“My child counts fine, so why doesn’t math make any sense?” The usual answer is a shrug: “I was never good at math either.” That shrug feels kind, but it stops anyone from asking why. Your child isn’t broken. Their brain is learning differently.
FROM THE VIDEO
Key moments from Defining Dyscalculia (TTS Talking Educators), with Rob Jennings:
Common questions from parents
Is my child bad at math, or is it dyscalculia?
Is math anxiety the same thing as dyscalculia?
Do I need a diagnosis before I start helping?
Do math apps help a child who finds numbers hard?
A child who says "five" does not always know what five means. A specialist math teacher's two home moves: blocks to hold, and math said out loud.
What does dyscalculia look like at home?
Rob Jennings has been a specialist math teacher for about fifteen years. He co-founded the Dyscalculia Network, a UK group for people who struggle with math. Parents tell him one line over and over: “I’ve never been good at maths.” To him, that line makes it seem fine to be bad at math. So nobody looks closer.
He calls dyscalculia the “poor relation” of learning differences. People know less about it than about dyslexia, he says, and that includes schools. He points to a 2025 definition from SASC. That is a UK group that sets assessment standards. At its core is deep, lasting trouble with “numerical magnitude processing.” That means knowing how big a number is. It covers naming, ordering and comparing amounts. Weak estimating and shaky place value are part of it too.
Jennings has a simple check. Ask your child to show you five things. Then ask where five sits, after four and before six. He also watches for wild guesses. The child has no feel for whether an answer fits. Another sign is 16 written down as 61. One slip on its own tells you little. Haberstroh and Schulte-Körne (2019) summed up a German clinical guideline. It looks for errors that are varied, lasting and frequent.
These skills reach past homework. Adults who volunteer with Jennings’s network describe turning up far too early or late. They dodge the bill at dinner. Vigna and colleagues ran a small 2022 study of young adults. They found trouble judging time and handling money. Here is what we know about adults and math trouble. To us, none of this looks like a child who is bad at math. It looks like a skill that needs teaching.
That shrug feels kind, but it stops anyone from asking why.
Laura Lurns · Learning Success expert
What kind of math help should you look for?
Researchers have not settled one big question (Dowker, 2024). Is dyscalculia its own thing, or the low end of a range? A 2025 study by Kißler and Kuhn found the line between the two blurry. Its authors say every child who finds math hard should get support. So you do not need a label to start teaching. Is it dyscalculia or a missed step? Either way, teach the step.
The pull is to buy a brain game, or a program that trains memory. The same guideline summary weighed this. Practicing the math itself came out ahead of training general skills, like memory. The authors also note that strong trials are few. So treat this as a direction, not a final word. Here is more on the kind of math help that moves a child.
What about apps? Jennings would rather limit screen time. He reaches for real objects first. Benavides-Varela and colleagues reviewed digital math practice in 2020. It helped on average. Results swung widely from study to study. Games showed no clear extra benefit over plain practice software. If you use an app, pick one that practices real math.
One more thing to keep apart. Dowker (2024) calls dyscalculia and math anxiety separate conditions. Devine and colleagues (2018) found the two largely separate, though they do overlap. A child who dreads math is not always a child who finds numbers hard. Some children carry both.
Key takeaways
- The shrug hides it: "Never good at math" stops anyone asking why a child struggles.
- Teach the math itself: Haberstroh and Schulte-Körne (2019) put math practice ahead of memory training.
- Hands and voice: Blocks show what five means. Talk shows where thinking slips.
What should you try at home first?
Jennings says math is abstract, so he breaks it down and models it. Here are three moves from his talk. They are small, and they cost nothing.
- Put the number in their hands. Use blocks, coins or dried beans. Ask your child to build five. Then write 5 beside the pile and say it together. Here is more on giving numbers something to touch.
- Have them talk it through. Ask your child to say each step out loud as they work. When a child explains, you hear where the thinking slips. Jennings says his quiet students start soft and get louder as their confidence grows.
- Teach the math words. Jennings counts seven or eight ways to say “subtract.” “Find the difference” does not even sound like taking away. Name each phrase and show it with the blocks.
Watch the teen numbers too. We say “six” first in sixteen, but we write the 1 first. Children mix these up, Jennings says. He says it is twice as hard for a child new to English. Point at each digit as you say it.
Keep each session short and calm. End on something your child got right, and stop before tears.
When a child explains, you hear where the thinking slips.
Laura Lurns · Learning Success expert
You want your child to see a number and know what it stands for. The old habit of shrugging and waiting leaves them alone with it. You don’t need a credential to be your child’s first teacher. You already are one. A screener asks what you see at home, and it does not diagnose. Start with our free dyscalculia screener.
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- Answer 5 short questionnaires about what you already notice, 30–45 minutes at your own kitchen table
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- You do the answering, the AI does the writing, and a person reviews it before it reaches you
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Why we use AI, plainly: it writes from a knowledge base our team maintains and audits. We work through it line by line and pull anything the evidence stops supporting. The roadmap you get on Tuesday reflects what we corrected on Monday, and a human still reads it before you do.
Your school district must evaluate your child free of charge if you ask in writing, whatever your income and whatever the outcome (US, 34 CFR 300.111 and 300.301(b)). That route takes time and answers a different question than you do. This one starts today, from what you already know.
Your answers stay yours. We do not sell your personal information, and we do not hand identifiable assessment data to outside AI companies to train their models.
A screener is a starting point, not a diagnosis. If your child might need formal accommodations (an IEP or 504 plan), or you suspect a vision, hearing or medical cause, pursue a professional evaluation too. That is the only route to those supports.
