Reddit reviews Upside-Down Brilliance: The Visual-Spatial Learner

Well, he's my almost step son, so I had an outsider's perspective and a bit of experience in education. So my first sign was getting to know him and realizing he couldn't consistently recognize his letters at 6. Apparently his K teacher had given a warning about it, but no one followed up. So my SO asked the school. They first did a few months of extra reading help, then he pushed it more and got the testing done.

His reading skills were practically non-existent. He couldn't recognize a word again after just being told what it was. He couldn't write much more than his name.

He did reverse letters and numbers when he wrote them, but when they tested him, they said he wasn't strictly dyslexic but had a "specific learning disability" with reading. He also tested as gifted, with a high IQ score and high visual-spatial skills. They said he is a visual spatial learner, and everything I've read about that since is a very accurate description.

You said your guy is good at math, so I'd wonder about something related for him, maybe. Kiddo has always been good at math and puzzles and building things. These books helped us a lot, and I think have some generally applicable ideas, too:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/193218600X/ref=pd_aw_sim_14_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=45A9QV7NCTZ2GTR0FSB0

https://www.amazon.com/Raising-Topsy-Turvy-Kids-Successfully-Visual-Spatial/dp/1932186085

For him, they essentially treat it as dyslexia. He's now in special ed pull outs for reading and writing, and he has made a lot of progress with the extra attention and work. He's also in gifted, where he gets to focus on those things he's does so well.

Edit: some typos. Grrrr, mobile.

My 13yo has the same issues and also has a very high IQ - while he has been diagnosed as dyslexic by Dyslexia Institutes of America another psychologist thinks he is not dyslexic. That being said, I think I am very mildly dyslexic and I learned other ways to do multiplication tables which I taught to him. Not much help with addition and subtraction and only a little help with division but its at least something. It is very basic but once he started to use it, it seems like he got a lot faster.

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Down the list:

1. Ones - of course are easy, and not worth mentioning
   
2. Twos - just double the number (also not really worth mentioning)
   
3. Threes - we use the song from Multiplication Rock Three is a Magic Number - three, six, nine, twelve, fifteen, eighteen, twenty-one, twenty-four, twenty-seven, thirty, etc
   
4. Fours - double twos - ie 4x4 is 4x2x2 - so if you can easily do twos, you can do fours (as long as you can keep it in your head)
   
5. Fives - count by five (can keep track on your fingers - 1 finger for 5, 2 for 10, etc)
   
6. Sixes - double three
   
7. Sevens - these are the hardest - I don't really have an easy answer - I've had him remember things like 56 is 7x8 (5,6,7,8) - but basically he does sevens by using the other number and remembers 7x7 is 49
   
8. Eights - double fours or quadruple twos
   
9. Nines (my personal favorite) - take the number (single digit) that you want to multiply by 9 and subtract one - that's the first digit of the answer - the second digit of the answer makes the two digits add up to 9. For example 9x3 - that's subtract one from three to get 2 - then 2+7=9 so 9x3 is 27.
   
10. Tens - again not worth mentioning but add a zero
    
11. Elevens - for single digits easy - for double digits, add the two digits together and put the sum in the middle - so 11x12 is 1+2=3 so 132; 11x25 is 2+5=7 so 275, etc
    
12. Twelves - double six or quadruple three
    
    He used these methods along with fingers for adding until it somehow got easier for him - although I still don't think he could pass a timed math facts test, he can now do math facts.
    
    When I have to add a column of numbers, I end up using little tick marks - so I'll put six dots next to a six, etc because I also sometimes have problems quickly adding in my head.
    
    This is also an issue with people who are visual-spatial (both of us are.) Linda K Silverman and her website http://www.visualspatial.org/about.php have excellent resources. Dyslexia is very similar to being visual-spatial. If you go to the Articles on her website, there is a resource for teaching math to non-sequential learners, which uses some of the techniques that I mentioned. I highly recommend her website and her book Upside Down Brilliance. It has helped us so much!
    
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I wish I had the patience to give this comment the attention that it deserves. But as a father of a high functioning autistic son and a highly gifted son with a tested IQ off the charts on the Stanford Binet 5 and Wisc III( I know its old but its a long story). I can tell you there is very distinct learning and teaching styles. My wife and I use it every day with our two kids.

Start with the book "Upside Down Brilliance" http://www.amazon.com/Upside-Down-Brilliance-Visual-Spatial-Learner/dp/193218600X and go from there.

I am a computer geek by training and use this understanding every day when working with people who are linear sequential learners. Why to IT architects(not true architects) and project managers have problems communicating? They think, learn, and most importantly solve problems differently differently.

I apologize this post does not live up to the normal standards of this reddit. I will quietly go back to r/flying