Teaching Geometry and Lines to Primary School Pupils

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2d and 3d shapes 

In my experience, children that struggle with the number aspect of Maths, can often find it easy to understand and manipulate 2d and 3d shapes.  This can often be the case for children with dyslexia or dyscalculia.  They can have a good conceptual, intuitive grasp of shape.    

However, there are two qualifications that I would make here:

1)      This is not true for all children with dyslexia and dyscalculia.  It can also be the case that children with dyscalculia and dyslexia have specific difficulties with spatial reasoning.

2)     Children might find it easy to use manipulatives to construct, to draw 2d or 3rd shapes but find it difficult to translate that success into formal success in the Maths classroom.   This can arise from not having acquired the specific maths language or terminology necessary for success.  

Natural Engineers

It is easy to spot children in a classroom who are natural engineers, architects or designers.  They will always gravitate to the Lego, the blocks or the cardboard and tape! They thrive at construction, sketching out 3d designs and can solve a tangram before you have turned around.   Those learners are the children who should excel in geometry but this doesn’t always translate (pardon the pun!).

For children to succeed at geometry, they need to have a clear grounding in the proper terminology of lines, angles and shapes.    When I started teaching in primary school, I didn’t properly appreciate the importance of specifically teaching (and more importantly, reteaching) those terms.  It was only as time went on that I recognised how important this was to allow children to flourish, particularly to provide the natural engineers and architects with the skills they need to thrive.

Grounding Geometry in Primary School

The importance of structured, systematic reading instruction for children with dyslexia is well recognised, but the importance of structured and systematic teaching of terms in Maths less so.  The individual runner up of the young scientist competition in 2023 found that the new junior cert exam, even when accommodations have been taken into consideration, disadvantages children with dyslexia.  

This grounding needs to start early in primary school so that children can properly name different types of lines, angles and shapes; so that when they come to secondary school geometry, they can effortlessly build on what they already know.  

The importance of visuals

Specific explicit teaching of the relevant topic vocabulary is key.  There are many ways to do this, but two that I find particularly effective are:

-        Good clear visuals in the classroom demonstrating relevant terms. 

-        Pupil created Maths journals / dictionaries. 

For example, when I am teaching shapes, I start with making sure children understand, can recognise and can appropriately use the language of horizontal lines, vertical lines, diagonal lines parallel lines and perpendicular lines.   I leave those visuals up in our room until all children have properly understood them. 

Using the Visuals

Having those visuals available to children in a poster size around the classroom or reduced down to a thumbnail size for a brag tag or a maths journal allows children to use the vocabulary effectively when working in pairs.

From here, it is easy to create low floor, high ceiling tasks that all children can access and engage with effectively.

• List / Draw and label as many items around the classroom that have a given line. (There is nothing like a clipboard and a task with Treasure Hunt in the title to engage learners!).

• Encourage the children to create their own quiz, e.g. What Line am I?

• Mystery LinesPerson! Pick one of the lines and tell the children that you will be listening who for who is using that vocabulary as you walk around the class to assess engagement.

When can I take down the Visuals?

I know it is okay to take these down when all children can name them and draw them on a mini whiteboard. I also know that some children will not retain these and that we need to continue to use these terms and frequently refer back to them.

Working with Support Teachers

Make sure that the support teacher of any children attending support for Maths knows what you are working on in class. The topic may not always need to have a discrete, separate support lesson, but working closely with support teachers and vice versa, can allow for incidental reinforcement and repetition which can be key.

Doing this, means that all children have the best start to developing their mathematical skills and knowledge.