The mathematics skills of children with reading difficulties

Although many children with reading difficulty (RD) are reported to struggle with mathematics, little research has empirically investigated whether this is the case for different types of RD. This study examined the mathematics skills of third graders with one of two types of RD: dyslexia (n = 18) or specific reading comprehension difficulty (n = 22), as contrasted to a comparison group (n = 247). Children's performance on arithmetic fact fluency, operations, and applied problems was assessed using standardized measures. The results indicated that children with dyslexia experienced particular difficulty with arithmetic fact fluency and operations: they were 5.60 times and 8.54 times more likely than other children to experience deficits in fact fluency and operations, respectively. Our findings related to arithmetic fact fluency were more consistent with domain-general explanations of the co-morbidity between RD and mathematics difficulty, whereas our findings related to operations were more consistent with domain-specific accounts.

Research Highlights
► Third graders with dyslexia 5.60 times more likely to have deficits in arithmetic fact fluency.
► Arithmetic fact fluency deficits in dyslexia might be due to phonological processing deficits.
► Operations might be better than arithmetic fact fluency in identifying mathematics difficulty