WHAT IS THE PROBLEM WITH MATH?

So far, I have been talking about how confusion causes dyslexia and the source of such confusion stems from symbols that dyslexics cannot picture, such as punctuation marks and high frequency words, which impact their decoding, reading fluency and comprehension.

Dyslexics also encounter confusion when dealing with math subject (typically with word problems), not because they do not have the skill to do arithmetic but because they struggle to comprehend the questions.

You see them re-reading the questions. Frowns start to form, fingers start tapping on the table, they start fidgeting and soon, they throw their hands in the air and give up.

There are math specific vocabulary such as “remainder”, “more than”, “twice as much as” and even concepts such as “1/5”, “1/2”, “2/3” that a dyslexic struggles with.

The first step to help the child is to acknowledge the child’s picture thinking style. The child needs to master not only the meaning of those specific vocabulary that confuses them, but also be able to picture and understand how fractions are represented visually. Once the confusion is replaced with certainty, things become more easeful for the child.

---