Dealing with dyslexia and dyscalculia
- Autore:
- Simona Riva
Dyslexia
Dyslexia is a learning disability that mainly involves difficulty with reading: kids may have trouble connecting sounds to letters, and blending them into words.
The main problem for them is to distinguish letters that (in Italian)
- appear graphically similar: m-n; b-d-q-p; a-e
- have a similar sound t-d; f-v; p-b etc...
Dyscalculia
Dyscalculia is a learning disability in maths. Kids with dyscalculia can have trouble with number sense: for them it can be hard to deal with quantities (especially very big or very small ones), and concepts like bigger and smaller, as well as with maths symbols and complex maths.
Despite they have this difficulty in recognizing the "number" as associated to a quantity, so sometimes it takes a while to decide which is bigger between 15 and 30, it's interesting how they are able to recognize immediately which is bigger if I show them a ruler long 15 cm, and another one which is long 30 cm.
Visualization has a fundamental role in teaching to kids with dyscalculia, because even if they understand the logic behind a maths problem, they struggle with calculations related to carrying out a correct solution.
In Italian schools there is a special protocol for kids with dyscalculia: they have extra time on tests and exams, or a reduced number of exercises to complete, they can use the calculator all the time (while other students are not always allowed to, especially in primary and middle schools).
Color coding, that is using the same color for a mathematical object and any text related to it, helps them to associate objects with their values.