Recognizing and Responding to Learning and Behavioral Difficulties in the Classroom

Recognizing and Responding to Learning and Behavioral Difficulties in the Classroom

Celena Hodnett & Sharon Stone

CRIN X53, Spring 2010

Math Difficulties

Definition

A student can have difficulties in math arising from various causes, including problems in visual-spatial perception, reading comprehension, visual or auditory processing, fine motor skills, memory, attention, and abstract reasoning. The difficulty may be mild or severe, and it may not appear in every math subject. For example, a student who has difficulty with basic computation may show good understanding of another area, such as geometry.

Typical Classroom Characteristics or Manifestations

• Counts on fingers at an inappropriate age
• Uses pencil marks in the margin to help with basic calculation (e.g., tally marks)
• Seems not to recognize operational signs
• Works multi-column problems from left to right
• Has difficulty keeping columns in proper alignment
• Has difficulty sequencing the steps in complex problems
• Struggles to remember basic math facts, such as times tables
• Has difficulty performing several different operations in a single problem
• Seems to lose his/her place during the course of working a problem; is easily distracted
• Seems not to understand math vocabulary
• Has difficulty describing a math problem or asking and answering questions about the problem
• Writes numbers illegibly or in an inappropriate size (i.e., either too small or too large)
• Often copies problems incorrectly
• Has difficulty reading the hands on an analog clock

Suggested Responses, Accommodations, and/or Modifications

• For difficulties in calculating, allow the student to use a chart of basic math facts as an aid. When one fact is mastered, it can be covered, either temporarily or permanently, so that the student becomes more self-assured and relies less on the chart. *
• For difficulties involving spacing and arrangement, encourage the student to use graph paper or provide worksheets with frames drawn around each problem (to provide greater definition of space) or with lines drawn between columns of numbers (to help with alignment).
• Use mnemonic strategies. One example is “Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally” for parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division, addition, subtraction with regard to the order of operations. Another mnemonic for working out word problems is TIPS, for Think (read and paraphrase), Information (what numbers and information do you need in order to solve the problem), Problem (write equation), Solve (WGBH Educational Foundation, 2002). *
• Allow the students to use manipulatives such as buttonsfor basic math calculations and geometric forms to understand fractions and decimals.
• Encourage students to highlight each step of a problem in different colors; this can also be applied to different operations on the page or within a problem, as when long division also requires subtraction (Fahsl, 2007). *
• Provide partial outlines for students with fine-motor, attention, or processing difficulties (Fahsl, 2007).
• For word problems, read or have the students read the problem in smaller parts; check for comprehension frequently. *
• Encourage students to restate a word problem in their own words. *
• “Ask children to keep a notebook in which they write math rules in their own words. Encourage children to use rule books with classroom or home assignments by looking up the rule in the book and talking about it. Rule books could have a math vocabulary section and a strategy section for recording ‘tricks’ that help with the operations” (WGBH Educational Foundation, 2002). *

References

Fahsl, A. J. (2007). Mathematics accommodations for all students. Intervention in School and Clinic, 42(4), 198-203.

WGBH Educational Foundation (2002).Misunderstood Minds, co-produced by the Kirk Documentary Group, Ltd., and WGBH Boston. Available online at

*Parent-friendly strategies and resources.

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