Tracy Packiam Alloway, PhD

The 3Rs: reading, writing, and arithmetic. We all remember going to school and trying to memorize spelling words and our times tables, to write a coherent paragraph and to calculate our long division. But for some students, this clearly isn’t enough. Despite the focus on the 3Rs why do we still see so many students diagnosed with learning disabilities? Furthermore, why do these students fail to improve after one-to-one instruction or tutoring?

In a recent study that I conducted, I looked at a group of students from 8 to 11 years with learning difficulties. All the students were receiving extra educational support, like tutoring and special classes. I tested their IQ, working memory, and also looked at their grades in the 3 Rs. These students received special tutoring in small groups for the next two years. Yet, when I saw these students two years later, there were still performing at the bottom of the class! Their learning outcomes had not improved, they were still struggling. Except now they were becoming more frustrated because of their learning difficulties and this was manifesting itself as behavior problems, including truancy.

What happened to these students? Why didn’t they show any improvement?

I found that it was their working memory scores, but NOT their IQ, that determined their grades. If they had poor working memory, they struggled in reading, writing, and math. It didn’t even matter what their IQ was. Working memory was the critical skill linked to their learning.

What does this mean? Simply, that focusing on teaching reading and math isn’t enough. That ‘hard work’ without focusing on working memory is just hard work. That drilling the 3Rs without improving working memory is like entering a bike race with flat tires. This is not to say that the 3Rs are unimportant. They are! Even a child with the high working memory needs to learn the 3Rs to do well in school and life. However, if we don’t develop working memory skills, the 3Rs won’t make a difference.

*TP Alloway (2009) European Journal of Psychological Assessments. READ

Why do students with poor working memory have more difficulty doing horizontal math problems versus vertical ones?

– Lauren, Richmond, VA

Visuo-spatial memory functions like a mental blackboard: visual information is recorded and kept active for a short period of time. When math problems are presented horizontally, a student has to rely on their working memory to carry numbers correctly to solve the problem. When solving horizontal math problems, you may notice that a student with poor working memory will make very simple mistakes, such as forgetting to carry the number, or adding up the sum without the carried number.

Teachers often tell me that they don’t understand why this student keeps making the same mistakes when they have told him/her how to solve math problems many times. Do not be surprised to discover that techniques such as repetition won’t be very useful here as students with poor visuo-spatial memory have difficulty in visualizing numbers.

A simple technique to help a student to better visualize the math problem and take off the pressure from their visuo-spatial working memory is to present the problem vertically. Here is an example:

Give your student a math problem such as 18 + 24 = __ written out horizontally. Then ask them to write it vertically as

18
+ 24
____

Initially, it is not necessary that they solve the problems, only that they write it vertically. If you like, you can ask them to solve the problems once they are confident writing it down.