Rekenrek gets a prime role in UK education

Dyscalculia: News from the web:

In a major new initiative, the NCETM and Maths Hubs have announced a year-long programme to run in thousands of primary schools from September. It is aimed at strengthening the understanding of number, and fluency with number facts, among children in the first three years of school.

The programme is called Mastering Number and there are places for up to 6,000 schools. It is wholly consistent with and complementary to the Primary Teaching for Mastery Programme, which has been running in more than 8,000 schools since 2016.

‘The rekenrek looks like a simple piece of equipment, but it can be very powerful. Used by skilful, trained teachers it can help children move away from counting in ones to start doing basic mental calculations. We call this ‘number sense’, and research tells us that if children develop fluency and flexibility with number facts and relationships early on, they will make much more progress later, in both maths and other subjects.’

Read all about it: HERE

If your school wants to get a module about rekenrek as part of your teacher professional development, contact Dr. Schreuder, see the details HERE

Parental impact

Dyscalculia: News from the web:

Dr. Lara Turci Faust, just successfully defended her (amazing) dissertation on how change in parents’ valuing of math and sports influences changes in their children’s values- and vice versa!

Contact her about it: HERE

Spatial ability used to detect Dyscalculia

Dyscalculia: News from the web:

A thesis from 1996 had as purpose:

The purpose of this study was to examine how spatial
abilities as measured on the Kaufman Assessment Battery for
Children (K-ABC) could be used to predict dyscalculia.

Spatial abilities were found to be most closely approximated on the
Spatial Memory subtest in the ability battery. This subtest
was examined in relationship to the Arithmetic subtest on the
achievement battery, and a high correlation was demonstrated.

This is interesting because there was critisism about the traditional way of assessing Dyscalculia by comparing ability (IQ) with achievement and this was a great measure to serve as an alternative.

Read all about it: HERE