Basic Maths Skills

Especially during the long summer holiday it is vital that children with dyslexia / dyscalulia etc practice basic maths skills .

Learning maths is like building a wall with building bricks. If some of these bricks are left out of the wall or if bricks are not securely cemented in then the wall will eventually fall down.

A solid math foundation is vital for children to succeed. Students with weak basic math skills will find maths a struggle as they progress with school. As a result it is crucial for children with dyslexia and dyscalculia to practice and improve their basic skills in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

Here are some good online educational games your child can play.They are fun to play and your child will not feel like he is doing school work !! :

Arcademic Skill Builders

http://www.arcademicskillbuilders.com/


This is a website that features fun, arcade-type games to practice the four basic operations .Game titles include "Grand Prix Multiplication" and “Alien Addition”. Games can be played with one or more players at a time. There are also some literacy games available.

Crickweb site :

The Digit Workout :

This is a progressive range of mental maths activities in 6 levels, which can help to improve the recall of key number facts . Keep a record of your child’s scores and see if they can improve them.


http://www.crickweb.co.uk/assets/resources/flash.php?&file=digitmenu

World Cup Math from Mr Nussbaum

Your child must win the world cup by scoring as many goals as possible against world teams by answering math facts.

http://www.mrnussbaum.com/football/index.html

For other ideas of games see the great website set up by the Woodlands Junior School in the UK .


http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/maths/

Practice basic maths using a pack of cards – Shuffle the cards then turn them face down.Get your child to turn over two cards and write those values down on a piece of paper. Afterwards your child chooses whether to use multiplication, division, addition, or subtraction to find an answer. In the end get them to write down the answer.

Educational Games to Play Outdoors

Here in this dyslexia blog are some ideas about educational games to play outdoors in the summer :

Schools in Turkey will soon start the long 3 month summer holiday .In the summer kids will naturally spend more of their time outdoors playing. Dyslexic kids certainly benefit from a break from school; however in order not too forget skills learnt ;it is important that children undertake some learning activities on a regular basis.

One interesting approach, is to practice maths and literacy skills outside, through physical games . This approach encourages both sides of the brain to work, as the one side focuses on the physical movements and the other side has to come up with the answers. Also adding movement makes learning seem like more fun.

Running games
Carol Goodrow, who was trained as an Orton Gillingham Tutor, specializing in learning disabilities ,has an interesting site called Kids Running.com. It includes outlines of a number of different educational running games children can play such as :

Get even
Fractions
Sight word scramble
Run to Spell

Also she suggests cutting up maths worksheets and clipping them onto clipboards.Kids then run to the clipboard and do the problem after finally running back with their finished work to have it checked. You could test grammar,spellings etc using the same approach.

The games are designed for whole classes to do but you could adapt them .

http://www.kidsrunning.com/krschoolgames.html


Ball Games
You can shout out an adjective to your child while throwing a ball to them .Your child will then give the correct synonym or antonym and throw back the ball .
You could adapt this game to practice all sorts of grammar points eg different tenses, It could also be used to test maths skills eg multiplication , addition etc.The options are endless.

Pavement Chalk Maths
Get your child to solve problems on the pavement instead of on paper to make it more fun.

Maths hopscotch.
Put numbers into hopscotch squares. Call out a problem in addition, subtraction, multiplication, division etc and have your child hop to the two numbers in the problem and then the answer. ( NB :make sure numbers are accessible to each other).

Times Table Aerobics
Choose a times table you want to practice with your son or daughter .Decide with your child on some aerobics movements to do eg jogging on the spot , touching toes , twisting from side to side etc.
After your child can chant their tables while completing the aerobics moves.

Maths Twister
Adapt your twister game by putting numbers on your Twister board. After you can make up problems for your child to solve eg 5x 8, 5+ 8 etc
Make it harder or easier depending on the age or level of your child .

If you don’t have Twister you could make your own from 20 A4 pages joined together with the numbers 1-20 clearly written on them (place them in 4 rows of 5).The children are then told instructions such as " Put your left foot on the answer of 3 add 5" and so on Repeat until the child has 2 feet and hands on the numbers.

Flash card games -Make up two different sets of coloured flash cards to make a matching card game eg opposites, fractions and decimals etc etc.
Tie some string strategically around your garden. After use clothes pegs to attach the flash cards to the string. Have your child find the matching cards.

Make up a treasure hunt – write some problems on cards for your child to solve and also explain where the next clue can be find – If you child gets the right answers give a small reward or treat in the end.

On the Wirral Learning Grid there is a very useful booklet giving suggestions of maths games “Some Activities for the Kinaesthetic Learner in Primary Education”
It is geared for classroom use but some of the games could be adapted.

www.wirral-mbc.gov.uk/maths/index.asp

Here are some other sites which give practical ideas for teachers to integrate physical activity into lessons:

www.activeacademics.org

This site is from the North Carolina Physical Education Dept - It contains Primary and Middle School Energizers.

www.ncpe4me.com

For some Kinesthetic Language Learning ideas from
Susan Kramer : Learning Disabilities Site : Bella Online go to :

www.bellaonline.com/articles/art14894.asp

In Turkey lessons are generally conducted in a traditional manner.Children are required to sit still in their seats for long hours. It would be good however if teachers could in-corporate some physical activity into their lessons in order to re-vitalize students and aid learning. Many of the approaches good for kids with learning disabilities are also beneficial to ALL kids.... We drastically need a change in attitude towards learning in Turkish schools ............

Parents and teachers be creative and make up your own ideas !!

FORMULATOR TARSIA

FORMULATOR TARSIA- MAKE PUZZLES , DOMINOES ETC

Dyslexic children can benefit highly by playing educational games to help them to learn.Children ,after spending all day at school learning from textbooks and completing worksheets, don’t want to do more of the same thing when they get home at night. !! As a result, school subjects need to be presented in a different format and in a more fun way; in order to stop the child from being bored.They are more likely to learn as a result of a different approach.In this blog we will try to give parents some ideas they can try with their child.

Formulator Tarsia, from the Hermitech Laboratory is a free programme that can be downloaded. It a really great programme and I recommend parents and teachers try it. It is designed to create maths problems, but it can also be used for other subjects as well.I have used to test maths eg addition , subtraction, time etc as well as for Turkish eg opposites, synonyms. It doesn't have some of the Turkish letters - like Ç, Ö, Ü etc but I still think you can use it effectively.

Once downloaded and installed, it is relatively simple to use, you can choose from different types of puzzle, jigsaw, dominoes and card.

When you have chosen your puzzle type, you can type in the contents for your puzzle, this is in the input screen, when you have completed one field, click on the next number in the sidebar and a new input field will appear.

You can check your puzzle contents by clicking the table tab at the bottom of the screen.

Clicking on the output tab will reveal the puzzle that students will be given,of course, you could cut these up before you give it to your child but the puzzle will already be unsorted.

Clicking on the solution tab will reveal the solution to your puzzle

You can save your puzzle by pressing the disc icon, ,

You can insert images: to insert images, in the input screen, click on the image icon at the top of the screen..

If you would like to download the free Tarsia software so you can make your own puzzles, visit
http://www.mmlsoft.com/ go to downloads ( Tarsia Formulator )


For examples of puzzles see :
http://www.mrbartonmaths.com/jigsaw.htm

http://www.mathsnet.net/jigsaw/gallery.html

This site has a lot of ready prepared puzzles but they are for secondary level ( orta okul ) :

http://www.mathedup.co.uk/index.htm

A MULTIPLICATION GAME

YOU CAN USE ORDINARY PLAYING CARDS TO HELP PRACTICE MULIPLICATION FACTS !!

Dyslexic children often find difficulty learning their times tables They will however learn their facts much more quickly if you play games with them on a regular basis , as it makes learning more fun. Below is one example of a game you could try using playing cards !!

Remove the Kings and Queens from a deck of cards.

Use a marker pen to write an "11" on each Jack and a "12" on each Ace.

Shuffle the cards and then take it in turns to flip over two cards.

Your goal is to say the two multiplication facts that go with the pair of cards eg a three and and five =‘15’ .You keep the cards if you are the first one to say the answer.

The one with the most cards is the winner.

If you wish, focus on the facts that give your child the most trouble. You could give a small reward if your child gets a certain number of cards.

THE NUMBER RACE : FREE MATHS DOWNLOAD

The Number Race software is designed for remediation of dyscalculia in children aged 4-8. The Cognitive Neuroimaging Research Unit which produced the software say that it may be useful for the prevention of dyscalculia, or to teach number sense in kindergarten children without specific learning disabilities. The software was developed in France by Anna Wilson and Stanislas Dehaene.

Go to the following page to download free in English or French,German,Dutch and Spanish.
If you understand limited English it is still possible to use this.

http://www.unicog.org/main/pages.php?page=NumberRace

ONLINE MATHS COMPUTER GAMES

Maths Online Games

Many dyslexic children have problems in maths. They could find difficulty with topics such as multiplication, telling the time, fractions, place value, and decimals .


A dyslexic child will usually need to work extra at home in order to grasp certain concepts.


Games work particularly well with dyslexic children as they provide a welcome change from maths worksheets, which they do mainly at school. Games can help children to practice their maths skills and reinforce topics learnt . There are a lot of good educational sites on the web which have maths games.Unfortunately most of the sites are in English.However if you understand just a little English you can generally help your child to play these games.


Below I have listed some good sites to start to look at :

Woodlands Junior school site , UK – this has won very many web awards ,it’s a great site –
http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/maths/

These games were devised by a former teacher – James Barrett.
http://www.ictgames.com/

Coxhoe School ,UK – They have a whole list of useful links for maths.
http://www.coxhoe.durham.sch.uk/Curriculum/Numeracy.htm

Maths Cats :
http://www.mathcats.com/microworlds.html

Ambleside Primary School,UK :
http://www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/numeracy.htm

Count us in – games to help children understand basic number concepts from ABC – Australia.
http://www.abc.net.au/countusin/



Here are some links to particular games I have tried with my child.

ADDITION

http://www.ictgames.com/funkymum.html

http://www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/mentalmaths/additiontest.html

Additon pyramid

http://www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/mentalmaths/pyramid.html


SUBTRACTION

Football subtraction game :

http://www.ictgames.com/soccer_subtraction.html

http://www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/mentalmaths/subtractiontest.html

http://www.sums.co.uk/playground/c1a/playground.htm


MULTLIPLICATION


http://www.mathcats.com/microworlds.html

Variety of multiplication practice games ( Flash cards and magnetic fun )

http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/maths/timestable/

Woodlands Junior school site – interactive multiplication games:

http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/maths/timestable/interactive.htm

The Table Trees
http://www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/mentalmaths/tabletrees.html

Multiplication Grid – Maths Cats
http://www.mathcats.com/microworlds/multiplication_grid.html

Spitfire game – ICT games
http://www.ictgames.com/spitfireufo.html

Multiplication.com
http://www.multiplication.com/flashgames/Monkeys.htm


DIVISION

Division bingo from bgfl.org
http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks2/maths/bingo/bingo1-4.html


GREATER OR LESSER

http://www.crickweb.co.uk/assets/resources/flash.php?&file=ncmenu

ROMAN NUMERALS

http://sln.fi.edu/time/keepers/Silverman/html/RomanMatch.html


TIME

http://www.netrover.com/~kingskid/clock/clock7hour.html

FRACTIONS

http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks2/maths/fractions/index.htm

Pizza party -
http://www.primarygames.com/fractions/start.htm


http://pbskids.org/cyberchase/games/equivalentfractions/index.html


MISSING NUMBERS

http://www.primaryresources.co.uk/online/missing.swf

Missing numbers - subtraction

http://www.kidsnumbers.com/subtraction_missing_number.php