This week I’ve been supporting a maths subject leader wanting to help a very small group of Year 6 children (10-11 year olds) who, despite high-quality teaching for mastery approaches being used, are working at around the expected level of Year 2 children (6-7 year olds). The school has decided to provide a separate curriculum for them, and they will be taught by a highly capable HLTA. They asked for my advice, so I thought I’d share it more widely here.
What are the causes of the pupils’ maths difficulties?
Consider what underlying difficulties there might be, such as working memory, processing speed, attention (ADHD) or coordination (DCD), and how these impact on learning. Before thinking specifically about maths, implement support for issues that affect all areas of school.
The research is mixed as to whether rehearsing working memory is effective (Rowe et al, 2019), but I suggest spending just five minutes each day doing a little if this is an issue for them. You can find suggestions of games by doing a Google search, and Twinkl has ideas too. If working in a small group, then this could be part of their lesson time.
Processing speed is another common difficulty, and it would be worth considering how the delivery of the lesson and the materials that the children are given can support this. The advantage of having a small group is that more time can be afforded for them to be able to process at their pace without the pressure from others finishing faster.
Because the children haven’t progressed as expected through the current teaching approach, a different one needs to be utilised.
Consider the teaching approaches used
Break the lesson up into small parts where pupils are in and out of their seats doing related activities that focus on the same objective, but also feel sufficiently different. For example, make lots of big movement – e.g. write the sums outside by squeezing water out of a bottle onto the concrete while saying the sum, make the sums using wooden digits that they can feel and move around, use manipulatives such as Base-10 or art straws bundled in 10s to represent the sums, talk about the sums using sentence stems. The key is to have the children verbalise what they are doing at the same time so that they have the information going into their brain through different channels at once – this is proven to stick more than just one at a time (Cuturi et al, 2022). Play games. Remember to include reasoning and problem solving as part of the lesson.
Consider the size of the squares on paper. Larger squares than would normally be used in Y6 help children with motor control difficulties. There is research to show that larger squares reduce the cognitive load for some pupils with maths difficulties (Peng et al, 2016).
The best starting point
I would recommend starting by using an assessment such as the one in ‘The Dyscalculia Screener’ by Jane Emerson and Patricia Babtie. It is easy to follow and it will identify a clear starting point. It may feel like the children are going a long way back, but until these basics are mastered, they’re not going to be able to fill the gaps themselves with regular classroom teaching. There are example lessons in the same book and they have written a companion book: ‘The Dyscalculia Solution’ which has more. ‘The Dyscalculia Toolkit’ by Ronit Bird also has ideas for supporting children with maths difficulties. All these provide clear ideas for the teacher to be able to run with. The pupils may not have dyscalculia, but the principles in the books are good for all learners with maths difficulties.
Progression and acceleration
Even though the starting point might be low, there are many elements that may be able to be accelerated when the time is right. For example, if they can show 34 with Base-10, can they show 534? How about 2,534? They’ll have moved from Y2 numbers to Y4 numbers in a short time, because of the systematic (and at-their-pace) build up. They may move beyond their current attainment level quickly once they have identified and understood the mathematical structures. Or, for addition, they may start with adding 23 + 53 in a column addition. Then they can add a 3-digit + 2-digit, 3- digit + 3- digit, then 4- digit +4- digit, and so on. A little reverse psychology often works well here: “I bet you can’t use that strategy to work this one out!” When I do this with learners, they are absolutely delighted when they are successful adding 10- digit or even 20- digit numbers together! In a small group, the pupils can volunteer to be the teacher (and so explain (verbalise) what they were doing to their ‘class’) on a whiteboard. With careful planning like this, it can be possible to get them to a relatively high level from where they are now, by focusing in on very low-level content to start and then building on it.
If you try any of these strategies or resources out, please let me know how you get on, using the contact form. I’d love to hear from you!
References
Cuturi, L.F., Cappagli, G., Yiannoutsou, N. et al. (2022) Informing the design of a multisensory learning environment for elementary mathematics learning. Journal on Multimodal User Interfaces, 16, 155–171.
Peng, P., Namkung, J. M., Barnes, M., & Sun, C. (2016). A meta-analysis of mathematics and working memory: Moderating effects of working memory domain, type of mathematics skill, and sample characteristics. Journal of Educational Psychology, 108(4), 455-473.