The seven points below are taken directly from Steve Chinn’s summary of a workshop he will be delivering a Feb 17th. Anybody involved in teaching can benefit from a reminder of these important principals, in particular lesson 2!
Steve used to be the principal of a beacon specialist school for dyslexic students, and has advised the government on numeray strategy. They really ought to listen to him. This is what he says:
“After 17 years of successful teaching in University and mainstream schools I had a reputation for being a ‘good’ teacher, but then the lessons from my first experiences of trying to teach maths to dyslexic students taught me that I wasn’t good enough. In this session I will explain the significance of the ‘seven lessons’:
Lesson 1: Rote learning does not work for all students
Lesson 2: If they can’t learn from the way I teach, can I teach the way they learn.
Lesson 3: Know which students have poor working short term memories.
Lesson 4: Making students anxious does not help learning.
Lesson 5: Asking students to do mental arithmetic, or any maths question, quickly is rarely productive
Lesson 6: Children rarely learn from their mistakes in maths (but teachers can).
Lesson 7: It’s complicated!”
Steve is an excellent speaker and a leading authority on maths and dyslexia. You can get a series of low cost teaching videos by Steve at www.mathsexplained.co.uk.
He has written a number of books and articles on the subject: NEW for 2015 is ‘The Routledge International Handbook of Dyscalculia and Mathematical Learning Difficulties,’ edited by Steve Chinn, with 30 chapters from experts around the world.
