Math: “It’s hard to get enough of something that isn’t working.”

Math is not for everyone, but it can be.

“I’m just not a math person.”“

He can’t do math.”

“She’s like me. I could never do math.”

I hear it all the time. And I’ve had enough. Because I believe that the idea of “math people” is a self-destructive idea in our culture today. The truth is each of the people making those statements probably is a math person, and by thinking otherwise, they are possibly restricting themselves. Worse, they may be helping to perpetuate a damaging myth to our children in schools —the myth of inborn math ability.

How do I know this? I have taught math to students with dyslexia and math learning disabilities for many years. I developed an approach for teaching foundational math and have trained Orton-Gillingham practitioners, teachers, learning therapists, teaching assistants, and private tutors and parents to teach mathematics to underperforming students. Without a strong foundation,  twelve years of compulsory education in mathematics leaves us with a population that is proud to announce they hate math or can never balance their checkbook, when they would never think to share in a social gathering that they couldn’t read or write.

What we are doing—and the way we are doing it—results in an enormous sector of the population that hates mathematics. The current system alienates so many students. Again, and again, I have seen the following pattern repeat itself:

1.    Different children with various levels of preparation and skill come into a math class. I know that. Many of these students have a grasp of basic math concepts and a firm foundation to build on. Some do not. They have missed important concepts or perhaps they never learned them correctly in the previous grade. Although teachers try to fill in the gaps for these students, the curriculum and timeline must be met. Teachers in the general classroom try, but often struggle, to meet the needs of students who are behind. These students often “slip through the cracks” and enter the next grade level several grades behind. As early as second or third grade they are already unprepared to take on the new math ideas that are designed to build on the foundational skills they are missing. It’s a no-win situation for those students.

2.    Discouragement happens early on. By the first few class quizzes or tests, the well-prepared students get good and sometimes even perfect scores, while the unprepared students can complete only what they could figure out by winging it

3.    The unprepared students assume that general math ability was what determined the performance differences. Deciding that they “just aren’t math people,” they don’t try hard in future classes, and fall further behind. Whereas, the students who have the foundation and do well on class tests, not realizing that the other students were simply not ready for that level of math because of a shaky foundation, assume that they are “math people,” and work hard in the future, bolstering their advantage. Thus, begins a great divide in both math skills and confidence.

4.    I am not blaming classroom teachers. As I mentioned previously, there are many demands from the grade level curriculum and timeline. Add to this the diversity of skills and backgrounds that students bring to a classroom. Even elementary teachers have their limits. I know from experience. I’ve met you over and over again in the schools I worked in. When you’re not interacting with students, you’re thinking of lessons. And that’s even when you’re having your morning coffee, staring at the breakfast dishes in the sink or driving to work, you’re thinking of students, projects, plans, grading and those who are behind. It’s a lot to manage. As an Orton-Gillingham reading and math therapist, I’ve worked on school teams with teachers who amaze me with their spirit of creativity and their concern for my students who struggled in reading and math. 

I didn’t start out teaching math. My specialty was as an Orton Gillingham reading therapist. In fact, if a student who was struggling in math was referred to me and I knew they could read and their written skills were good, I was a bit uncertain how I could help. As one of those “math people” I believed anyone could do math and eventually they would get it. But I was diligent and wanted to help so I started taking courses that would provide me with more strategies for teaching math. In the end, they provided me with some math tricks, assessments to monitor progress, how to do error monitoring, worksheets and mnemonics, but most of them didn’t provide the math connection my students needed. Most of them relied on memorization, teaching to errors and increasing fluency through math drills.

Still I tried and I had determination. I worked hard to make sure my lessons were incredible. I’d start to make progress with the math curriculum. But then, I’d get word that the school bought these “new ideas” from someone I imagine as a Darth Vader, suspicious figure already on his way out the door before the clunk of his “new” curriculum was dropped from the school.

Many of the older teachers told me, “just wait a few months. They’ll forget about it.” They were the troupers. They had survived countless versions of “revamping math for real this time.”

Still I tried my best.

I remember one group of students. They were in my Orton Gillingham remedial reading group and their teacher was very concerned about them. They fit the diagnosis of what today is known as a specific learning disorder (DSM5) . They were behind in math and an important high stakes test was coming up. The teacher asked me to put aside some lessons to work on math practice. And we worked very hard with flashcards, drills and vocabulary review. We played math games and I reviewed the list of concepts that their teacher asked me to focus on. We went over them and over them and my students started to feel confident about the upcoming assessment. 

The day of the test came and went, and I hadn’t given it much thought because I was confident my students would do okay.  At the next lesson I met with a discouraged little group of students. Their teacher came in and quietly reported to me that across-the-board they didn’t do well. So, we talked about it and I asked the students what happened? 

students need math help.

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I said, “You seem to be doing so well!”

Each one of the students said, “I forgot.”

“I knew that I knew it, but then I forgot. “

My mind was racing.

I thought, “THEY FORGOT!”

All those lessons.

 All that effort.

 And they just FORGOT!

It was then I had an epiphany. A flash of insight that humbled me on the spot.

I knew better than this!

 I was reviewing and drilling math concepts the students had not yet mastered. I was teaching the same things in the same way that they were taught before.

It wasn’t enough and it wasn’t working

It was time for me to get serious about math. I reached into my Orton Gillingham knowledge bank and started to formulate a plan. I realized that in math just like in reading and written expressive skills, these students couldn’t rely on their memory and recall without additional learning strategies. It was with this group, the idea of OG Academic Math was born.

I started with a multisensory approach employing all learning modalities to support the students’ retention and recall. I developed lesson plans that incorporated integrated practice and review. The 5-part lesson plan included a section for each step to be taught explicitly to my students. It had to be accomplished in a compelling way because Orton Gillingham instruction is designed to be emotionally and socially sound. That means it must be fun and engaging.

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen that group of students.  I’ve taught a lot of students Orton Gillingham Math and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. It’s not a quick fix. It takes time, planning, perseverance and a lot of enthusiasm. But it’s successful, and my students find great confidence in that.

They are “math people.”  

Find out more about Orton Gillingham Math in the next articles coming up soon.