The Dyscalculia Toolkit: Supporting Learning Difficulties in Maths 3rd Edition, Kindle Edition

I am a speech and language pathologist, and one of my great areas of interest over the years has been students who have both language-based learning disabilities or dyslexia, and dyscalculia. The underlying profiles of cognitive weakness overlap a great deal, and so do many of the most effective teaching methods. I trained with Prof. Mahesh Sharma some years ago to learn how best to teach learners with dyscalculia, but Ms. Ronit Bird trained with him at least a decade before me, expanding and improving upon his methods with her excellent books and ebooks. It's critical to teach with highly visual and concrete materials from the very beginning, to help these learners develop a solid number concept, and The Dyscalculia Toolkit is an invaluable resource for doing just that. The activities and games are deceptively simple -- but this is precisely what our most struggling learners need. If only more teachers, particularly special educators, would dispense with the worksheets and flash cards and begin to use the straightforward, enjoyable, and highly effective tools outlined by Ronit Bird, in her well-designed activities and games, we would have fewer students (and later, adults) who "hate math" and lack needed numeracy skills for advancement in math learning. The Dyscalculia Toolkit focuses on Cuisenaire rods, and the dot patterns of dice, dominoes, and playing cards, to form the basis of a visual sense of number upon which any student can build. And games provide the motivation to practice until the patterns and relationships become internalized. This is an excellent resource for any teacher or parent working with students just starting to conceptualize number, through those working at higher levels but still counting on fingers or lacking fluency with basic addition and subtraction facts, place value, multiplication, and division. It isn't a curriculum, but a collection of dozens of games and hundreds of practical teaching activities, broken down to address the smallest increments of understanding in math. The companion website provides activity tracking sheets, downloadable game boards, and video demonstrations.

Wish there were ZERO stars! The book, itself, is a valuable guide to working with children with dyscalculia. There are many valuable resources connected to the book on the book website, but you cannot access them because Amazon does not have any access codes. When I contacted the publisher (SAGE) as directed in the Kindle edition, they informed me that Amazon would supply the access code. NOT THE CASE! Amazon tech support merely parroted information from SAGE that I sent them when I contacted their customer service.BE AWARE if you purchase the Kindle Edition, you will NOT be able to access any of the resources or tools promised in the Dyscalcula ToolKit. Do not waste your money on the Kindle Edition.

Best book I have found on this topic. I like that the book is based on hands on activities and towards having fun. When a person has Dyscalculia, they are not drawn towards math. They tend to have math anxiety. By having the activities presented as a game lets them get beyond the anxiety. I gave a copy to my child's teacher so that she could incorporate the games into my child's day.

Awesome book! It was a pain to get to the online content but I communicated with the publisher and got is straightened out. Worth it. I've used many of the suggestions and it is great to have such support for cuisenaire rods, since I have seen for myself how quickly my children made connections. Also, the online resources provide so.many easy to print supports that have worked very well. These are solutions anyone can use with materials that you probably already have and if you don't have cuisenaire rods just Google printable ones and you will find tons of free ones to try. Also, I have found it very helpful to try Numicons, which have been wonderful. Also called ten frame towers on Amazon. We also use Montessori beads. Basically any visual, tactile number representation is fair game in our quest to correct neglected math skills in our 2 autistic kids. This book is a fantastic how-to guide for parents. Also the author provides videos to show you how to present the materials.

Working through this book with my daughter. It has been making all the difference in the world! She loves the games and asks to play them over and over, which is remarkable given that she claims to hate math. Highly recommend this book!

Happy to have found this book and it came in good condition. Using if for homeschooling our daughter who is dyslexic.Giving this book a 4 only because it came without the access code for the companion website. I have contacted the publisher to get a code.The book itself is most excellent!

I wish I could say this is an excellent book, but we just could not get into it and it’s super pricey. I’d return if I still had the option. I was hoping it would help my kid with learning disability, but it doesn’t match our learning style.

I’m excited to use these resources as they look amazing, but I am quite frustrated with trying to get access to the digital content which is a huge part of the product. The access code is supposed to be in the front cover of the book. Instead there’s an email to write to for an access code. I did that, but got a response saying they don’t check that email very often and urgent inquiries could be made to a customer service number. I called that. She said she’ll have to check and get back to me via email. Finally, after a bunch of wasted time, I have the code and can get busy.

Fantastic book that I think all primary school teachers should own, whether they are specialist teachers or not.

This is a great book. The videos on the website explain the concept clearly. I have purchased all of Ronit's books and all of her ebooks which are brilliant especially her ebook on fractions which is without doubt the best piece of work on fractions ever written by far.

Very easy to understand and follow. The resources on the website linked to the book are very good once you get signed up.

This excellent book is full of ideas and activities. Link to website of wealth of printable resources saves time and effort

Great book probably more suited for a teacher or other professional great for a parent to buy and discuss with the teacher