Supporting People with Dyslexia
to Learn Mathematics

See also: Learning with Dyslexia

Dyslexia is often perceived as a problem with words and reading. However, as our page on Understanding Dyslexia explains, it is actually an issue with how information is taken in and processed in the brain. This means that it can affect learning in any subject. However, two common ‘problem areas’ are mathematics and languages.

Lynn Joffe, an academic who studied mathematics learning among people with dyslexia, found that as many as 60% of people with dyslexia had problems with mathematics. Some estimates suggest it is even higher: up to 90%. These problems can start early, but also tend to worsen through school, probably as mathematics becomes more complicated. It is therefore important that teachers of mathematics understand how best to support learners with dyslexia.

The Effect of Dyslexia on Mathematics Learning

Our page on Teaching Children with Dyslexia explains that dyslexia causes difficulties in three main areas. These three areas all have implications for maths and maths learning:

  • Phonological awareness, or the ability to pick out and distinguish sounds within spoken language. Children with dyslexia often find it difficult to understand the language of maths: the symbols for operations, for example. Algebra can be a huge challenge because it adds random letters. Children with dyslexia may also transpose numbers (43 for 34, for example) when writing down operations, and often find place value (units, tens, hundreds) difficult to understand.

  • Verbal memory, or the ability to remember a sequence of words. Being able to follow a sequence of processes is vital in maths, especially in solving complex problems. Many children with dyslexia get lost during the sequence, and therefore cannot complete problem-solving. Formulae often need to be learned, adding to the problems.

  • Verbal processing speed, or the pace at which words and information can be processed within the brain. Decoding symbols can be extremely difficult for children with dyslexia, who may therefore struggle to distinguish between operations in mathematics (+ or ×, for example). At a more advanced level, the presentation of maths problems in word form can hide the task from children with dyslexia.

In maths, these difficulties are often compounded over time by a growing lack of confidence.

Dyslexia is not widely understood, including in the teaching community. Difficulties with maths are therefore often not seen as a sign of dyslexia in the same way that problems with reading might be flagged early. Children with dyslexia, especially when it is undiagnosed, often fall further and further behind their peers in maths, and struggle to understand why.

Not unnaturally, this has a huge effect on their confidence in their ability to ‘do’ maths—and therefore on their willingness to ‘have a go’.

Supporting Maths Learning for Children with Dyslexia

The precise strategies that will help to support maths learning among children with dyslexia will obviously vary with their age, and the subject matter. However, there are also some broad principles that will be helpful.

Broad Principles and Strategies

  1. Make your teaching structured and cumulative. Over the course of each lesson, build on previous learning—and make the links explicit. We all learn better when we can make links between ideas and concepts. It builds stronger neural pathways. This approach will therefore help children whether or not they have dyslexia. It is also worth saying that what is obvious to you—especially if you are a maths specialist—may well not even occur to your students. It is therefore well worth making connections absolutely explicit, even if you don’t feel it is necessary.

  2. Go over the last lesson’s learning at the start of each lesson. Before you start anything new, take time to remind your students about what you covered in the last lesson. Even if they remember, it is still helpful to go over the concepts again. It consolidates the learning, especially if you discuss it and engage with them about it. Children with dyslexia may find it hard to remember from one lesson to the next, so this may be an essential tool to ensure that they get any value from lessons.

  3. Avoid technical language. It is best to use everyday terms when explaining new mathematical concepts. Obviously you have to introduce mathematical terms, but try to make sure that you also explain them in plain English. This will ensure that your students understand the concepts behind the terms, as well as recognising maths terms. This is important from a very early age, because children with dyslexia often struggle to understand the meaning of symbols like =, and may decide the meaning for themselves (our page on Dyscalculia provides one example of how this may occur). It is also worth encouraging students to explain maths concepts back to you in their own language. This will ensure that everyone has understood.

  4. Teach children strategies to cope with maths word problems. Word problems (questions that set out a mathematical problem using a brief word picture, rather than simply in terms of the numbers) are a recurring issue in maths from a very early stage. All learners need strategies to address them, but most children will develop those for themselves. Children with dyslexia may need more help—but all children will benefit from being given a clear strategy.

    One possible strategy is set out in the box below.

    A strategy for solving maths word problems


    • Start by reading the problem carefully, looking for important information. Underline or highlight words that you think might be key to helping you work out what you are supposed to do.

    • If necessary, rewrite the problem in different words, to help you identify the task.

    • Identify keywords that show what operation (add, divide etc.) is needed to solve the problem.

    • Look for what information you need to obtain in the answer (for example, how many are left, what is the total).

    • Use symbols such as x for the missing information.

    • Remove distracting information by drawing a line through it (for example, use initials instead of names).

    • Draw pictures to help you see the problem more clearly.

    • Consider whether this problem is similar to a problem you have previously seen. If so, how did you solve that one?

    • Develop a plan to solve the problem, using the important information.

    • Use aids such as number squares, calculators or computers if necessary to solve the problem.

    • Check whether the answer seems reasonable (for example, if you were asked to find the time it took to drive somewhere, is your answer in minutes or hours, rather than seconds or days?)

    • Work the problem backwards, starting with your answer, to see if you end up with the problem.

  5. Use group work and collaborative solving

    Using group work can be an effective way to support students.

    You might, for example, ask your students to work together to solve maths problems. This will mean that they have to voice and discuss concepts, which will help to consolidate learning. It will also help them develop other skills, such as team-working.

    WARNING! Group working can also hide difficulties


    Group working can be a great way for children to learn, because of having to discuss their understanding. It is, however, worth keeping an eye on what is going on within the groups, to make sure that those who have understood are not doing all the work, leaving the others behind.


    Another way might be for students to work in small groups supported by an adult or more experienced student. This will enable anyone who is struggling to ask questions without feeling exposed to the whole class. This often works especially well at primary school, where learning assistants may be more common. However, it can also work at secondary level, especially if older children commonly act as mentors.

  6. Use multi-sensory approaches to learning

    Use methods that engage more than one sense for teaching, especially of new concepts.

    Our page on Learning Styles explains one model of learning, the VAK model (for visual, auditory and kinaesthetic). The original idea was that everyone had a preference, and should tailor their learning to that. However, more up-to-date thinking suggests that using multi-sensory approaches, covering all three types of learning, enables better engagement and therefore learning.

    In practice, this means using models or concrete aids that can be moved around, together with written and verbal explanations, asking learners to explain ideas themselves, and even moving around the classroom. It may also be helpful to provide aids, such as pictures, songs, or rhymes, to help children to retain ideas in their long-term memory.

  7. Give children their own resources

    Make sure that each child has their own textbook or worksheet, rather than putting problems up on the board.

    It is often difficult for children with dyslexia to keep track of where they are in a long list of problems. They have to constantly recheck and reprocess all the information to find their place.

    It saves time if they can have their own worksheet or list of questions, and work their way down it. It may also be helpful to encourage children to use an aperture card (which shows only one calculation at a time) to keep track.

    It may be even better to give children one problem at a time. Ask them each to come up and get a new problem when they have finished the last one. That way, you can check their progress and make sure that they have correctly understood the concept.

  8. Avoid imposing time pressure

    As our page on teaching children with dyslexia explains, “dyslexia robs people of time”.

    Avoid making this worse by imposing time pressure in lessons, because it is extremely stressful and can affect ability to use working memory even more.

    The one-problem approach can be useful here, because it allows everyone to work at their own speed, or you can simply provide a worksheet for everyone to work through at their own pace.

    TOP TIP! Try to avoid ‘completion’ for homework


    It may seem obvious to ask children to complete a worksheet for their homework if they have not finished it during class.

    However, this means that children with dyslexia will consistently have more homework than others—and they are probably already working harder, and feeling more tired.

    It is better to accept that some children will get through more work than others. Set a minimum number of problems that you want everyone to have worked through successfully, and keep providing lesson time until everyone has completed those. Provide additional work for those working faster.


  9. Provide lots of different strategies for children to try

    Encourage children to use whatever strategies work for them.

    Children with dyslexia often struggle with direction, which can be a problem in maths. It means place value is difficult, but different operations are also done in different directions (for example, division works from left to right, but addition from right to left). Children with dyslexia may also find it hard to identify numbers correctly, confusing those that look similar such as 2 and 5.

    There are various methods that may help here, such as colour-coding numbers depending in which direction they start (see box later), or using coloured arrows to indicate the direction in which an operation proceeds. Colour-coding or highlighting signs and symbols may also be useful.

  10. Encourage children to write down every step in a process

    It is worth encouraging children to write down every step in the process of solving a problem, and not take short-cuts.

    This avoids children with dyslexia missing out steps, and also highlights if the issue is with something minor like transposing numbers. Later on, this is important for earning marks in exams; at an early stage, it enables you to review and see what has happened.



Supporting Maths Learning at Primary Level

At primary level, there are some specific strategies that may be especially helpful. In particular:

  • Use multi-sensory methods, including physical aids to engage learners much more fully in their learning. Primary school-aged children often need to move around more anyway, so this type of learning is likely to work better for all, and not just children with dyslexia.

  • Test out different methods of highlighting and supporting learning. When children are first learning letters and numbers, using different colours may be helpful for all. Using squared paper, rather than blank or lined paper, will help with place value and organisation of numbers. These strategies will help everyone, not just those with dyslexia—but children with dyslexia may need to use them for longer.

Colour-code by direction, not maths


Once again, what is obvious to you may not be obvious to children, especially those with dyslexia.

You may think it is most helpful to colour-code odd and even numbers separately—but that’s because you understand maths.

Children with dyslexia may find it more helpful to have numbers colour-coded by the direction in which they start (clockwise or anticlockwise, where clockwise digits are 1, 2, 3, 7, and anticlockwise digits are 0, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9). Children with dyslexia are more likely to confuse numbers that seem like mirror-images (e.g. 2 and 5) than odd and even per se.

Supporting Maths Learning at Secondary Level

At secondary level, one very specific aspect that may help children with dyslexia is to encourage peer support and consolidation.

The competence cycle of learning, set out in our page on Coaching, explains that there are four stages of learning, from unconscious incompetence through to unconscious competence. However, some people suggest that there is a fifth stage, being able to teach others.

Encouraging students to explain new concepts to each other will therefore help to consolidate their learning—for both the one explaining and the one receiving the explanation. This process can help to surface gaps in understanding, where further information can be sought from the teacher. Peer support is also often more welcome, especially among teenagers, than being singled out for additional help from a teacher.

The Final Piece of the Jigsaw

The final element in supporting children with dyslexia to learn maths is to help them to build self-confidence.

There are two key ways that you can do this. First, focus on their strengths, rather than their weaknesses. Use methods that play to their strengths, rather than trying to find ways round the weaknesses. Always praise effort rather than attainment, which also helps with the second element: building a growth mindset. This means helping children to understand that setbacks help them to learn, and that they can improve by putting in effort.

Having a growth mindset is absolutely vital to success in life—and not just for children with dyslexia. Teachers should therefore always strive to help children to build this mindset.


In Conclusion

Maths is a major problem area for many children with dyslexia—and the problems often get worse as they move through school and maths gets harder.

However, there are many things that teachers can do to help and support children with dyslexia. Many of these methods will also help other children, especially anyone else who is finding maths hard. It is therefore well worth adding them to your toolbox of teaching methods and ideas.


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