Record numbers of U.S. students severely struggle with math, but only a fraction of them receive screening and support targeting potential math disabilities.
While math teachers in a nationally representative EdWeek Research Center survey this spring estimated that 40 percent of their students perform below grade level in math, only 15 percent of teachers said their students have been screened for dyscalculia, a learning disorder that affects a person’s ability to understand number-based information and math.
That’s why some researchers and educators are working to leverage what we know about the connections between dyscalculia and the much better-known dyslexia to identify new avenues to improve math learning for struggling students.