How to Adapt Classroom Resources for Dyscalculia

Dyscalculia affects numerical processing and number sense specifically — it's not a general cognitive or reading difficulty, and treating it like "dyslexia for numbers" misses the actual barrier.

• Avoid numerals as arbitrary labels

  Use letters (a/b/c) rather than numbers to label options or steps in non-maths contexts, so numeric symbols aren't competing for meaning with the maths content itself.

• Keep numeric content explicit and simple

  State numbers and quantities plainly rather than embedding them in dense or ambiguous phrasing.

• Break multi-step calculations into individually labelled stages

  One operation per line, clearly numbered, rather than a single combined instruction covering several steps at once.

Still worth considering, beyond what a text-based resource format can do: concrete representations like number lines or grouped visuals also support number sense — genuinely useful, but this needs an actual visual/diagram format rather than something achievable in a text-based adaptation.

Simplifying the reading level of surrounding text. The barrier is number sense and quantity relationships, not vocabulary — text simplification alone won't touch the actual difficulty.

Cognitive Delay·Dyspraxia