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My 11yo DS was recently diagnosed with dyscalculia among several other learning disorders. I'm here to find out what I can do to help my DS since I'm pulling him out of school after this school year is complete and start homeschooling him.

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Hi jerirat, welcome :)

Many learning disabled gets homeschooled, because they don’t get the help they need in the schools. Therefore there are also a lot of groups and places for parents and homeschooled children to get support.

I don’t know where you live, but here are some resources in America… But if you are somewhere else, just say so.

A fantastic resource-site:
http://www.specia...thome.com/

Find a support group in your state:
http://homeschool.../sgusa.htm

This is a magazine, but they have a good discussion forum:
http://www.home-s...

Here is a lot of great links to more sites:
http://www.geocit...ecial.html


I hope you can use some of this :)

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Thanks! I'm in the US in Virginia. There are lots of local support groups and I've contacted a few parents who are hsing LD children.

I'm seriously looking at Math U See because it uses manipulatives up through Algebra 1. Also, the materials I've seen look to use a multi-sensory approach to teaching math. Honestly I just want my son to understand enough math to be a functional adult. Be able to make change, balance a checkbook, understand finance charges in a contract or on a credit card statement.

Fortuanately I have a very good understanding of math, majored in engineering and minored in math, and I'm hoping that will help me teach DS.

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People are talking about Math U See everywhere, so I think a lot of people like it. I haven't tried it!

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I heard this could be good for homeschooling - http://www.edhelp...

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Hehe, so you joined that group too :p

jerirat, check out http://groups.yah...inaryKids/

AND

http://www.homesc... - just found that :D

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I've ordered some materials from http://www.alabac.../index.cfm

I really like the abacus as opposed to counters. I haven't received the materials yet but I'll let you know how it goes.

My goal is to get my DS to actually see 5 objects when he thinks of the number 5 instead of the symbol or the word "five"

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You know what helped me? Doing inventory in supermarkets as a part-time job in college. We counted things by fives or threes, or whatever pattern they were stacked in. After awhile you could see the fives or threes by looking at them. We worked in pairs, with one counting and the other writing long columns of single numbers on long skinny tablets. The counter didn't count more than two or three multiples at a time, just what he could "see". Sometimes the counter would touch the groups of cans or bottles as he counted out loud.

Weird job for a dyscalcuric, but it was almost always the same number over and over, so I did OK. For a long time afterwards I could look at an aisle of canned goods and just say how many cans without thinking about it. Too bad the ability faded away. But the patterning ability has stayed strong, and my math ability increased noticably. So I'm a big believer in manipulables for grownups too.