Before starting intervention at Edublox Online Tutor, 10-year-old Emily,* a student based in Hungary, Europe, and diagnosed with dyscalculia, showed weaknesses in backward counting, procedural mathematics, and place value understanding.
What is dyscalculia?
Dyscalculia is often described as “dyslexia for math,” but the difficulty goes far beyond simply struggling with numbers. Many children with dyscalculia have difficulty developing automaticity in basic math skills, such as counting, memorizing multiplication facts, understanding place value, and following mathematical procedures step by step. Tasks that other children eventually perform automatically may continue to require intense concentration and effort. As a result, math can become slow, frustrating, and emotionally exhausting, even for highly intelligent children.
Initial difficulties
While Emily could count fluently from 70 to 100, she omitted numbers when counting backward from 100 to 70. She knew some multiplication facts and appeared capable of addition with carrying. However, she struggled with subtraction involving borrowing across multiple columns, could not multiply two 2-digit numbers, and was unable to perform long division.
Emily also demonstrated a weak understanding of place value, writing numbers such as 69,007 as 6907.
Intervention
At the time of writing, Emily has completed approximately 110 thirty-minute online math lessons through Edublox Online Tutor. She has made substantial progress in both foundational and procedural mathematics. After mastering the basics, we started incorporating what she was doing at school into her online lessons.
Emily did not complete the prescribed cognitive exercises, which would likely have accelerated her progress and helped consolidate her newly learned skills and knowledge. Nevertheless, because much of the tutoring at Edublox incorporates cognitive skill development and evidence-based learning principles, her progress was still substantial.
Progress achieved
As of now, Emily can count fluently in 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s, 6s, 7s, 8s, and 10s, although counting in 8s still requires reinforcement at times. She is also able to count fluently from 1–100 and backward from 100–1.
Emily can now mentally add and subtract 1 through 3 from numbers between 10 and 100 accurately and fluently.
In procedural mathematics, she can now successfully complete subtraction involving borrowing across multiple columns. She has progressed from being unable to multiply two 2-digit numbers to successfully completing 3-digit by 3-digit multiplication problems with carrying. She has learned long division and can now add, subtract, multiply, and divide decimals accurately.
Emily has learned what fractions and equivalent fractions are, and can now accurately add, subtract, multiply, and divide fractions with both like and unlike denominators. She has also learned how to find factors and use them to simplify fractions.
She has also begun solving mixed-operation word problems and estimation activities, demonstrating growing mathematical reasoning and procedural understanding.
In addition, Emily has developed a much stronger understanding of place value and can now work with place value up to the millions.
Feedback from Emily’s mom
After six months of intervention at Edublox Online Tutor, Emily’s mother, Lindsay, shared the following feedback:
“It was a lucky day when I stumbled across Edublox in my endless online searches for how to help my 10-year-old daughter with her math struggles (dyscalculia).
We’ve now been working with Edublox for more than six months, and the experience has been very rewarding. I’m impressed by their deep understanding of learners with this specific challenge, and the tools they provide have really helped her remember numbers and patterns. The consistency and professionalism of the tutors, combined with their genuine kindness, make every lesson engaging and supportive for my daughter.
We’ve seen real progress in her abilities (her test scores at school have proven this), but even more importantly, this progress has fostered a new confidence in her that helps her thrive in her regular schooling. I can’t thank them enough.”
Edublox offers cognitive training and live online tutoring to students with dyscalculia and other learning challenges. We support families in the United States, Canada, Australia, and beyond. Book a free consultation to discuss your child’s learning needs and learn more below:
* Emily is a pseudonym.
