First Grade Math Problems

Study Helps Pinpoint Math Disability

Burgeoning research into students’ difficulties with mathematics is starting to tease out cognitive differences between students who sometimes struggle with math and those who have dyscalculia, a severe, persistent learning disability in math.

A new, decade-long longitudinal study by researchers at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, published Friday in the journal Child Development , finds that 9th-graders considered dyscalculic—those who performed in the bottom 10 percent of math ability on multiple tests—had substantially lower ability to grasp and compare basic number quantities than average students or even other struggling math students.

“Formal math requires some effort, and it requires effort to different degrees for different children,” said Michèle M. M. Mazzocco, the director of the Math Skills Development Project at Kennedy Krieger. “Just because someone is having difficulty with math doesn’t necessarily mean they have a math learning disability. This study points to a core marker” of true dyscalculia.

The study, she said, may help researchers and educators understand the underlying causes of persistent math problems and identify the students who need the most intensive instructional support.

Math-learning disability affects about 5 percent to 8 percent of school-age children nationwide, about as many people nationwide as are affected by dyslexia. Yet experts say research on the reading problem has for decades dwarfed studies of math difficulties by 20 to one.

“Historically, there just hasn’t been as much focus in society on math difficulties as in reading,” Ms. Mazzocco said. “It’s exciting that it’s shifting a bit.”

The focus on global competitiveness in math and science fields may be playing a role in new interest in dyscalculia. A May report in the journal Science noted that if the United States brought all students up to at least the basic mathematics level in the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, it could lead to a .74 percent increase in the nation’s total growth in Gross Domestic Product. For comparison, America’s GDP grew 1.8 percent in the first quarter of 2011, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

“We know that basic numeracy skills are a greater predictor of later success in life than basic literacy skills,” said Daniel Ansari, one of the pioneers in the neuroscience of dyscalculia, speaking at a research forum on the disability held in Chicago last month, who is unconnected to the Kennedy Krieger study.

Smart Kids: First Grade | The iPhone Mom

Smart Kids: First Grade is a general education app, designed to quiz children on the topics of English, Math, Social Studies and Science. According to the app’s title these should be questions that a first grader could answer, or be slightly challenged by. More on that in a minute. The design of the app is clean. It is easy to navigate and children will understand how to move through the topics and questions. They focus on one topic at a time, specifically a category within that topic. For example, Math and the category of addition. Or Science and Earth Science. You may determine how many questions they are asked for each round and you will be able to view a report at the end which shows how they fared.

The trouble I ran into with Smart Kids: First Grade is that much of the information covered by these questions is beyond what my children have ever learned in first grade. Or second grade, maybe even third. I live in the United States and perhaps “First Grade” means something different in other parts of the world. I believe this app may have been developed outside of the US because it uses the term “Maths” instead of Math. The Math seemed mostly age appropriate, except for the problems that are presented as word problems. Many first graders aren’t going to be able to read the problem, let alone understand the context of the math involved. Most of the Science questions seemed fine but aside from this it was the other subject areas that were too difficult. I’m all for challenging children but since this is a quiz app and not one that teaches concepts you’ve got to be careful you’re not going to end up with a frustrated player. Here are several examples in case it’s only my children who haven’t covered these topics in FIrst grade. Parts of speech are covered and that’s fine, I can see nouns, verbs, adjectives but not adverbs and the trickier parts. There are questions about United States state nicknames, i.e. “Which state is the Magnolia state?”. Questions about Civics and government are included and my children don’t cover that until Fourth grade.

To be completely fair I have not gone through every single question within Smart Kids: First Grade. I am basing my opinion off the quizzes I took in each of the categories and you can see a list of what is covered in the app’s App Store description. My son just finished Kindergarten and is now an official First grader. I wouldn’t give him this app and expect him to be able to use it on his own. But if I worked with him and we got through the app then he would rightfully be considered a smart kid.

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