needed to learn some foundational skills that she did not innately have. I didn't know that my daughter had to count each of the dots on the dice when we played a game. No wonder it took so long for her to add several different dice, or to choose a pattern out of a group of dice that were thrown, or to be able to play dominoes. So those games weren't fun until she learned how to recognize and work with specific dot patterns from some books by Ronit Bird, Dorian Yeo, and Jane Emerson. After she grasped the concept and understanding of how dot patterns worked, then games like dominoes and dice games become more fun.
We enjoy playing Quixx now, a family game with dice. Now, it's fun. Now, it solidifies her growing numbers and math understanding. But before learning these methods for gaining number-sense, and understanding how dyscalculia impacted her sense of number, it was just more trauma to play those games.
I encourage you to think about the games that are being suggested by teachers and professionals. Does your child have the skills to be able to play that game? Do they have the number understanding to be able to have a good time and enjoy those games and make those connections?
If they don't, that’s ok! There are ways that they can go about learning some of those basic foundational sense of number, so that those games can be fun and can be a way that you connect as a family.
To learn more about how to help students gain a foundational sense of number, join my Dyscalculia Math Education Coaching!