6 Easy Strategies for Teaching Math to Students with Disabilities

While all of our students don’t need ALL of these strategies, I’ve organized a lot of the things mentioned in this series of blog posts into six big categories. I hope that they’ll help you wrap your mind around SIMPLE things that you can do to help your students with some of their biggest learning obstacles in math.

Place Holders & Trackers

For many of our students, keeping track of their place is HARD. However, I love to have a few tools handy to help them keep track of where they are and what they’re doing.

Bingo Markers
Desk Pets
Erasers
Rulers
Colored Overlays
Hands
Highlighters

Aligning Numbers & Organization

We know just how important handwriting and organization will be for our students to complete nearly all math tasks, so we better have a few things handy for those who struggle in this area.

Graph Paper
Math Frames
Lined Paper Turned Sideways
Rulers

Recalling Steps & Information

Auditory and visual memory play a HUGE part in the success of our students completing math tasks. When possible, do a few things that can help them recall the steps and information that will help them be successful.

Songs
Rhymes
Mnemonics
Interactive Notebooks
Ask for Additional Examples

When Possible, Eliminate or Reduce

I want you to keep in mind that everyone NEEDS to practice things that are difficult in order to become better at them. But in some cases, it isn’t worth the time, isn’t the right setting, or could significantly be reduced to provide a better balance.

Long Tasks that Aren’t Measuring or Practicing Targeted Skill
Background Noise & Distractions

Hundreds Charts

I love to use a hundreds chart. They can be used in SO many ways. For the purposes of helping students process information described in this series, I love them because they help them in so many ways.

Copying Numbers Correctly
Self-Checking Written Numbers
Visual Aide While Counting
Solving Addition & Subtraction Problems Quickly
Finding, Seeing, and Understanding Patterns

Visual Aids

Recalling and organizing information can be tricky! It’s important to have resources available to them to help them reference material when it is needed, whether that be for helping students align numbers correctly or remember the steps to a long problem.