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The Trouble with Maths

Now in its fourth edition, with updates to reflect developments in our understanding
of learning difficulties in maths, this award-winning text provides vital, pragmatic
insights into the often-confusing world of numeracy. By looking at learning difficulties
in maths and dyscalculia from several perspectives, for example, the vocabulary and
language of maths, cognitive style and the demands of individual procedures, this
book provides a complete overview of the most frequently occurring problems asso-
ciated with maths teaching and learning. Drawing on tried-and-tested methods based
on research and Steve Chinn’s decades of classroom experience, it provides an
authoritative yet accessible one-stop classroom resource.
Combining advice, guidance and practical activities, this user-friendly guide will
help you to:

• develop flexible cognitive styles

• use alternative strategies to replace an over-reliance on rote-learning for pupils
trying to access basic facts
• understand the implications of underlying skills, such as working memory, on
learning
• implement effective pre-emptive measures before demotivation sets in
• recognise the manifestations of maths anxiety and tackle affective domain
problems
• find approaches to solve word problems
• select appropriate materials and visual images to enhance understanding.

With useful features such as checklists for the evaluation of books and an overview
of resources, this book will equip you with essential skills to help you tackle your
pupils’ maths difficulties and improve standards for all learners. This book will be
useful for all teachers, classroom assistants, learning support assistants and parents.

Steve Chinn is a Visiting Professor at the University of Derby. He is also the author
of More Trouble with Maths: A Complete Guide to Identifying and Diagnosing Math-
ematical Difficulties, 3rd edition and editor of The Routledge International Handbook
of Dyscalculia and Mathematical Learning Difficulties. He has lectured and trained
teachers in over 30 countries.
[This book] focuses on the individual student and shows how to equip them with
both an understanding of the problem and appropriate strategies to deal with the dif-
ficulties experienced. It draws on practical experience and evidence-based methods
as well as current research […] This will be seen as an essential resource.
Dr. Gavin Reid, Psychologist and author of Dyslexia and Inclusion: Classroom
Approaches for Assessing, Teaching and Learning

Steve Chinn’s book The Trouble with Maths has long been an essential part of any
special needs teacher’s toolkit.
Patricia Babtie and Jane Emerson

Steve’s books are very well respected and well known and are generally the first port
of call for someone looking for information on dyscalculia and maths difficulties.
Judy Hornigold, International Lecturer in Dyscalculia
The Trouble with Maths
A Practical Guide to Helping
Learners with Numeracy Difficulties

Fourth edition

Steve Chinn
Fourth edition published 2021
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2021 Steve Chinn
The right of Steve Chinn to be identified as author of this work has been asserted
by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. The purchase of this copyright material confers the right on the
purchasing institution to photocopy pages which bear the photocopy icon and
copyright line at the bottom of the page. No other part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without
prior permission in writing from the publisher.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to
infringe.
First edition published by Routledge 2004
Third edition published by Routledge 2016
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Chinn, Stephen J., author.
Title: The trouble with maths : a practical guide to helping learners with
numeracy difficulties / Steve Chinn.
Description: Fourth edition. | Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, [2021] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020015508 (print) | LCCN 2020015509 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780367862138 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367862145 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781003017714 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Mathematics–Study and teaching. | Special education. |
Underachievers–Education. | Mathematical ability. | Acalculia | Dyslexia.
Classification: LCC QA11.2 .C48 2021 (print) | LCC QA11.2 (ebook) |
DDC 510.71–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020015508
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020015509

ISBN: 978-0-367-86213-8 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-367-86214-5 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-01771-4 (ebk)

Typeset in Helvetica
by Swales & Willis, Exeter, Devon, UK
Contents

List of illustrations vi

1 Introduction: mathematics learning difficulties and dyscalculia 1

2 Factors that affect learning 24

3 What the curriculum asks pupils to do and where difficulties may occur 47

4 Cognitive style in mathematics 71

5 Developmental perspectives: a pragmatic approach 90

6 The vocabulary and language of mathematics 110

7 Anxiety, attributions and communication 123

8 The inconsistencies of mathematics 136

9 Manipulatives, materials and visual images: multisensory learning 143

10 The nasties: long division and fractions 162

Appendix 1 Further reading 178

Appendix 2 Checklists 179
Appendix 3 Resources 181
References and notes 183
Index 187
Illustrations

Figures

2.1 Place value cards 43

2.2 A blank task analysis form 45
2.3 An example of a task analysis 46
3.1 Number line 51
3.2 Using 10p coins as images for number bonds for 100 53
3.3 Coins to show 62 + 38 53
3.4 Cuisenaire rods for 6 × 7 59
3.5 Numicon/Stern materials: 5 (odd) plus 3 (odd) = 8 (even) 61
3.6 Area model for 31 × 17 64
3.7 28 × 39 compared to 30 × 40 64
3.8 Division by subtraction of chunks: 713 ÷ 23 65
4.1 Subtraction the inchworm way 74
4.2 What is the area of the shaded figure? 76
5.1 The sheep counters 93
5.2 Images for number bonds 10 95
5.3 Number bonds for 100 with base ten blocks 96
5.4 Area model for multiplication: tracking back 99
5.5 The blank table square 103
5.6 The table square with the easy facts 103
5.7 6 × 10 compared to 6 × 9 104
6.1 Place value arrow cards 112
6.2 Two lines of symmetry or two lines in a cemetery 115
7.1 Expectations 133
9.1 Subtraction and language 146
9.2 Patterns for 1 to 10 147
9.3 Base ten blocks: 45 148
9.4 Base ten blocks: 405 149
9.5 Counting on in ones, tens and hundreds 149
9.6 Bead string: 13 and 23 150
9.7 Stern/Numicon blocks: 13 and 23 150
9.8 Coins and decimals 151
9.9 Bead string for number bonds for 10 152
9.10 Images for number bonds for 1, 10, 100, 1000 153
9.11 Counters (or coins) in a consistent and interrelating pattern 153
9.12 Cuisenaire rods for 5 × 5 and (2 × 5) + (2 × 5) + (2 × 5) and (5 × 5) + (1 × 5) 155
9.13 Cuisenaire rods and the commutative property 155
9.14 Cuisenaire rods and building facts 156
9.15 Number lines for different powers of ten 157
9.16 Folding to make a half 158
9.17 Folding to make a third 158
 Illustrations vii

9.18 The ‘half’ paper folded into thirds. The ‘third’ paper folded into halves.
Both create sixths 158
9.19 Three toy cars 159
9.20 Odd plus odd makes even: 5 + 3 = 8 and odd plus even makes
odd: 5 + 4 = 9 161
10.1 Traditional long division 163
10.2 The hidden division sign 167
10.3 The fraction number line 168
10.4 The analogue clock face and fractions 168
10.5 Criss-cross, times for adding fractions 170
10.6 Criss-cross, times as a butterfly! 170
1 2
10.7 The circle and þ 175
4 3
10.8 Fractions and clocks 175
10.9 Comparing fraction sizes 176
10.10 Renaming fractions to make them have the same name 176
1 2 2 ¼1
10.11 Folding paper to show  ¼ 177
4 3 12 6

Tables
4.1 Cognitive styles of the inchworm and the grasshopper 73
4.2 Trial and adjust the inchworm way 80
1 Introduction
Mathematics learning difficulties
and dyscalculia

This book was written to help teachers, classroom assistants, learning support
assistants and parents who are dealing with pupils who are underachieving in
mathematics. The level of underachievement might be significant enough to be rec-
ognised as a mathematical learning difficulty or severe enough to be considered as
dyscalculia.
The book looks at the problems from several perspectives, from preventative meas-
ures to use in the classroom, to cognitive styles, to practical ideas for intervention. It
works like a repair manual in some respects and like a care awareness manual (looking
after your students) in other respects.
It is a book which can be accessed in different ways. It can provide an overview of
where and how problems may arise. It offers insights for teachers into areas of poten-
tial difficulty for learners. It can focus on a specific problem and suggest approaches
which can help the pupil overcome the problem.
It would be an impossible task to attempt to provide an answer for every problem
for every child. One way of being as comprehensive as is practical within one book is
to focus as much on prevention as on intervention. A pro-active awareness of learn-
ing issues can help in reducing their impact on learners.
In many respects then, the key purpose of this book is to provide a context with
which to design and appraise any intervention, be it major or minor.

The Trouble with Maths can be used to:

• understand some of the reasons problems may arise in learning mathematics

• understand that many problems track back to the very early experiences and thus
that these basics need to be addressed within any intervention
• pre-empt learning problems
• develop flexible cognitive skills and encourage metacognition
• circumvent problems in basic numeracy by developing understanding, rather than
an over-dependency on rote learning
• address the difficulties pupils have with word problems
• teach alternative strategies for accessing basic facts
• recognise affective domain issues and suggest strategies for addressing maths
anxiety, attributional style, self-efficacy and self-esteem problems
• stimulate the ability to create effective ideas for teaching maths to all pupils, but
especially those who are facing difficulties with the subject
• select appropriate materials, manipulatives and visual images for teaching maths
topics
• encourage students to develop an understanding of maths.
2 Introduction

Sometimes you may find information repeated in different chapters of the book. This
is deliberate, as some observations fit into more than one area. The new topic area
should give a different perspective to that information. Mathematics is a multifaceted
subject requiring a constellation of abilities.1
Barriers to learning are often rooted in inappropriate and ineffective communica-
tion. This book encourages teachers and tutors to constantly reflect on what and
how they are communicating. That’s a multifaceted task.

A few golden rules

• Don’t create anxiety (and thus demotivation).

• Experiencing success reduces anxiety (and increases motivation).
• Experiencing failure increases anxiety (and decreases motivation).
• Understand your pupils as individuals and accommodate their individuality.
• Be as consistent as possible. Address inconsistencies when they arise. Inconsisten-
cies, in their many manifestations, confuse learners (but see the next two points).
• Teach to the individual in the group . . . also known as the ‘Teach more than one way
to do things’ rule, but . . ..
• Make sure that teaching more than one way to do things does not confuse some
learners.
• Remember where each topic leads mathematically and where its roots lie.
• Know what the pre-requisite skills are for that topic and check that your learners
have these skills (and knowledge).
• Understanding is a more robust outcome than just recall and supports weak long-
term mathematical memory.
• Try to understand errors . . . don’t just settle for wrong.
• Prevention is better than cure.
• When reviewing topics it is very likely that you will have to go back further than
you may think.
• Be empathetic in the pace you set for your lessons.
• All the above rules have exceptions.

Although we might not be surprised to know that high-stake examinations, such as

the national exams for 16-year-old English students, create stress as found in an
AQA study from 2013, lower-stake tests can also create stress, as reported in
a front page article in The Times of 30 December, 2002 headed ‘Exam stress strikes
seven-year-olds’. The article reported that the Key Stage One tests caused symp-
toms of excessive anxiety including loss of appetite, insomnia, bed-wetting, forget-
fulness and depression. These are our children! And now, in 2020, it would still be
good if we were less obsessed with exams and tests and measuring performance,
and maybe make less spurious conclusions and interpretations based on these
activities. Maybe.

Furner and Gonzalez-DeHass (2011) offered wise advice2:

It may be favorable to the students if less of an emphasis is placed on test

taking and competition, passing or failing, and winning or losing. Students with
 Introduction 3

mastery goals are interested in learning new skills and improving their under-
standing and competence; they are engaged in the process, not focused on the
product. They are taking responsibility for their learning and engage in activities
that allow for self-regulation and self-direction. Their success is defined by indi-
vidual improvement, they place value on effort, and their satisfaction is gained
from working hard and learning something new. And they thrive in a classroom
climate that helps students to feel they can take risks, make mistakes, and
reveal their lack of understanding and seek help during their internal drive
towards growth and personal mastery.

I like the interpretation of mastery as used in this context.

What do learners need to be good at mathematics?

Although this book is about ideas to redress underachievement in maths, it should

also be valuable for considering what learners need to be good, to achieve in maths.
I have two sources for this information. One is from the USSR and the other from the
USA. In both cases I have added some comments in italics.
From the USSR, Krutetskii (1976) presents a broad outline of the underlying struc-
ture of mathematical abilities during school age.3 He specifies that, to be good at
maths you need:

• The ability for logical thought in the sphere of quantitative and spatial relation-
ships, number and letter symbols; the ability to think in mathematical symbols.
• The ability for rapid and broad generalisations of mathematical objects, relations
and operations.
• Flexibility of mental processes in mathematical activity (metacognition).
• Striving for clarity, simplicity, economy and rationality of solutions.
• The ability for rapid and free reconstruction of the direction of a mental process,
switching from a direct to a reverse train of thought. (Reversing is a challenge that
starts early in maths.)
• Mathematical memory. A generalised memory for mathematical relationships and
for methods of problem solving.

He goes on to state that ‘These components are closely interrelated, influencing one
another and forming in their aggregate a single integral syndrome of mathematical
giftedness’.
Although Krutetskii makes these observations concerning giftedness in mathemat-
ics, they are equally appropriate for competence. It should be apparent as to where
learning difficulties may create problems with these requirements. It is worth noting
Krutetskii’s observation about the components being closely interrelated and influ-
encing one another. So many of the issues around teaching and learning maths are
multifaceted.
My second source is the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics in the
USA,4 who listed and explained twelve essential components for learning maths.
I have added some comments (in italics).
4 Introduction

1. Problem solving. The process of applying previously acquired knowledge to new

and unfamiliar situations. (Developing transferable skills.) Students should see
alternative solutions to problems: they should experience problems with more
than a single solution. (An effective question to ask learners is, ‘Can you think of
another way of solving this problem?’ This is also about metacognition and flex-
ible cognition.)
2. Communicating mathematical ideas (receiving and presenting). Students
should learn the language and notation (symbols) of maths. (Recent research
by Habermann et al. has found that Arabic numeral knowledge (defined by
numeral reading, writing and identification at 4 years of age) was the sole
unique predictor of arithmetic at 6 years.5 Knowledge of the association
between spoken and Arabic numerals is one critical foundation for the devel-
opment of formal arithmetic.)
3. Mathematical reasoning. Students should learn to make independent investiga-
tions of mathematical ideas. They should be able to identify and extend patterns
and use experiences and observations to make conjectures. (This suggests to me
that this should involve, where appropriate, the use of visual images and concrete
materials. Their use should not be an age-specific approach to teaching. This
classroom approach requires careful and continuous monitoring to avoid learners
absorbing incorrect information and concepts.)
4. Applying maths to everyday situations. Students should be encouraged to take
everyday situations, translate them into mathematical representations (graphs,
tables, diagrams or mathematical expressions), process the maths and interpret
the results in light of the initial situation. (Maths in everyday life provides ample
opportunities for estimations and thus to develop a flexible sense of numbers and
their values.)
5. Alertness to the reasonableness of results. In solving problems, students should
question the reasonableness of a solution or conjecture in relation to the original
problem. They must develop number sense. (This also links to estimation. As an
example of everyday reasonableness, I saw a poster outside a travel agent in Bath
(UK) recently. At this time the exchange rate for GBP (£) to euros was 1.16 euros
to the pound. The poster said, ‘£876 = €750’. There was no alertness to the rea-
sonableness of the result of their calculation.)
6. Estimation. Students should be able to carry out rapid approximate calculations
through the use of mental arithmetic (or perhaps via jottings on paper when work-
ing memory is weak) and a variety of computational estimation techniques and
decide when a particular result is precise enough for the purpose in hand. (See
Chapter 4 on cognitive style.)
7. Appropriate computational skills. Students should gain facility in using addition,
subtraction, multiplication and division with whole numbers and decimals. Today,
long, complicated computations can be done with a calculator or computer.
Knowledge of single digit number facts is essential. (Learning to access facts by
using mathematical strategies can help in developing, for example, an under-
standing of the four operations and algebra. Estimation comes into play again in
checking those calculator answers.)
8. Algebraic thinking. Students should learn to use variables (letters) to represent
mathematical quantities and expressions. They should understand and use
 Introduction 5

correctly positive and negative numbers, order of operations, formulas, equations

and inequalities. (Being able to generalise is a key skill here. Again, this tracks
back to how earlier learning was absorbed and understood.)
9. Measurement. Students should learn the fundamental concepts of measurement
through concrete experiences. (This links to place values for 10n and 10-n.)
10. Geometry. Students should understand the geometric concepts necessary to
function effectively in the three-dimensional world. (This may be a problem for
some students with Developmental Coordination Disorder dyspraxia.)
11. Statistics. Students should plan and carry out the collection and organisation
of data to answer questions in their everyday lives. Students should recognise
the basic uses and misuses of statistical representation and inference. (And
the abuses.)
12. Probability. Students should understand the elementary notions of probability
to determine the likelihood of future events. They should learn how probability
applies to the decision-making process. (It is apparent that many of these
components interlink.)

Picking up on Krutetskii’s first point and the NCTM’s second point concerning the
use of symbols in maths, the British psychologist Skemp wrote:6

Among the functions of symbols, we can distinguish:

1. Communication
2. Recording knowledge
3. The communication of new concepts
4. Making multiple classification straightforward
5. Explanations
6. Making possible reflective activity
7. Helping to show structure
8. Making routine manipulations automatic
9. Recovering information and understanding
10. Creative mental activity

concluding that ‘The use of symbols appears to be indispensable to the use of

reason’.
So, we have some characteristics for being good at mathematics. It seems rea-
sonable to look at the converse situation and conclude that deficits in all or some
of these skills can create difficulties in mathematics. I know from my own many
years of experience of teaching students with difficulties in maths that there are
many reasons why someone may underachieve in mathematics and that the pic-
ture is a complex one with no single root cause. My experience is that Krutetskii’s
criteria are the most telling. When we look at the characteristics of dyscalculia
and maths learning difficulties it is apparent that the deficits in skills and know-
ledge highlighted by research tally closely with the areas of strength listed by
Krutetskii.
The term dyscalculia, a specific learning difficulty in maths, has now become
more recognised in education, though there is quite some way to go. A look at what
dyscalculia might be and how it relates to the broader construct of mathematical
6 Introduction

learning difficulties may help our understanding of the reasons behind many of the
general difficulties with learning mathematics.

Dyscalculia, definitions and descriptions: a brief history

At the start of the new millennium, dyscalculia, a profound problem with learning
mathematics, was beginning to attract attention in official circles in the UK. The DfES
(the UK Department of Education) published a booklet in 2001 on guidance for sup-
porting pupils with dyscalculia (and dyslexia) in the current National Numeracy
Strategy.7 However, in 2020 this interest has slipped and there are no results on
policy or education from a search for dyscalculia on the UK Government’s Depart-
ment for Education website. There is an online screening test for dyscalculia pub-
lished by GL Assessment, a book, The Dyscalculia Assessment aimed at younger
children from Jane Emerson and Patricia Babtie, an online screener, ‘The Dyscalculia
Screener’, from iansyst for post-16 students, the FAM, Feifer Assessment of Mathem-
atics and my own book of standardised and other tests, More Trouble with Maths:
A Complete Manual to Identifying and Diagnosing Mathematical Difficulties, which is
now in its 3rd edition. There is more research these days, but still not as much as for
dyslexia. The neurological tools used for research into brain activity are rapidly
increasing in sophistication, for example, in Daniel Ansari’s work. This area of study
holds great promise.
However, the definitions of dyscalculia are a shade unremarkable at present. As
a physicist I find the definitions of dyscalculia (and dyslexia) are a long way from the
precision I was trained to respect, but then, as a teacher, I know that children and
adults are infinitely variable and labile and that I should not expect a definition that will
meet overly specific criteria. As an illustration of this difficulty there was a meeting in
the UK in September, 2015 of a cluster of the world’s top academics on dyslexia to
discuss and debate the definition of dyslexia, but after two days of discussion they
were unable to reach a consensus.
I have outlined below a brief history of the definitions of dyscalculia. References
may be found at the end of this book.
The first reference to a specific difficulty with maths that I found was by
Bronner (1917)8 quoted in Buswell and Judd’s (1925) classic monograph.9 He
proposed a hypothesis that there are special disabilities in such subjects as
arithmetic.
Gerstmann (1957) described dyscalculia (known for a while as Gerstmann’s syn-
drome) as ‘an isolated disability to perform simple or complex arithmetical operations
and an impairment of orientation in the sequence of numbers and their fractions’.10
Developmental dyscalculia was defined by Bakwin and Bakwin (1960) as a ‘difficulty
with counting’11 and by Cohn (1968) as a ‘failure to recognise numbers or manipulate
them in an advanced culture’.12 These early descriptions focused on early numerical
skills, an emphasis that is still dominant. The term developmental dyscalculia distin-
guishes these difficulties in maths from those acquired by some traumatic injury to
the brain, that is, acquired dyscalculia.
Some definitions of a more general nature incorporate a range of learning difficul-
ties, for example, Kirk (1962) defined learning difficulties as,
 Introduction 7

a delay, a disorder, a slow development of the speech, language, reading, writing,

arithmetic or of other school subjects, which results in a psychic dis-function
caused by a possible brain dis-function, emotional or behavioral disorders. The
learning disorder is not the result of a mental disability, sensory deficiencies or
cultural and instructional factors.13

In 1988 the USA Interagency Committee on Learning Disabilities produced an all-

encompassing definition of learning disabilities, describing them as ‘a heterogeneous
group of disorders manifested by significant difficulties in the acquisitions and use of lis-
tening, speaking, reading, writing, reasoning or mathematical abilities, or of social skills’.14
We should note that dyscalculia is a specific learning difficulty.
Kosc (1970) was a pioneer and major contributor to the foundations of our
knowledge and awareness of dyscalculia.15 He described developmental dyscalcu-
lia as a structural disorder of mathematical abilities which has its origin in a genetic
or congenital disorder of those parts of the brain that are the direct anatomico-
physiological substrate of the maturation of the mathematical abilities adequate to
age, without a simultaneous disorder of general mental functions. This definition
clearly puts dyscalculia in the inherited and specific learning difficulties category.
Advances in neurological technology may well provide evidence for Kosc’s
hypothesis.
In 1978 Magne gave a slightly more cautious explanation of a difficulty in math-
ematics as the low achievement of a person on a certain occasion which manifests
itself as performance below the standards of the age-group of this person or below
their own abilities as a consequence of inadequate cognitive, affective, volitional,
motor or sensory development.16 The cause for inadequate development may be of
various kinds. This description acknowledges that there will be more than one
cause for difficulties in mathematics. It also set the foundation for more recent def-
initions and, specifically, that the difficulties are unexpected in respect to general
levels of ability. The role of levels of general ability and intelligence in definitions is
contentious.
Sharma listed the many words that have been suggested for maths difficulties,
explaining terms such as acalculia, dyscalculia, anarithmetica and noting that
there was no definite agreement on their use universally in the literature, that they
have not been used consistently and although there is a substantial difference
between dyscalculia, a learning difficulty with maths and acalculia, a complete
inability to do any maths, some authors have used the terms interchangeably.17
Sharma concluded that the descriptions of these terms were quite diverse to say
the least.
There is a rarely used term, something that sounds like a missing member of the
Russian royal family, arithmastenia, which is defined as a uniform deficiency in the
level of mathematical abilities.
Sharma (1990) suggests that dyscalculia refers to a disorder in the ability to do or
to learn mathematics, that is, difficulty in number conceptualisation, understanding
number relationships and difficulty in learning algorithms and applying them. He
states that it is an irregular impairment of ability. Thus, he suggests that dyscalculia
is a specific learning difficulty, again focusing on early maths work.
One of the leading workers in the field, Geary noted as early as 1994 that ‘with
regard to basic-arithmetic-related deficits, the neuropsychological studies converged
8 Introduction

on many of same conclusions as the cognitive studies’.18 He uses the term develop-
mental dyscalculia to refer to children’s problems in understanding numerical con-
cepts or arithmetic learning.
It seems to me that we often regard learning maths as a feat of memory rather than
about understanding, thus keeping maths education at the lowest level of Bloom’s
Taxonomy.
By 2001, researchers such as Shalev et al were still using basic descriptions of
low performance in arithmetic in comparison to otherwise-normal children.19 In the
UK the Department for Education and Skills published a booklet (2001, now archived)
on supporting learners with dyslexia and dyscalculia in the National Numeracy Strat-
egy which included the following definition of dyscalculia, heavily influenced by
Butterworth:

Dyscalculia is a condition that affects the ability to acquire mathematical skills.

Dyscalculic learners may have difficulty understanding simple number concepts,
lack an intuitive grasp of numbers, and have problems learning number facts
and procedures. Even if they produce a correct answer or use a correct method,
they may do so mechanically and without confidence.7

Unlike many of the definitions, such as that from the World Health Organisation (below),
this does not refer to normal achievement.
The World Health Organisation (2010) uses the term ‘Specific disorder of arithmet-
ical skills’ which

involves a specific impairment in arithmetical skills that is not solely explicable

on the basis of general mental retardation or of grossly inadequate schooling.
The deficit concerns mastery of basic computational skills of addition, subtrac-
tion, multiplication and division rather than of the more abstract mathematical
skills involved in algebra, trigonometry, geometry or calculus.20

The American Psychiatric Association (2013) also uses ‘specific’ and ‘what is
expected’ in their definition of Developmental Dyscalculia (DD):21

A specific learning disorder that is characterised by impairments in learning

basic arithmetic facts, processing numerical magnitude and performing accurate
and fluent calculations. These difficulties must be quantifiably below what is
expected for an individual’s chronological age, and must not be caused by poor
educational or daily activities or by intellectual impairments.

We are now in exciting times where there is an ever-increasing sophistication with

the technologies that can look at brains at work. Leaders in this field include Ansari,
Reeves and Reigosa-Crespo. However, it is early days as Bugden and Ansari (2015)
have noted:

Neuroimaging studies investigating the cognitive mechanisms that contribute to

DD deficits have yielded an inconsistent and hard to interpret pattern of data.
Given the early stages of functional MRI and EEG research, it is difficult to inter-
pret from the current set of data what neurobiology underlies cognitive deficits
in children with DD.22
 Introduction 9

To summarise this brief history, it seems that the term dyscalculia is used to refer to
problems at the numbersense and arithmetic level of mathematics rather than later
challenges such as algebra and trigonometry. Definitions refer to an unexpected diffi-
culty and/or deficit in comparison to general abilities and performance. They rarely
mention co-occurring difficulties, such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder or
dyslexia.
It is likely that, at some stage not too far away, a cluster of academics will meet
to discuss the implications and definition of the term dyscalculia as they did for dys-
lexia in 2015. It is likely that they will not reach a consensus. We should not risk fail-
ing children (and adults) by simply saying, ‘If people can’t agree to the definition,
then the problem doesn’t exist’.
The most recent (2019) definition from the British Dyslexia Association is:

Dyscalculia is a specific and persistent difficulty in understanding numbers which

can lead to a diverse range of difficulties with mathematics. It will be unexpected
in relation to age, level of education and experience and occurs across all ages
and abilities.
Mathematical difficulties are best thought of as a continuum, not a distinct cat-
egory and they have many causal factors. Dyscalculia falls at one end of a spec-
trum and will be distinguishable from other maths issues due to the severity of
difficulties with number sense, including subitizing, symbolic and non-symbolic
magnitude comparison and ordering. It can occur singly, but often co-occurs with
other specific learning difficulties, mathematics anxiety and medical conditions.23

I wrote the following piece for the Dyslexia Institute’s journal, Dyslexia Review,
volume 14, number 3 (2003). It remained apposite for the second edition of this book.
I was going to replace it for the third edition, but I still liked most of it and it does give
a broad overview, so I have made a few updates and edits (in italics) and kept it in the
4th edition, too!
Although the maths problem has its own name, it should be remembered that
maths learning difficulties are on a spectrum, with dyscalculia at the severe end of
that spectrum. Thus, many of the problems and factors involved are a matter of
degree and not exclusive to dyscalculia.

Does dyscalculia add up?

Initial ramblings (or a collection of rhetorical questions)

Is dyscalculia ‘dyslexia with maths’?

With the publication of Brian Butterworth’s Screening Test for Dyscalculia (2003)24
and the inclusion of dyscalculia as a specific learning difficulty in the DfES (the UK’s
Department of Education) consultation document for the 2004 SEN census, dyscalcu-
lia is a hot topic. (Sadly, the UK Government no longer shows any interest in dyscal-
culia. It is particularly worried about levels of achievement in maths for the 16–19 age
group, but remains attached to traditional beliefs about teaching maths.) This article
sums (!) up my current thinking about dyscalculia. Unfortunately, my current thinking
is (remains) fluid. I am still trying to make sense of all those factors which influence
10 Introduction

the maths learning outcomes of children and adults. So, I hope this paper may attract
some responses and stimulate more research.
Since absolute knowledge on dyscalculia is in short supply, I am going to con-
struct this paper around the questions and issues which I consider we need to inves-
tigate to reach an understanding of dyscalculia. In doing this there seem to be some
very interesting comparisons between dyscalculia and dyslexia.
There are some things I know as a starting point. I know that dyscalculia will not
be a simple construct (I think that means a psychological concept). I know that there
will be many reasons why a person may be bad at maths. I know there will not be
any instant or simple ‘cures’ because I know that there is unlikely to be a single
reason behind the problem of the many, many people who fail to master maths and
I know that not all of these will be dyscalculic.
I heard David Geary speak at an International Dyslexia Association conference. This
American guru compared our knowledge of dyslexia to being close to adulthood and
our knowledge of maths/dyscalculia to being in its early infancy. (It may now be out of
nappies/diapers.) This is reflected in the number of research studies done on language
difficulties compared to those done on maths difficulties. As for studies on dyscalculia,
they are few indeed (more now). I think there are so many parallels at so many levels
between dyslexia and dyscalculia and all that surrounds these specific learning difficul-
ties, for example, prevalence, definition, teaching methods, etiology and so forth.
We are some twenty years behind language/dyslexia studies in our knowledge
and understanding of dyscalculia. This is not to say that I think it will take us twenty
years to catch up in all areas, but that it takes a good length of time for the concept
to become accepted in everyday educational settings and thus for understandings to
build from work from the ‘shop floor’. Currently the vast majority of initial teacher
training courses in the UK do not have content on dyscalculia.
So, let’s go back 20 (now over 30) years to a much quoted, pioneering paper by
Joffe (1980).25 One of Joffe’s statistics has been applied over-enthusiastically and with-
out careful consideration as to how it was obtained. The statistic is that ‘61% of dyslex-
ics are retarded in arithmetic’, and thus 39% are not. Now it is not quite as simple as
that. The sample for this statistic was quite small, some 50 dyslexic learners. The maths
test on which the statistic was largely based was the British Abilities Scales Basic Arith-
metic Test, which is just that, a test of arithmetic skills. Although the test was untimed,
Joffe noted that the high attainment group would have done less well if speed was
a consideration. The extrapolations from this paper would have to be cautious. Other
writers seem to have overlooked Joffe’s own cautions and her detailed observations,
for example, ‘Computation was a slow and laborious process for a large proportion of
the dyslexic sample’. You will see at the very end of this paper I have mentioned an ex-
pupil who was identified as dyscalculic by the Butterworth screener, where two out of
the five exercises focus on speed and accuracy in computation, but who went on to
achieve a top Grade in the national examination for maths at age 16 years. This is not
a comment on the validity of the diagnosis. It is there to reassure students that the
problems exposed by the diagnosis can be successfully addressed.
I think there are two reasons why Joffe’s paper is so frequently quoted. One is
that it is a good (and pioneering) paper and the other is that there are still so few
others from which to quote. Brian Butterworth is the UK’s leading expert on dyscal-
culia. He is still the leading researcher and writer in the UK, though new names are
appearing, such as Szucs, Morsanyi, Hulme and Donlan. There is some excellent
 Introduction 11

work going on across the world now, some of it covered in The Routledge Inter-
national Handbook of Dyscalculia and Mathematical Learning Difficulties (edited by
Chinn, 2015). It is an international problem.

Definitions and labels

As a (lapsed) physicist I have a scientist’s concept of what makes a definition. In

physics one can control the variables and do reliable experiments. People are difficult
to control (especially as teenagers). In this respect I view some of the definitions
used in the LD field more as descriptions.
The definition of a learning difficulty can be very influential and can have many
consequences. For example, it can influence the allocation of resources to an individ-
ual or to a school or to the budget of an Education Authority or to a student at uni-
versity. For an individual, knowing that your difficulties have a label may be a relief
and a benefit, but it may also cause a reaction not at all dissimilar to that of grieving
for a loss. So, there needs to be a sense of responsibility and awareness of all these
implications in those who create definitions.
There seems to have been a change in the culture of the definition of dyslexia,
from the all-encompassing definitions of the late 80s to the focused, minimalist defin-
ition of the British Psychological Society in the late 90s. This could well be significant.
Professor Tim Miles talked of ‘lumpers’ and ‘splitters’. So, could there be ‘specific
learning difficulties’ which may encompass all or some of dyslexia, dyspraxia and
dyscalculia or can the three dys’s have independent existences? And does it matter
if they don’t? Comorbidity is an interesting issue. (Equality in comorbid conditions is
unlikely in any individual.)
Does being dyscalculic exclude you from being dyslexic or dyspraxic? Does being
dyslexic exclude you from being dyscalculic? Then, turning to the lumpers, does
being dyslexic imply that you are also likely to be dyscalculic and dyspraxic?
It may help to answer some, if not all, of these questions if you think of real
people, real individuals and what the answer would be for Jeff or Jane. My experi-
ence of over twenty years of teaching in this field is that the answer to all three ques-
tions is ‘Not necessarily’.
Of course, the answers depend in part on the definitions currently assigned to the
difficulties. I’ll come back to summarise my thoughts on definitions towards the end
of this paper, but here is a small sample of definitions for now.
The first is from a UK DfES booklet (2001) on supporting pupils with dyslexia and
dyscalculia in the classroom (see also p 6).7

Dyscalculia is a condition that affects the ability to acquire mathematical skills.

Dyscalculic learners may have difficulty understanding simple number concepts,
lack an intuitive grasp of numbers, and have problems learning number facts
and procedures. Even if they produce a correct answer or use a correct method,
they may do so mechanically and without confidence.
Very little is known about the prevalence of dyscalculia, its causes, or treat-
ment. Purely dyscalculic learners who have difficulties only with numbers will have
cognitive and language abilities in the normal range and may excel in non-
mathematical subjects. It is more likely that difficulties with numeracy accompany
the language difficulties of dyslexia.
12 Introduction

The second dates from 1970 and is attributed to Kosc.15

Developmental dyscalculia is a structural disorder of mathematical abilities which

has its origin in a genetic or congenital disorder of those parts of the brain that are
the direct anatomico-physiological substrate of the maturation of the mathemat-
ical abilities adequate to age, without a simultaneous disorder of general mental
functions.

The final example, incorporating other specific learning difficulties, is from the UK,
‘DfES Consultation – Classification of SEN. Descriptions to be used in the pupil level
annual schools census from 2004’.

Specific learning difficulty (SpLD) covers a range of related conditions which

occur across a continuum of severity. Pupils may have difficulties in reading,
writing, spelling or manipulating numbers which are not typical of their general
level of performance.
Pupils may have difficulty with short-term memory, with organisational skills,
with hand-eye co-ordination and with orientation and directional awareness. Dys-
lexia, dyscalculia and dyspraxia fall under this umbrella.
(It is worth noting that working memory is not mentioned.)
Pupils with dyscalculia have difficulty with numbers and remembering math-
ematical facts as well as performing mathematical operations. Pupils may have
difficulties with abstract concepts of time and direction, recalling schedules
and sequences of events as well as difficulties with mathematical concepts,
rules, formulas and basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of
facts.26

So, what distinguishes dyscalculia from just ‘problems with maths’? What do we
mean by ‘problems with maths’? How big does the problem have to be to be recog-
nised as a problem? We don’t know, though the brain studies of Ansari, Reeves and
Reigosa-Crespo, Dehaene and Butterworth may take us there. It will depend on the
definition. It may also depend on the perseverance of the difficulty.
Goodness knows how many people have a ‘difficulty’ with maths. Many people, in
Western cultures, readily admit to such difficulties. It is likely to be a significant per-
centage of the population, with actual figures depending on which tabloid newspaper
you read as well as the research. Like all skills, if you cease to practise you lose the
skill and few adults practise maths very often, especially topics such as fractions or
algebra, after leaving school. So, the extent of the problem could well increase in
adults.
The 2017 National Numeracy booklet, ‘A New Approach to Making the UK Numer-
ate’ stated that ‘Government statistics suggest that 17 million adults – 49% of the
working-age population of England – have the numeracy level that we expect of pri-
mary school children’.
We might expect adult skills to be at a higher level than at primary school.
So, I am sure that simply having a difficulty with maths should not automatically
earn you the label ‘dyscalculic’.
Dyscalculia introduces another word into the vocabulary of special needs. Some
see these words as labels and thus as descriptors of a person. That would not be at
all helpful. (People are more far more individual than a label can describe.)
 Introduction 13

OK, I’m dyscalculic. So what?

I like the questions, ‘What if?’ and the follow up ‘So what?’ ‘What if I am dyscalcu-
lic, so what?’ I need to ask, does being dyscalculic condemn the learner to being
forever unsuccessful at maths? That then raises further questions, ‘What does it
mean to be successful at maths?’ and ‘What skills and strengths does a leaner need
to be successful at maths?’ and ‘Is it important to be successful at maths?’ The UK is
making it important by insisting on a maths qualification to access further training after
school.
At the school I founded and ran for 19 years, a DfES-approved independent
school for boys who were diagnosed as (severely) dyslexic and often with significant
maths difficulties, for example, three or more years behind at 11 years old, the results
for GCSE maths (the National examination for 16-year-old students in England,
Wales and Northern Ireland) were, consistently, significantly above National average.
Usually at least 75% of grades were at the ‘pass’ grade C (now grade 4) and above
compared to the National average of around 50%. Very rarely were there any grades
below a D (now grade 3). Obviously, I believe that if the teaching is appropriate then
a learning difficulty does not necessarily mean lack of achievement. But, does a C (4)
grade or above in GCSE maths define success? That’s a question for another article,
so, for the purpose of this article let’s assume it is one criterion and let’s assume
this is one piece of evidence that appropriate teaching can make a difference. That
grade C (4) opens doors.
As for maths, well there is the maths you need for everyday life. This rarely
includes algebra, fractions (other than 1/4 and 1/2), co-ordinates or indeed much of
what is taught in secondary schools. It does include a lot of money, measurement,
some time and the occasional percentage. Take, as an example of a real life maths
exercise, paying for a family meal in a restaurant: it needs estimation skills, possibly
accurate addition skills, subtraction skills if using cash and percentage skills for the
tip. (Maths is a constellation of skills and knowledge.)
The Russian psychologist, Krutetskii (1976) listed the components of mathematical
ability. These act as a description of what a learner needs to be ‘good at maths’.3
Thus, they also act as a guide as to the deficits which handicap the student or adult
in their attempts at learning to be good at maths (see also earlier in this chapter). For
example, a common problem for dyscalculics is in trying to reverse a sequence, such
as counting backwards.

1. An ability to formalise maths material (to abstract oneself from concrete numerical
relationships).
2. An ability to generalise and abstract oneself from the irrelevant.
3. An ability to operate with numerals and other symbols.
4. An ability for sequential segmented logical reasoning.
5. An ability to shorten the reasoning process.
6. An ability to reverse a mental process.
7. Flexibility of thought.
8. A mathematical memory.
9. An ability for spatial concepts.
14 Introduction

What is maths?

Could a person be good at some bits of maths and a failure at other bits? Do you
have to fail at ALL bits to be dyscalculic?
In terms of subject content, early maths is mostly numbers. (Even that can be
complicated. A USA researcher (Berch, 2005) found thirty components of number-
sense in the research literature.27) Later it becomes more varied with new topics
introduced such as measure, algebra and spatial topics. Up to GCSE, despite the dif-
ferent headings, the major component remains as number. So, the demands of
maths can be quite broad. This can be very useful as some students may succeed in
topics such as graphs and shapes. Despite this, number can be a disproportionate
part of early learning experiences and early failures.
So poor number skills could be a key factor in dyscalculia. This might suggest
that we need to consider the match between the demands of the task and the skills
of the learner.
In terms of approach, maths can be a written subject or a mental exercise. It can
be about formulas and procedures or it can be intuitive. It can be learnt and commu-
nicated in either way, or combination of ways by the learner and it can be taught and
communicated in either way or combination of ways by the teacher.
Maths can be concrete but fairly quickly (and usually unnecessarily quickly) moves
to solely the abstract and symbolic. It has many rules and a surprising number of
inconsistencies.
In terms of judgment, feedback and appraisal, maths is quite unique as a school sub-
ject. Work is usually a blunt ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ and it usually needs to be done quickly.
(This is not good news for those pupils who are, relatively, slow processors and who are
at the high end of the spectrum for fearing negative evaluation.)
Even on this brief overview it is obvious that the demands of maths are varied.

Attitude and the affective domain

I don’t have the reference, but there was a study done in Scandinavia which summed
up the influences of language and maths skills on life. Excuse me if I state the influ-
ences somewhat starkly. It is important to remember that people do not have to
follow the conclusions of statistical analysis. ‘Being good at English does not predict
success in life. Being bad at English predicts failure. Being bad at maths does not
predict failure. Being good at maths predicts success’.
Of course, we all know that being bad at maths holds no social stigma in UK and
many other Western cultures. Indeed, it may well attract much mutual empathy. So,
the consequences of dyscalculia are going to have a better social acceptance than
the consequences of dyslexia. For example, I read a letter to The Times about
a restaurant menu, complaining that since it had spelling mistakes the writer would
not be eating there. That makes sense. Especially for my dyslexic students who went
into catering. Obviously, the writer had not heard of Gardner’s theory of multiple
intelligences.
Schools, of course, rarely reflect life. In school there may well be significant conse-
quences of being bad at maths, for example, the allocation of the learner to a teaching
group which may limit the levels of work in several other subjects. Also, in school
unlike life, it’s hard to avoid the stuff you don’t like or the work you feel you can’t do.
 Introduction 15

Two key factors which aid learning are ability and attitude. The latter can go
a long way towards compensating for the former, but then the two factors are closely
interlinked, for example, when success encourages a good positive attitude.
Some learners just feel that they can’t do maths. They feel helpless around maths.
This may well be a consequence of early unsuccessful learning experiences or feed-
back which is seen as negative. The judgmental nature of maths, together with the
culture of having to do work quickly, can lead children to avoid the risk of being
wrong again and again and thus they disassociate themselves from the learning
experience.28 Maths creates anxiety and, sadly, it usually seems to be an anxiety that
does not facilitate learning. Ashcraft et al (1998) have shown that anxiety in maths
can impact on working memory and thus depress performance even more.29 More
recent research30 using the ever-increasing sophistication of techniques for scanning
brains found that regions in the brain associated with threat and pain are activated in
some children on the anticipation of having to do mathematics.
Some learners develop an attributional style for maths which makes their attitude
personal as in ‘I’m too stupid to do maths’, pervasive as in, ‘I can’t do any maths’
and permanent as in, ‘I’ll never be able to do maths’. An individual with a combin-
ation of those three beliefs could well present as a dyscalculic. Sadly, the feedback
that some pupils receive in schools contributes significantly to those attributes.

Memory, short, long and not always working

I often pose the question in my lectures ‘What does the learner bring?’ (to maths). I have
already mentioned some factors such as anxiety. But what about memory? I know that
Krutetskii3 lists mathematical memory as a requirement to be good at maths. I am
sure that short-term and, especially, working memory are vital for mental arithmetic,
particularly for those sequential, formula-based maths thinkers. They also impact on
written maths.
But can a learner compensate for difficulties in some of these requirements and
thus ‘succeed’ in maths?
It is virtually impossible to design a curriculum that meets the needs of every
learner. For example, an essential part of a recent curriculum in England for the early
years of education was mental arithmetic. Now that’s an activity that needs all the
memories, long, short and working. So, a learner with a poor ability in any or all of
short-term memory, working memory and long-term mathematical memory could fail
at mental maths, even though they may have the potential to become an effective
mathematician. If failure is internalised as a negative attributional style31 by the learner
then that potential may never be realised. If the mental maths is done as a lesson-
opener, then some children may never engage with the rest of the lesson either. Les-
sons should begin with a warm-up activity, not straight into the sprint or the marathon.
Is Krutetskii’s mathematical memory a parallel with Gardner’s multiple intelligences?
Perhaps there are multiple memories. That would explain some of the discrepancies
I have seen in children’s memory performances. Like any subject, there is a body of
factual information for maths and if a learner can remember and recall this information
then they will be greatly advantaged and if they can’t . . . Well, there are ways . . .
So good memories may be required for doing maths in general. Short-term and
working memories may be essential for mental maths and mathematical long-term
memory will be essential for the number facts and formulae you need when doing
16 Introduction

mental and written arithmetic. (The questions are, ‘How good must those memories
be?’ and ‘Can you work out some of these facts and procedures from what you do
know?’) Maths is a great subject for using strategies that use what you do know to
work out what you don’t know. That is the nature of maths.

Counting on and on

The first number test on the GL Dyscalculia Screener24 is for subitising. This means
an ability to look at a random cluster of dots and know how many there are, without
counting. Most adults do this at six plus or minus one. Subitising is, technically, for
numbers up to five.
A person who has to rely entirely on counting for addition and subtraction is
severely handicapped in terms of speed and accuracy. Such a person is even
more handicapped when trying to use counting for multiplication and division.
Often their page is covered in endless tally marks and often they are just lined up,
not grouped as, for example, in fives. Maths, for them, is done in counting steps
of one. If you show them patterns of dots or groups, they prefer them as lines and
lines. If the learner is stuck at the ‘counting-in-ones’ stage, then they will not
develop a sense of numbers and the values they represent. The patterns are key
to moving away from counting in ones. That behaviour will also handicap any
understanding of place value.
It’s not just the ability to ‘see’ and use five, which is one of the key numbers, it’s
the ability, for example, to see nine as one less than 10, to see 6 + 5 as 5 + 5 + 1, to
count on in twos, tens and fives, especially if the pattern is not the basic one of 10,
20, 30 . . . but 13, 23, 33, 43 . . ..
It’s the ability to go beyond counting in ones by seeing the patterns and relation-
ships in numbers and by understanding place value, a concept that is often
underestimated.32

Garden variety or what?

Stanovich asked, ‘How do we distinguish between a “garden variety” poor reader

and a dyslexic?’ We need to ask, ‘How do we distinguish between a “garden variety”
poor mathematician and a dyscalculic?’33 The answer may well influence the nature
of the intervention. (I think the answer has a lot to do with perseveration of the diffi-
culty in the face of skilled, varied and appropriate intervention.)
Can you be a good reader and still be a dyslexic? Can you be good at some
areas of maths and still be dyscalculic? My guess is that the answer to both ques-
tions is ‘Yes’, but for maths, this is partly because maths is made up of many topics,
some of which make quite different demands. And for both questions, good and
appropriate teaching can make such a difference. The negative side reflects the
developmental nature of maths and the dependence of many topics on the work that
has gone before.
Once again, I drift back to problems with numbers as being at the core of dyscal-
culia. And it is numbers that will prevail in real life, when algebra is just a distant
memory. And I guess that the main problem is in the belief of many adults that for all
children these facts can be accessed accurately and quickly, usually straight from
 Introduction 17

memory, from rote learning, rather than via strategies. That’s a pretty harmful belief in
its impact on many children.
Could there be a parallel between phonics and number facts? For example, know-
ing how to use phonics to spell a word compared to using addition facts to add, say,
523 – 384. Seeing 523 as 500 + 20 + 3 and as 400 + 110 + 13.
But then not all factors are intellectual. A difficulty may be affected by a bureau-
cratic decision. Some bureaucrats specify a level of achievement that defines whether,
or not, a child’s learning difficulties may be addressed or even assessed, often influ-
enced in this decision by economic considerations. But, even then, is a child’s dys-
lexia or dyscalculia defined solely by achievement scores? Is there room to
consider the individual and what they bring to the situation? Sometimes these deci-
sions are being de-personalised or based on a precision that is spurious for a child.
So, I foresee a child not receiving provision for dyscalculia unless their maths age is
five or more years behind the norm, which could mitigate against early intervention
for six-year-old pupils.

Teaching

I claimed that being a physicist influenced the way I think. I am also a teacher and
was for over 40 years and those years have certainly influenced the way I think, too.
The teacher part of my thinking says, among other things, ‘So they’re dyscalculic,
what do expect me to do next?’
Well, my guess is that using the range of methods and strategies we developed at
the specialist schools I ran for teaching dyslexic pupils will also be effective with dys-
calculic pupils. My 2020 book, How to Teach Maths: Understanding Learners’ Needs
is built around this belief.34 Indeed, in my school I know that we taught many pupils
who had the comorbid problems of dyslexia and dyscalculia (and sometimes dys-
praxia, too). We were in the days where dyscalculia was not a frequently used term.
What we addressed as teachers was the way the pupil presented, not a pupil defined
by some stereotypical attributes.
The key question, when faced with a learner who is struggling with learning
maths, is ‘Where do I begin? How far back in maths do I go to start the interven-
tion?’ This may be a difference, should we need one, between the dyscalculic and
the dyslexic or any learner who is also bad at maths. It may be that the starting
point for the intervention is further back in the curriculum for the dyscalculic than
for the dyslexic. It may be back to the earliest experiences, where counting was in
ones and probably only forwards. It may be that fundamental concepts such as
place value were never truly understood, merely articulated. (Of course, this may
be true for many of the learners who are failing to learn maths.) Yet another topic
to research. It may also be that the subsequent rates of progress are different.
Another topic to research.
A major contributor to the need, with any intervention, to go back to earlier topics
is the power of first learning. In 1925, Buswell and Judd explained that our first expos-
ure, our first learning of any new work, will create a dominant entry to the brain.9
In 2000, the first Key Finding (of three) from a major study in the USA states:

Students come to the classroom with preconceptions about how the world
works. If their initial understanding is not engaged, they may fail to grasp the
18 Introduction

new concepts and information that they are taught, or they may learn them for
the purposes of a test, but then revert to their preconceptions outside the
classroom.35

And, in 2002, Siegler, in his ‘Overlapping Waves’ theory of learning discusses learn-
ers who know and use a variety of strategies, which compete with each other for use
in any given situation. For efficient change to occur, learners must reject the ineffi-
cient strategies which can only happen if they understand that the knowledge is
wrong and why it is wrong.
I like ideas that have longevity (well, most of them) and reappear in a slightly
modified rendition, again and again.
And for a final thought in this section, I ask, ‘What is the influence of the style of cur-
riculum?’ I know, for example, from a European study in which I was involved36, that the
design of the maths curriculum certainly affects cognitive style in maths.

So what?

Not being competent at maths may shut down many career options. There is evi-
dence that people who are ‘good’ at maths earn more over their working life.
There are many reasons why a child or an adult may fail to learn maths skills and
knowledge. For example, a child who finds symbols confusing may have been suc-
cessful with mental arithmetic, but then finds written arithmetic very challenging. There
may be other examples of an onset of failure at different times which will most likely
depend on the match between the demands of the curriculum and the skills and def-
icits of the learner, for example, a dyslexic will probably find word problems especially
difficult and a child who is not dyslexic, but is learning at the concrete level may find
the abstract nature of algebra difficult. A child who is an holistic learner may start to
fail in maths if their new teacher uses a sequential and formula-based inchworm teach-
ing style (see Chapter 4). A learner may have a poor mathematical memory and as the
demands maths makes on memory increase, they may suddenly exceed their capacity.
Of course, the difficulty will depend on the interaction between the demands of the
task and the skills and attitudes of the learner. For example, if one of the demands of
mental arithmetic is that it be done quickly, then any learner who retrieves and pro-
cesses facts slowly will have learning difficulties. Learning difficulties are obviously
dependent on the learning task. Teachers need to know and proactively address the
prerequisites of any task with all their learners in mind.
And none of the underlying contributing factors I have discussed are truly inde-
pendent. Anxiety, for example, is a consequence of many influences. I am hypothe-
sising that the factors I have mentioned are the key ones. There may well be others
and the pattern and interactions will vary from individual to individual, but these are
my choices for the difficulties at the core of dyscalculia.
Compared to the definitions of dyscalculia that I have quoted so far, I much prefer
the one below. I have added some extra notes into the definition which may then be
better seen as a description (and thus not a label).
Dyscalculia is a perseverant condition that affects the ability to acquire mathem-
atical skills despite appropriate instruction. Dyscalculic learners may have difficulty
understanding simple number concepts (such as place value and use of the four
operations, + – × and ÷), lack an intuitive grasp of numbers (including the value of
 Introduction 19

numbers, their symbols and understanding and using the inter-relationship of num-
bers), and have problems learning, retrieving and using quickly number facts (for
example, multiplication tables) and procedures (for example, long division). Even if
they produce a correct answer or use a correct method, they may do so mechanic-
ally and without confidence (and have no way of knowing or checking that the
answer is correct).
This version focuses on number, which makes sense to me. It mentions memory
and it includes those who present as competent in some areas, but whose perform-
ance has no underlying understanding of number. An addendum could list some of
the key contributors, such as;
A learner’s difficulties with maths may be exacerbated by anxiety, poor working
memory, inability to use and understand symbols, and an inflexible learning style.
Now the definition/description is in this form, it may be possible to set up a diag-
nostic procedure, but it would have to be a very adaptable protocol.
And, as a final thought, have I met any learners whom I think would be described
accurately as persistently, severely and exclusively dyscalculic? I have, but they were
few. I mention two, one is a female, gifted in language (and languages) who had abso-
lutely no idea what ‘1/2 × 50’ (presented as symbols) would be. I asked her would the
answer be bigger or smaller than 50 and she replied ‘Yes’. The other is a male, aver-
age at language skills but who could not ‘see’ that I held out three fingers. He had to
count them, even as a sixteen-year old. He achieved a bottom grade in GCSE maths,
but it was a grade, which for him was a massive achievement. But, to move up the
learning difficulty spectrum, as for the number of students and adults with significant
learning difficulties in maths, I suspect we are looking at over 20%.
And finally, finally, there are many children out there who may present as dyscalculic
as young learners. It’s what happens next that confirms or challenges that description.
(If you want to follow up references for this section and the rest of this chapter,
they are included in ‘References and Notes’ at the end of this book.)
For me, the main issue here is that not every child or adult who is failing in mathemat-
ics is dyscalculic. Even for those who do gain this label, it does not predict an outcome
or even the level of intervention, but it does suggest to me that whatever teaching experi-
ences this pupil has had, they have not been appropriate. I know, from fifteen years of
data on pupils at my last school, that it is possible for most pupils to change a history of
low gains in maths age, often less than six months per year to gains of over twelve
months per year, thus moving to ‘catch up’. Some of these pupils might have been diag-
nosed as dyscalculic, some might not. In many senses that was less relevant than their
history of underachievement in mathematics. Like my new book, we had to teach maths
to them as they were as individual learners.

Adjusting lessons to help pupils who are having

difficulties in learning maths

Adjustments to lessons should be based on four principles:

• Empathetic classroom management, which implies an active awareness and con-

sequent adjustment to the learning strengths and difficulties of pupils, such as
working memory.
20 Introduction

• Responsive flexibility, which allows the teacher to have a repertoire of resources and
strategies which respond to the individual (and often changing) needs of the pupil.
• Developmental methods, which are methods that address the remedial need whilst
developing mathematical skills and concepts. There is a need for teacher and
learner to know where the maths has come from and where it is going.
• Effective communication, which infers an awareness of cognitive style, the ‘data-
bank’, and an awareness of limitations such as language skills, poor short-term
memory or slower speeds of working. The layout and presentation of work on
paper or on a board must have clarity.

The application of these principles should affect all levels of work, from the construc-
tion of the syllabus and lesson plans to the setting and marking of homework.

Integrating dyscalculic pupils and other learners who

have difficulties with mathematics into the real world of
the classroom

This section may also be of help when discussing and setting up an inclusive maths
department policy.

The syllabus and programme of work

1. A structure or programme which builds in regular returns to topics helps learners

with poorer long-term memories. It includes the explicit linking of numbers, oper-
ations and basic concepts as the syllabus progresses.
2. Programmes that rely heavily on self-tuition can allow pupils to develop incorrect
procedures and concepts. (I remember the Kent Mathematics Project where pupils
worked largely with work cards and at their own pace, but with little or no tuition).
This will be true of many programmes that are exclusively IT based (see Hattie).37
It is very difficult to replace incorrect first learning experiences and knowledge.
3. Communication is key.

In the classroom

1. Short-term and working memory deficits can affect mental arithmetic skills (which
may sometimes show a marked difference in success to written arithmetic skills).
2. Short-term and working memory deficits can affect many other areas of learning
such as the number of items of instruction a pupil can recall and process at one
time, or in copying content from a page or a board. These deficits may be audi-
tory or visual or both, so presentation should always address both modes.
3. Look out for short-term memory overload (when the pupil will just be over-
whelmed and recall nothing at all).
4. If recall of facts (such as times table facts) and procedures (such as subtracting from
zero) do not become automatic, then there is less mental ‘space’ left to do the main
task. This then compounds the effect of any difficulties. Use the key/core numbers
(1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50 . . ..) when introducing new arithmetical procedures.
Another random document with
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indifferent if it had not been accompanied by another, which
suddenly brought the artist into the light, and was the success of the
Salon of 1874.
During his last holiday at Damvillers, Bastien-Lepage had
conceived the idea of painting the portrait of his grandfather, in the
open air, in the little garden which the old man loved to cultivate.

Grandfather Lepage.
By Jules Bastien-Lepage.
The grandfather was represented seated in a garden chair,
holding on his knees his horn snuff-box and his handkerchief of blue
cotton. His striking face stood out well detached from the
background of trees; the black velvet cap sloping jauntily towards his
ear gave effect to the shrewd Socratic face; his blue eyes twinkled
with humour; the nose was broad and retroussé; the white forked
beard spread itself over an ancient vest of the colour of dead leaves;
the hands, painted like life, were crossed upon the grey trousers.
Before this picture, so true, so frank, of such marvellous intensity
of familiar life, the public stood delighted, and the name of Bastien-
Lepage, unknown before, figured the next day in the first place in the
articles on the Salon.
 II.

It was in front of this picture that I first met Jules. Having looked in
my catalogue for the name of the painter, I was delighted to find that
he was from the Meuse, and born at that same Damvillers where I
had once lived.
The heavy soil of our department is not fruitful in artists. When it
has produced one it takes a rest for a few centuries.
Since Ligier Richier, the celebrated sculptor, born at the end of the
fifteenth century, the Meuse could only claim credit for the painter
Yard a clever decorator of churches and houses in the time of Duke
Stanislas; so I was quite proud to find that Bastien-Lepage was a
fellow countryman of mine. A few moments later a mutual friend
introduced us to each other.
I saw before me a young man, plainly dressed, small, fair, and
muscular; his pale face, with its square determined brow, short nose,
and spiritual lips, scarcely covered with a blond moustache, was
lighted up by two clear blue eyes whose straight and piercing look
told of loyalty and indomitable energy. There was roguishness as
well as manliness in that mobile face with its flattened features, and
a certain cool audacity alternated with signs of sensitiveness and
sparkling fun and gaiety.
Remembrances of our native province, our common love of the
country and of life in the open air, soon established kindly relations
between us, and after two or three meetings we had entered upon a
close friendship.
The portrait of the grandfather had won for him a third medal, and
had ensured him a place in the sunshine.
It was not yet a money success, but it was a certain degree of
fame; he might go back to his village with his heart at rest, his head
high. The State had just bought his picture, La Chanson du
Printemps (The Song of Spring), and orders were beginning to come
in.
In 1875 Bastien-Lepage reappeared in the Salon with La
Communiante (The Communicant) and the portrait of M. Simon
Hayem, two excellent works which gave, each in its way, a new mark
of his originality.
The portrait of M. Hayem was best liked by men of the world;
artists were most struck by La Communiante.

The Communicant.
By Jules Bastien-Lepage.
 This young girl’s simple awkward bearing, as she stands out from
a creamy background, with all the stiffness of her starched white veil,
naïvely opening her pure hazel eyes, and crossing her fingers, ill at
ease in the white gloves, is a marvel of truthful painting. It reminds
one of the manner of Memling and of Clouet, though with quite a
modern feeling. It is interesting, as being the first of those small,
lifelike, characteristic portraits, in a style at once broad and
conscientious, which may be reckoned among the most perfect of
this painter’s works.
At the time of these successes in the Salon, Bastien joined in the
competition for the Prix de Rome. The subject chosen for 1875 was
taken from the New Testament—L’Annonciation aux Bergers (The
Annunciation to the Shepherds).
I remember as if it were yesterday that July morning when the
gates of the Palais des Beaux Arts were opened, and the crowd of
eager inquirers rushed into the hall of the competition.
After a few minutes Bastien’s picture was surrounded, and a buzz
of approval arose from the groups of young people gathered round
that work, so real, so strongly conceived and executed that the other
nine canvases disappeared as in a mist.
The artist had understood and treated the subject in a manner
utterly different from the usual style of the Academy. It was familiar
and touching, like a page of the Bible. The visit of the angel had
surprised the shepherds sleeping by their fire in the open air; the
oldest of them was kneeling before the apparition, and prostrated
himself in adoration; the youngest was gazing with half-closed eyes,
and his open lips and hands, with fingers apart, expressed
astonishment and admiration. The angel, a graceful figure, with
childlike almost feminine head, was showing with outstretched arm
to the shepherds, Bethlehem in the distance surrounded by a
miraculous halo.
This picture, which has both the charm of poetic legend and a
manly grip of real life, was executed with uncommon grace and
vigour; its very faults contributed to the realization of the effect aimed
at.
 Most of those who saw this work of Lepage declared that he
would carry off the Prix de Rome with a high hand; yet the jury
decided otherwise. It was an older and more correct competitor who
was sent to the Villa Medicis at the cost of the State.
For a moment Bastien-Lepage was troubled and discouraged by
this decision. Not that he felt himself strongly attracted towards
Rome and Italian art, but he knew that many people judge of an
artist by his success. Among the people down in his province and in
his own family the Prix de Rome would have been considered as an
official recognition of his talent, and he regretted, above all, not being
able to give this satisfaction to his relations, who had undergone so
many privations in order to maintain him at Paris. That he did not
soon forget this unmerited check, we may gather from this fragment
of a letter to a friend:
“I learned my business in Paris, I shall not forget that; but my art I
did not learn there. I should be sorry to undervalue the high qualities
and the devotion of the masters who direct the school. But is it my
fault if I have found in their studio the only doubts that have
tormented me? When I came to Paris I knew nothing at all, but I had
never dreamed of that heap of formulas they pervert one with. In the
school I have drawn gods and goddesses, Greeks and Romans, that
I knew nothing about, that I did not understand, and even laughed at.
I used to say to myself that this might be high art; I wonder
sometimes now if anything has resulted from this education….”
However, he did not consider himself beaten. The following year,
at the same time that he was exhibiting his portrait of M. Wallon, he
went in again for the Prix de Rome competition. This time it was less
for his own sake than to give a satisfaction to his family and friends.
He did not enter with any real feeling into this competition, the
subject for which was: Priam suppliant Achille de lui rendre le corps
de son fils Hector (Priam begging Achilles to restore to him the body
of his son Hector). This picture, though a vigorous composition, tells
almost nothing of the deep and poignant emotion of this episode of
the Iliad.
 Once more he failed to gain the prize, but this time he did not take
it much to heart. He was occupied with more absorbing prospects:
his last visit to Damvillers had bent his mind toward another ideal.
Whatever he might say, his studies in the school had not been
without their use to him. They had developed in him the critical
faculty. His repugnance to factitious and conventional art had driven
him with more force to the exact and attentive observation of nature.
At Paris he had learned to compare, and to see better. The
Meuse country, so little heroic, with its low hills, its limited horizons,
its level plains, had appeared to him suddenly more attractive and
more worthy of interest than the heroes of Greece and Rome. Our
labourers driving the plough across the field; our peasant women
with their large liquid eyes, prominent jaws, and widely opening
mouths; our vine-dressers, their backs curved with the labour of the
hoe, had revealed themselves to him as models much more
attractive than those of the atelier. It was a work for a great artist to
bring out the poetry pervading the village folk and their belongings
and to give it a real existence, as it were, by means of line and
colour. To represent the intoxicating odour of the mown grass, the
heat of the August sun on the ripe corn, the life of the village street;
to bring into relief the men and women who have their joys and
sorrows there; to show the slow movement of thought, the anxieties
about daily bread on faces with irregular and even vulgar features;—
this is human art, and consequently high art. This is what the Dutch
painters did, and they created masterpieces. Bastien, while lounging
among the orchards of Damvillers and the woods of Réville, resolved
that he would do as they had done, that he would paint the peasants
of the Meuse.
The list of studies begun or completed at this time shows us the
progress of this dominant idea: La Paysanne au Repos (The
Peasant Woman Reposing), La Prairie de Damvillers (The Meadow
at Damvillers), the two sketches for the picture Les Foins (The Hay),
Les Jardins au Printemps (Gardens in Spring), Les Foins Mûrs (Ripe
Grasses), L’Aurore (Dawn)—all these canvases bear the date of
1876.
 It was in the autumn of the same year that we carried out a long-
talked-of plan for making an excursion together on foot into the
Argonne. I went to join him in September at Damvillers.
Thanks to him, I saw with a very different feeling the town that
formerly I thought so dull. Cordially and hospitably received in the
house at the corner of the great square, I made the acquaintance of
the father, with his calm, thoughtful face; of the grandfather, so
cheerful in spite of his eighty years; of the mother, so full of life, so
devoted, the best mother that one could wish for an artist. I saw what
a strong and tender union existed between the members of this
family whose idol and whose pride was Jules.
We set out along with one of my old friends and the painter’s
young brother. For a week we walked with our bags on our backs
through the forest country of the Argonne, going through woods from
Varennes to La Chalade, and from Islettes to Beaulieu. The weather
was rainy and unpleasant enough, but we were none the less gay for
that, never winking when the rain came down, visiting the glass-
works, admiring the deep gorges in the forests, the solitary pools in
the midst of the woods, the miles of green and misty avenues at the
foot of the hills.
Jules Bastien was always the leader. When we arrived at our
resting place in an evening, after a day of walking in the rain, he
almost deafened us with scraps of café-concert songs, with which
his memory was stored.
I seem still to hear in the dripping night that voice, clear and
vibrating, now silent for ever….
As we went along he told me of his plans for the future.
He wanted to tell the whole story of country life in a series of large
pictures: hay-making, harvest, seed-time, the lovers, the burial of a
young girl…. He also wanted to paint a peasant woman as Jeanne
d’Arc, at the moment when the idea of her divine mission is taking
possession of her brain; then, a Christ in the Tomb.
Together we made a plan for publishing a series of twelve
compositions: Les Mois Rustiques (The Months in the Country), for
which he was to furnish the drawings and I the text.
From time to time we stopped at the opening of a wood or at the
entrance of a village, and Jules would make a hasty sketch, little
thinking that the wild and simple peasants of the Argonne would take
us for Germans surreptitiously making notes of their roads and
passes. At Saint Rouin, while we were looking on at a Pilgrimage,
we had nearly been taken as spies. I have told this story
elsewhere.[1] The remembrance of it amused us for a long time.
After eight days of this vagabond life we separated at Saint Mihiel,
where Bastien wished to see the group of statues of the sepulchre,
the chef d’œuvre of Ligier Richier, before beginning his Christ in the
Tomb.
Shortly afterwards he gave an account of this visit in a letter to his
friend Baude, the engraver:
“Our too short walk through the Argonne has been very
interesting, and ended with a visit to the grand chef d’œuvre of Ligier
Richier at Saint Mihiel. You must see that some day. I have seen
nothing in sculpture so touching. France ought to know better and to
be prouder of that great Lorraine artist. You will see a photograph of
this masterpiece when you come to me….”
He had scarcely been six weeks at Damvillers again when he lost
his father, who was suddenly carried off by pulmonary congestion.
Death entered the house for the first time, and it was a rude shock
for a family where each loved the other so well.
“We were too young to lose such a good friend,” he wrote to me;
“in spite of all the courage one can muster, the void, the frightful void
is so great, that one is sometimes in despair….”
“… Happily remembrance remains (letter to M. Victor Klotz), and
what a remembrance it is! … the purest that is possible;—he was
goodness and self-abnegation personified; he loved us so!… What is
to be done? We must try to fill the void with love for those who
remain, and who are attached to us, always keeping in mind him
who is gone, and working much to drive away the fixed idea.”
 And indeed he did work furiously: at Damvillers, at a Job that
remains unfinished, and at Paris at the full-length portrait of a lady,
which was exhibited in the Salon of 1877.
He had left the Rue Cherche Midi and had settled in the Impasse
du Maine, where his studio and his apartment occupied one floor of
a building, at the end of a narrow neglected garden, whose only
ornaments were an apricot tree and some lilac bushes.
His brother Emile, who just then came to an end of his study of
architecture in the school, lived with him.
His studio was very large, and was simply furnished with an old
divan, a few stools, and a table covered with books and sketches. It
was decorated only with the painter’s own studies and a few
hangings of Japanese material.
I used to go there every morning at this time to sit for my portrait.
I used to arrive about eight o’clock, to find Jules already up, but
with his eyes only half awake, swallowing two raw eggs, to give
himself tone, as he said.
He already complained of stomach trouble, and lived by rule. We
used to smoke a cigarette, and then he began to work. He painted
with a feverish rapidity, and with a certainty of hand quite
astonishing. Sometimes he would stop, get up and roll a cigarette,
would closely examine the face of his model, and then, after five
minutes of silent contemplation, he would sit down again with the
vivacity of a monkey and begin to paint furiously.
The portrait, sketched in during the snows of January, was almost
finished when the apricot tree began to put on its covering of white
flowers in April.
 The Hayfield.
By Jules Bastien-Lepage.
Immediately after the opening of the Salon, Bastien packed up his
baggage and fled to Damvillers to prepare for his great picture Les
Foins (The Hayfield), which occupied him all the summer of 1877,
and of which he gave me news from time to time.
“July.—I shall not say much about my work; the subject is
not yet sufficiently sketched in. What I can tell you is that I am
going to give myself up to a debauch in pearly tones: half-dry
hay and flowering grasses; and this in the sunshine, looking
like a pale yellow tissue with silver threads running through it.
 “The clumps of trees on the banks of the stream and in the
meadow will stand out strongly with a rather Japanese
effect….”
“15th August.—Your verses are just the picture I should
like to paint. They smell of the hay and the heat of the
meadow…. If my hay smells as well as yours I shall be
content…. My young peasant is sitting with her arms apart,
her face hot and red; her fixed eyes seeing nothing; her
attitude altogether broken and weary. I think she will give the
true idea of a peasant woman. Behind her, flat on his back,
her companion is asleep, with his hands closed; and beyond,
in the meadow, in the full sun, the haymakers are beginning to
work again. I have had hard work to set up my first ideas,
being determined to keep simply to the true aspect of a bit of
nature. Nothing of the usual willow arrangement, with its
branches drooping over the heads of the people to frame the
scene. Nothing of that sort. My people stand out against the
half-dry hay. There is a little tree in one corner of the picture
to show that other trees are near, where the men are gone to
rest in the shade. The whole tone of the picture will be a light
grey green….”
“September.—Why didn’t you come, lazy fellow? You
would have seen my Hay before it was finished. Lenoir, the
sculptor, my neighbour in the Impasse, liked it. The country
people say it is alive. I have little more than the background to
finish. I am going to harness myself to the Reapers, and to a
nude study of a Diogenes the cynic, or rather, the sceptic….”
Les Foins was sent to the Salon in 1878. It had a great success,
though it was warmly discussed.
In the hall where it was placed, among the pictures which
surrounded it, this picture gave an extraordinary sensation of light
and of the open air. It had the effect of a large open window.
The meadow, half mown, went back bathed with sunshine, under
a summer sky, flecked with light clouds. The young haymaker sitting
drooping in the heat, intoxicated with the smell of the hay, her eyes
fixed, her limbs relaxed, her mouth open, was wonderfully real.
There was nothing of the conventional peasant whose hands look as
if they had never touched a tool, but a veritable countrywoman
accustomed from childhood to outdoor work. One felt that she was
weary with fatigue, and glad to breathe a moment at her ease, after
a morning of hard work in the sun.
This picture of life in the fields, so carefully studied, so powerfully
rendered, had a considerable influence on the painting of the day.
From the time of this exhibition many young painters, many foreign
artists especially, threw themselves with enthusiasm into the new
way opened out by Bastien-Lepage, and, without intention on his
part, the painter of the Meusian peasants became the head of a
school.

[1] See La Chanson du jardinier in Sous Bois.

 III.

Bastien did not allow himself to be spoiled by success, but

continued his life of assiduous labour and conscientious research.
He divided his time between Paris and Damvillers, giving the larger
part to his village.
We have a long list of his works done in 1878 and 1879. Portraits
of M. and Mme. Victor Klotz and of their children, of MM. de
Gosselin, of M. A. Lenoir, of M. de Tinan, of the publisher George
Charpentier, of Emile Bastien, of Sarah Bernhardt, and lastly that
Saison d’Octobre, or, Recolte des Pommes de terre (October, or The
Potato Harvest) which is the companion picture to Les Foins (Hay).
This was in a graver key, with warm yet sober colours, and an
exquisite savour of the country in the late summer; it was powerfully
executed and full of health and serenity.
The portrait of Sarah Bernhardt and The Potato Harvest, less
discussed than The Hay, made a deep impression on the mass of
the public.
 Sarah Bernhardt.
By Jules Bastien-Lepage.
Dating from this time, Bastien’s success, both artistic and
monetary, was secure.
His first care was to let his friends at Damvillers join in his good
fortune.
They had been with him in his difficulties, they should now share
his pleasure, and he brought them to Paris in the summer of 1879.
He was happy to return to them, in all sorts of kind attentions, a little
of what he owed them for so much affectionate devotion. He was
grateful to them for having believed in him in his time of difficulty as a
beginner, and he experienced a tender pride in being able to show
them that they had not been mistaken.
When he received his first important gains he took his mother to a
large shop and had silks for dresses spread out before her. “Show
some more,” cried he. “I want Mama to choose the best.” And the
poor little mother, frightened at the sight of black satin that could
stand upright of itself, in vain protested that “she would never wear
that.” She was obliged to give way.
He took his grandfather through the avenues of the Bois and the
principal boulevards, expecting that he would be delighted; but in this
direction his zealous efforts failed utterly. The old man remained
indifferent to the splendours of Parisian luxury and to the scenery in
the theatres. At the opera he yawned openly, declaring that all this
commotion was deafening, and he went back to Damvillers
determined that they should never take him away again.
After having seen his people into the train for their return, he set
out for England, where he painted the Prince of Wales.
Decorated in the following July, he hastened to Damvillers to
show his red ribbon to his friends, and also to go on with the work he
loved best.
He had managed to arrange a studio in the spacious and lofty
granaries of the paternal house, and there he worked hard.
He hoped at last to realize his dream, so long deferred, of painting
a Jeanne d’Arc. He had meditated much on this subject, and we
have often spoken of it.
His idea was to paint Jeanne in the little orchard at Domrémy at
the moment when she hears, for the first time, the mysterious voices
sounding in her ears the call to deliver her country.
To give more precision to the scene, Bastien wished to show,
through the branches of the trees, the “blessed saints,” whose voices
encouraged the heroic shepherdess.
In this I differed from him. I maintained that he ought to suppress
these fantastic apparitions, and that the expression of Jeanne’s face
alone should explain to the spectator the emotion caused by the
hallucination to which she was a prey. I reminded him of the sleep-
walking scene in Macbeth: the doctor and the chamber-woman, I
said, do not see the terrible things that dilate the pupils of Lady
Macbeth, but from her face and gestures they know that there is
something terrible; the effect is only the greater, because, after
having perceived this, the imagination of the spectator increases it.
Suppress your phantoms and your picture will gain in sincerity and
dramatic intensity.
But Jules held to the personification of the voices, and our
discussions ended without either the one or the other being
convinced. Nevertheless, my objection had impressed him, and he
wanted to show his work to his friends before it was quite finished.
 Joan of Arc Listening to the Voices.
By Jules Bastien-Lepage.
“Come,” he wrote to me, about the 15th of September, “F. is quite
disposed to come; he really wants to come to Damvillers. Everything
will go beautifully. You will see my picture of Jeanne d’Arc well
advanced, and somebody coming from Paris will do me no harm….”
“If you knew how I work (letter to Ch. Baude) you would be less
surprised. My picture is getting on, and getting on well; all, except
the voices, is sketched, and some parts are begun. I think I have
found a head for my Jeanne d’Arc, and everybody thinks she
expresses well the resolution to set out, while keeping the charming
simplicity of the peasant. Also, I think the attitude is very chaste and
very sweet, as it ought to be in the figure that I want to represent; …
but if I am to see you soon, I prefer to leave you the pleasure of
surprise and of the first impression of the picture; you will judge of it
better, and you will be able to say better what you think of it….”
Jeanne d’Arc appeared in the Salon of 1880, with the portrait of
M. Andrieux. It did not produce all the effect that Jules expected. The
picture had its enthusiastic admirers, but also passionate detractors.
The critics attacked first the want of air and of perspective; then, as I
had foreseen, the voices, represented by three symbolical
personages, too slightly indicated to be understood, and yet too
precise for apparitions. But the public did not do justice to the
admirable figure of Jeanne, standing, motionless, quivering, her eyes
dilated by the vision, her left hand extended, and mechanically
fingering the leaves of a shrub growing near.
Never had Bastien-Lepage created a figure more poetically true
than this Lorraine shepherdess, so pure, so human, so profoundly
absorbed in her heroic ecstasy.
The rapid and brilliant success of the young master had ruffled the
amour propre of many; they made him pay for these precocious
smiles of glory by undervaluing his new work. He had hoped that the
medal of honour would be given to his Jeanne d’Arc; this distinction
was given to an artist of talent, but whose work had neither the
originality, nor the qualities of execution, nor the importance of
Bastien’s picture. He felt this injustice strongly and went to London;
there the reception and appreciation of English artists and amateurs
consoled him a little for this new mortification.
The two years that followed were fruitful in vigorous work of
different kinds: Les Blés Mûrs (Ripe Corn), the London Docks, The
Thames, Le Paysan allant voir son champ le dimanche (The
Peasant Going to Look at his Field on Sunday), La Petite Fille allant
à l’école (The little Girl Going to School); the portraits of M. and of
Mme. Goudchaux, of Mdlle. Damain, of Albert Wolff, and of Mme.
W., La Marchande de Fleurs (The Flower Girl); last of all, the two
great pictures Le Mendiant (The Beggar), and Père Jacques,
exhibited in the Salon in 1881 and 1882.
 His stay in London and the reading of Shakspeare had inspired
him with the idea of painting one of the heroines of the great poet,
and in 1881 he went back to Damvillers full of a project for painting
the Death of Ophelia.
“I have been painting hard” (letter to Ch. Baude, August, 1881),
“for I want to go away and travel for two or three weeks. At the end
of September you will come and see us. That is settled, is it not?
Shooting, amusements, friendship. Since my return I have painted a
haymaker and worked at a little picture of an interior: The Cuvier à
Lessive (The Washing Kitchen); all the detail requires much time.
Besides I have begun and already advanced a large picture of
Ophelia. I think it will be well to do something as a contrast to my
Mendiant (Beggar). It is to be a really touching Ophelia, as
heartrending as if one actually saw her.”
“The poor distracted girl no longer knows what she is doing, but
her face shows traces of sorrow and of madness. She is close to the
edge of the water leaning against a willow; upon her lips, the smile
left by her last song; in her eyes, tears! Supported only by a branch,
she is slipping unawares; the stream is quite close to her. In a
moment she will be in it. She is dressed in a little greenish blue
bodice, and a white skirt with large folds; her pockets are full of
flowers, and behind her is a river-side landscape. One bank under
trees, with tall flowering grasses, and thousands of hemlock flowers,
like stars in the sky; and in the higher part of the picture, a wooded
slope; and the evening sun shining through birches and hazel
bushes; that is the scene….”
This picture was never finished. The landscape and flowers were
rendered as the artist wished, but the face and the costume of
Ophelia recalled his Jeanne d’Arc too much.
Bastien-Lepage no doubt saw this, and for this reason put the
picture on one side to return to his peasants.