He understands concepts – but won't do arithmetic

[SarahW]

I swear, I am about to wring his neck. 

 

When I talk to my kid about math, I can see that he understands the concepts of pre-algebra, algebra, and a good bit of geometry just fine. But doing the arithmetic in order to DO any of those? Forget about it. On any random day he'll declare that he “doesn't know†how to add or subtract past a ten. When I bring up number bonds to help him he'll innocently declare that those are “too hard.â€

 

If he does work to figure something out, his method is wildly idiosyncratic. For example, the word problems in MM usually give him trouble (“what do they mean, how many less?â€) so I would sit by his elbow and walk him through them. One day I got busy with the baby and he did a page of word problems by himself. He showed it to me and, hey, he got nearly all of them right! But he was supposed to write the number sentence, and he just wrote the answers. So I asked him to fill those in. “I can't†he said. “Why not?†“I don't know them.†“Well, how did you get the answer?†“I just knew them.†Well, eventually I was able to pull out of him how he got his answers, he went through some complicated series of multiple steps of addition and subtraction that barely made sense to me. “Why didn't you just subtract this from that?†I asked. Blank stare.  :toetap05:

 

Here's the thing, if he can't immediately see the answer, he'll shut down. He'd rather wildly guess at the answer for 8+8 rather than actually figure it out, which means that 8 is 6 and 2 never sticks. And then this morning, omg, he was working on a MM puzzle where he had a set of numbers and he had to split them up so that they make the same sum. He figured out the first few that were easy, and then shut down. When I asked him how he did the previous ones, he told me. When I asked why he didn't just do the same thing again for the next one he said it was because there were more numbers and he “didn't know†what the answer was. Iow, he didn't want to write out a few guesses on scratch paper and try out a few options to see what would work. There were tears, and weeping, and whining (I can't stand the whining!) for, well, a really long time. Seriously? I know he CAN do it, but he just WON'T.  :svengo:

 

If he doesn't get adding/subtracting down, how can we move forward? So then we're stuck, doing stuff he either flies through or weeps over, with little rhyme or reason.

 

Now, my DH was the same way. When he was in elementary he was dx with the 70's European version of ADD and was sent to a special school for “stupid kids.†Eventually some teachers figured out he wasn't stupid, and he was bumped into a different school, but not before he fell way behind in math. It is possible my DH has dyscalculia, but I have not seen signs of dyscalculia in CP, he understands number lines and place values and so on perfectly. Unless I don't understand dyscalculia? But as an example about my DH, this morning over breakfast I brought up a MEP question since he was complaining about how he didn't understand “that crazy British math programâ€: “Which one weighs more, an elephant or a button?†His answer? “Well, how big is the button?†What do you mean, it's just a normal button, like the one on your pants! “Oh, so is it a normal elephant too, or just a little toy plastic one?†Thing is, he wasn't joking around, this is how he thinks. And CP is a lot like him!  :willy_nilly:

 

Oh, and my DH has OCD, and I think CP has a bit of that too. I've even seen him carefully erasing sums from scratch paper! He is also a lot like DH in that he has high abstract thinking skills, but low, how to say, "mundane" reasoning, if that makes any sense (which is how DH ended up being pegged as ADD).

 

So what's going on, and how do I fix it?

 

1) He's lazy, and doesn't want to do the work to learn arithmetic facts. I set him up on Khan recently thinking that would motivate him, but the he got mad because I set something so that he would need to get 10 in a row right. I deleted those, and he's back to doing (simple) mastery challenges and enjoying it.

 

2) He just doesn't want to play with math, at all. So maybe I should give up on conceptual math and speed him through something procedural. I thought MM would give a good mix between arithmetic practice and number play, but maybe it should just be kicked to the curb. He could back-fill some of the concepts later, right?

 

3) I'm pushing him too hard. Forget about the fact that he understands place value perfectly, all that 2nd grade math at least practices arithmetic over and over. :thumbup:  I've brought out MEP Y2b recently (backing up to before multiplication), and he seems to do well with that, but that's because some of it is easy (like the elephant and button) and maybe that assuages his OCD anxiety. He can practice throwing a fit when something is difficult when goes to college, or gets a job, or buys or house or something.  :cool:

 

4) He needs a more advanced program. Maybe he could have done the MM puzzle if it was variables he could work with instead of numbers to be guessed at. Maybe he would understand arithmetic better if the curriculum allowed him to use negatives to calculate, instead of assuming that he doesn't know about them. But what curriculum is there which assumes conceptual mastery past algebra to teach arithmetic? MEP sort of fits because it has a different S & S, but I still feel that we are spinning our wheels there since it is so hard to accelerate it past the easy stuff (like elephants and buttons, goodness, just this morning we were discussing weight and gravity's effects on mass and volume!).

 

5) I just have a crazy kid, and he'll probably end up doing Alg 1 by 8th grade regardless, so whatever. He could still become an engineer/paleontologist/scientist/â€construction builderâ€/astrophysicist with Alg 1 in 8th right? Hey, by that time he'll be all set and rarin' to go, right?

 

6) He's crazy. We're all crazy. Get him a shrink. Get me a shrink. Get DH a shrink (definitely). Are there shrinks for babies? Maybe we can cure baby brother before he also gets crazy.  :cheers2:

 

7) Get him a book which matches his conceptual level. Hand him a PreA book and a calculator. Tell him to knock himself out.  :biggrinjester:

 

 

Ok, now that I wrote that all out and read through it – other options:

 

1) Stick to MEP as the core and use Khan to practice facts. Keep BA around as long range follow up (like how some use CWP a year behind).

 

2) Dump structured curriculum and jump to fractions and decimals and so on anyways. I have LOF Fractions and some Key to books in the closet. Maybe he'll stick the number bonds in his head if he gets a really good reason to?

 

3) I have no idea.

 

 

I'm so frustrated.  :banghead:  :banghead:  :banghead:

[Crimson Wife]

I have an "easy is hard and hard is easy" kid as well. He's a Visio-Spatial Learner and it drives the Auditory-Sequential part of me BONKERS. http://visualspatial.org/vslasl.php

 

We work math at multiple levels here. Beast Academy and Singapore with the IP as "spines", facts practice separately, and then enrichment to introduce advanced concepts.

[AimeeM]

I have one of those. She's 13 now. While I took the line "move ahead so long as there is conceptual understanding", we've had to take a step back now. I would advise you work on this now with him, instead of waiting. DD has been through pre-a now twice, but because she NEEDS to be able to show her work for algebra (needs), I'm not letting her pick up an algebra book until she is willing to work with me on that (and I *will* help her with that - I'm not expecting solo here).

[SarahW]

I have an "easy is hard and hard is easy" kid as well. He's a Visio-Spatial Learner and it drives the Auditory-Sequential part of me BONKERS. http://visualspatial.org/vslasl.php

 

We work math at multiple levels here. Beast Academy and Singapore with the IP as "spines", facts practice separately, and then enrichment to introduce advanced concepts.

 

 

That chart fits him nearly to a T. And my DH!  :smash:

 

I gave BA a good go with him, and he liked it. And as it turns out, he's a big fan of graphic novels as well (!). But BA was tough going sometimes, especially the last few pages of each section since he takes so long doing basic skip counting and so on. I wish 2 was out, we could have started there. I put it aside because he took so long with the multiplication wheels. The second factor was in random order, and even though we did them from 0 to 9, he was incredibly annoyed.

 

I tried a bit of Singapore with him, but he wasn't a fan of the graphics. I think he thought one of the girls looked "scary" are something. But that was last year. Maybe now with a different level it would go over differently.

 

Maybe I shouldn't worry about how slow BA goes with him, and give it another go. And stick with Khan for practice. He LOVES watching the videos.

[EndOfOrdinary]

It should be slow. Slow means he is having to work it out. The major thing with Visual Spacial kids is that they see the world differently. They need to learn translation strategies. My son does math problems like you described above with the long string of calculations. It is not wrong; it works for him. It does not always work as the problems get re complicated, but it honestly works with simpler ones. So great! He has figured out how his brain sees those and how to mold the question into his thought process. It does not matter that it is not my thought process; I am not doing the problems.

 

What I would work on with him is being able to explain it so that you (or others) can understand it. Not only is that level of communication necessary for future life, but it can help you translate your thoughts into something that makes sense to him. The best (and hardest) part of homeschooling my son has been me learning to not tell him he is wrong or to smash/shame him into my mode of thinking. All of the world's great thinkers did great things because they were different.

[MamaSprout]

From my experience, it would be worth take a short break from math for maybe 2-3 weeks. Decide what your plan is, then don't make it negotiable. Mine used to play my math indecision like a piano.

 

My kiddo (who is mostly VS) hated MEP. We floundered around for a while and basically unschooled math until she was almost 8, but eventually did the green Knowing Mathematics http://www.eduplace.com/intervention/knowingmath/ (I found a new WB and used TE Amazon)- all of the book and daily math practice as written- and Zaccaro Elementary. That was a good warm up to doing a curriculum, then we tested into Singapore 3b/ 4a, even though her knowledge of concepts was higher. Once we had the ball rolling, she plowed through the rest of elementary math in a little over a year.

 

We're still debating this school year, but may park in "6th grade math" and do more problem solving and Zaccaro to make sure she has a rock solid foundation. We are doing Math Rider to improve automaticity.

 

Good luck!

[dharmacat]

This book was very helpful for me: The Right Side of Normal by Cindy Gaddis. It describes how right-brained learners (RBL) differ from sequential learners (the "norm"), in math and other subjects (writing, reading, etc.). Her website has some helpful articles and a resource list as well. www.therightsideofnormal.com

 

[Mike in SA]

This is going to be a challenge, but will work well if you can achieve it (I'm very much the same way, btw):

 

Connect to a long-term goal.

 

Yeah, right - a kid with a goal???

 

Like I said, a challenge...

 

The trick here is that this type of child will instinctively pursue the correct path as long as it leads to a desired result.  A short-term result is not helpful because the short-term has no perceivable impact to long-term desires.  Rewards and bribes backfire.

 

Now, if you can find something your child really wants to do, and can make a causal link between success at this level, and the opportunity to try for the ultimate goal, then you'll be in the money.

 

If you can't find a long-term motivator, then be patient until one appears.  DS12 is still searching, and we just tolerate what we can, and try to trust that we taught him what is important in the long run.  It's tough, but he's doing okay on his own.  DS7 has found his motivator, and he is pursuing it relentlessly.

[Crimson Wife]

DS is very, very good at mental math and very much dislikes having to write out his work for long division and multi-digit multiplication. I tell him that there are multiple ways of solving problems and sometimes he will have a choice about which to use. If the goal of the section is to practice the traditional algorithim, however, then he will need to do so. I get complaints but he knows that if he wants to pursue his goals of studying robotics, he will need to master math.

[Eagle]

I could have written the exact post about my ds, right down to not liking Singapore math because the people "look weird". He has mentioned a few times that curriculums (any curriculum) go way too slow for him and he is bored, so he takes forever to complete a page. I am frustrated that his first instinct is to just guess at an answer rather than work it out. He is often correct (or close to correct), which makes it hard to argue for working out the problem in steps. He does not have his addition facts memorized, and I have explained that we won't plow through material faster until he does. That has recently motivated him to play some fact games (math evolve and math bingo on the ipad, tux math on the computer) on his own time.

 

Our plan is to take this year off from formal math. We have a lot of math games, books of math activities, and living books to explore this year. My aim is to make math an enjoyable subject for him, give him an intro to many areas of math that would traditionally be introduced much later, and give him the opportunity to find topics of special interest. Next year we should be able to start BA.

 

The only formal math ds has really enjoyed has been Miquon, and he recently asked if we can still do some of that during our informal math year.

 

It is hard to know how to proceed with a child like this. The are days I think we moved too fast and he isn't ready for some topics, but then he makes these leaps and just intuitively knows how to do things and I wonder if we are going way too slow. Place value is an excellent example. Singapore 2A started with it and he thought it was babyish because he already knew "everything" about place value even though we had never covered it. I insisted on going through the section with him to make sure he learned it "properly". It turns out he did know all about it and was miserable having to do so much review.

 

I would love to accelerate him but it is difficult when he doesn't know his facts. I hope our informal year will create a foundation for him to make more of these leaps in understanding in later years. If not, at least we will have had a fun year exploring a lot of different areas of math and hopefully ds will gain a positive view of math. Dh has a Masters degree in math and ds' grandad is a math prof. I think the worst thing I could do would be to cause ds to dislike math.

[mamabear2three]

He does not have his addition facts memorized, and I have explained that we won't plow through material faster until he does. That has recently motivated him to play some fact games (math evolve and math bingo on the ipad, tux math on the computer) on his own time.

 

 

Thanks for saying specifically what you use! I'm trying to find several good apps for our tablet to help with our fact practice around here and it looks like math evolve is a great option. 

[OneStepAtATime]

Agree with a lot of the Visual Spatial Learner posts here.  I also agree, both of you take a bit of a break.  Reset.  Then start with maybe taking a bit of a step back.  Focus only on positive feedback.  Keep sessions shorter for the time being so your frustration and his don't make this a viscous unproductive cycle.   Incorporate long term practical application goals so he sees a reason for what he is doing.  Do lots of math games.  

 

Have you looked at some of the sources on this thread?

 

http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/499692-looking-to-do-some-relaxed-math-here-want-to-share-ideas/

[kbutton]

You've gotten a lot of good advice. Consider the possibility that this has him tied up in anxious knots as well, and not necessarily OCD anxiety knots--I think people use OCD when they mean perfectionism, and the family I know that deals with OCD is paralyzed by ritualized behaviors their child exhibits. This sounds to me like perfectionism and sticking with what feels safe. Anxiety can look like avoidance, defiance, all kinds of things. Like a tough outer shell with marshmallow man inside. If this is the case, you might have to lower the stakes considerably, prove to him what he is good at, bolster what is falling through (math facts) with reasonable accommodations (maybe fact charts with separate fact work), and convince him how smart he is and how many times smart people fail at things because they are tackling harder problems. This is what we did at home, and we have to tweak things now and then as well as learn which days are good days for challenges and which days are not.

 

We like the Singapore IP books. Best decision ever in our house. Not too many problems, no distracting pictures, and exercises that work out the conceptual side of things while involving some direct computation and challenging word problems.

 

He sounds possibly 2e. The part that makes me think this is that the inefficiency seems to outclass the out of the box thinking. Some kids are out of the box thinkers without the accompanying inefficiency (or they make progress at being more efficient on their own with minimal help). Inefficiency seems to be a hallmark of 2e kids. My son can't be held to a standard of what he is capable of unless i take into consideration the amount of effort that it takes to show the upper limits of his capabilities. It might be taking him 10x the effort of another kid to hit that level, and expecting him to hit it all the time would be too much. It doesn't mean he's less smart; it means he needs a different approach, more scaffolding, less work but at a higher level, etc. Sometimes it's more appropriate to settle on moderately challenging material and work on shoring up some methods that promote better efficiency (via executive functioning, etc.). It sounds like your son might need some well-defined patterns for problem-solving not because his are so terribly faulty but because he doesn't have the level of scaffolding he needs in order to execute his own intuitive ways of doing things. Some kids will eventually see the easier way, but it might not be until it smacks them upside the head. If the failure rate is too high, they do give up before anything occurs to them that they could do differently.

 

HTH

[SarahW]

Thanks guys (and guy) for the good advice. Sorry about the book that was my OP, I was at my wits end, and dumped my stream of consciousness on y'all. In between life happening I have been reading up on VSL. My kid is something of a case-study for it, right down to having a huge head at birth which made the OB threaten a c-section if I didn't get him popped out  :cursing:  :001_rolleyes:  (idk, I read that in an article about possible physiological reasons for VSL  :laugh: ).

 

I feel like something of a moron right now. All the signs have been there for a while, from his 40-some point spread between abstract and verbal on the Kaufman and his nearly perfect recall of audio/visual information. I just didn't put the pieces together.  :banghead:    :blushing:

 

I've been reading up on recommendations for VSL learners. Funnily enough, 100 EZ lessons worked pretty good with him, huh. I had been doing AAS with him  :thumbup1: , but he did so well with it I thought he didn't need it  :thumbdown: . He liked FLL, but he did most of it while jumping around the kitchen, or acting out verbs. He is liking GI, but still spends most of the time jumping around rather than looking at the color-coded parts of speech. Honestly, "living books" were a complete dud, he doesn't learn from hearing narratives, even if they are picture books. He likes SSL, but it includes a lot of things he likes, songs, drawing, etc. His reading comp has dramatically improved recently, maybe because I've been working on it with him, or maybe he has just figured out how to make pictures in his head.

 

As for math, I saw MM recommended a few times. Maybe it would have worked better if I had printed the pages in color??? He likes MEP when it involves patterns and coloring things, and he loves playing the number games in the teacher lessons. It also uses smaller numbers than other curriculum in this range, which seems to help a bit. I once found him youtube videos of chants of of the multiplication tables, he alternated between hating it and loving it. Maybe I should find something like that again? SSL shows me that he does learn through singing. I mean, yeah, eventually addition facts have to sink in, but hopefully before he's 40 (like DH...).

 

Here's an idea - Sometimes when we do LOF for fun, he takes the book and makes ME do the "turn to play" questions. I read the suggestion to show VSL's completed problems (like a whole long division) and asking them to figure it out. But maybe my kid would learn a lot from watching ME do math, talking about my own method and why something works or doesn't. Hmmm...that's another one of those frustrating things. When he runs into something "hard" he acts like he wants me to solve it for him, and I would instead ply him with a series of Socratic questions, which usually just made him mad. Maybe I should just solve it for him, and have him watch and then tell me about it? 

 

I know he enjoys doing hands-on things and science experiments, but I don't. Plus, with a baby who wants to sleep on me all the time, I barely get to making food, much less setting up an interactive activity (I'm typing a lot of this one-handed...). There's a hs co-op that sometimes does hands-on science activities, and I send him to all of those, but other than that, ugh, I really struggle there. Maybe when he is older I can help him out more here. But when he is older he could also do much of the legwork himself. It's the right now that isn't happening...

 

On the other hand, he needs space and time to "think" but is easily distracted. I struggle with giving him the independent time, while also keeping him on task, and giving him the interactive discussion and hands-on stuff that he likes. When he is older I would like to just let him fly with a good opencourseware, but other than Khan and Code.org, there's not many quality things at his level I can just set him loose on.

 

I'm going to retool some plans, somehow, someway. I don't know, but at least I have a good understanding of where the plans should go.

 

[SarahW]

Mike in SA - his current goal is to take up the cause of Pluto. It's incredibly unfair to Pluto to be a planet one day, and not a real planet the next, kwim? I know the way the size of Pluto is measured involves math, but I'm not sure if 8+8 comes into play anywhere in there. Now the question is how to translate that to him. Maybe NASA has a video about the math involved in astrophysics? Because I'm pretty clueless.

[kiana]

Mike in SA - his current goal is to take up the cause of Pluto. It's incredibly unfair to Pluto to be a planet one day, and not a real planet the next, kwim? I know the way the size of Pluto is measured involves math, but I'm not sure if 8+8 comes into play anywhere in there. Now the question is how to translate that to him. Maybe NASA has a video about the math involved in astrophysics? Because I'm pretty clueless.

 

Lots and lots and lots of it. Calculus, differential equations, statistics, linear algebra ...

 

Here's a sample astrophysics major -- http://pubs.wisc.edu/ug/ls_astron.htm

 

As far as beginning arithmetic, maybe something very visual like MUS would help get him over the hump here? I think that once he got over the hump he'd be able to problem-solve like crazy, given your description of him.

[Targhee]

I don't think crazy is a good description, but perhaps dyscalcula is a real issue here?

 

I doubt it's motivation - kids do well if they can. He wants to do big things requiring math, so you've likely already stressed the importance. He has a real learning challenge, in that he needs help to remember the math facts and how they are derived. Your job is to figure out where the breakdown is, or hire someone to help you figure it out, so you can reach him and help him understand. I have one who failed times math tests daily in PS. Hated math at that point. We brought her home, did Singapore a grade behind, didn't stress facts (we did strategies for solving the problems and hfve her a times table), we let her do hard thinking problems and scaffolded the arithmetic. We also had her evaluated for giftedness, LDs and ADD. She is beginning Algebra this year (7th grade) and LOVES math.

 

That disparity between conceptual ability and computational ability sounds like a visual-spatial learner, and possibly giftedness and a LD.

[Mike in SA]

Lots and lots and lots of it. Calculus, differential equations, statistics, linear algebra ...

 

Here's a sample astrophysics major -- http://pubs.wisc.edu/ug/ls_astron.htm

 

As far as beginning arithmetic, maybe something very visual like MUS would help get him over the hump here? I think that once he got over the hump he'd be able to problem-solve like crazy, given your description of him.

 

Yep, exactly.  This is how we hooked DS7.  He liked Dr Who, and wanted to build a time machine.  Well, physics requires math, so he had to learn his arithmetic before we would let him do physics.  A few months later, he had it all down.  Now, he's doing pre-algebra and conceptual physics, and doing well.

[SarahW]

Okay, I'm looking at Singapore again... I see how it could fit him well. Maybe I can take a sharpie and scribble out all the kid's faces?

 

Q. 1) Is it ok to skim through the Singapore textbook, especially the parts he's already pretty much covered already? I mean, it's not like MEP where skipping means probably missing something important, right?

 

Q. 2) Why IP? I'm looking at all the samples on SM and it's not straight in my head how the IP book works. My first thought (if the answer to Q. 1 is yes) is to go through the textbook with him, and then have him do select (= not overwhelming) pages in the workbook. What advantage does the IP books have?

[Targhee]

Okay, I'm looking at Singapore again... I see how it could fit him well. Maybe I can take a sharpie and scribble out all the kid's faces?

 

Q. 1) Is it ok to skim through the Singapore textbook, especially the parts he's already pretty much covered already? I mean, it's not like MEP where skipping means probably missing something important, right?

 

Q. 2) Why IP? I'm looking at all the samples on SM and it's not straight in my head how the IP book works. My first thought (if the answer to Q. 1 is yes) is to go through the textbook with him, and then have him do select (= not overwhelming) pages in the workbook. What advantage does the IP books have?

I don't think skipping around in Singapore is best. Speeding up is good. Go through each section - if he's got the concept then move on to the next. They present multiple problem solving methods so you could definitely be missing something that will click with your DS.

[SarahW]

Agree with a lot of the Visual Spatial Learner posts here.  I also agree, both of you take a bit of a break.  Reset.  Then start with maybe taking a bit of a step back.  Focus only on positive feedback.  Keep sessions shorter for the time being so your frustration and his don't make this a viscous unproductive cycle.   Incorporate long term practical application goals so he sees a reason for what he is doing.  Do lots of math games.  

 

Have you looked at some of the sources on this thread?

 

http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/499692-looking-to-do-some-relaxed-math-here-want-to-share-ideas/

 

 

Thanks for that link. I'm going through it. I think those videos will be good. Living math books, unfortunately....I've tried, but if Sir Circumference did not come from the library, he would have gotten burnt. Yeah, idk, DH doesn't like fiction much either. It's a weird quirk.

 

I had a little talk with kiddo today, about how his brain works differently than mine, and I'm trying to understand him better, and how I am trying to change things to be better for his brain. His response was pretty much "that's nice" but at least he knows he's being heard. :)

[blondeviolin]

You've gotten a lot of good advice. Consider the possibility that this has him tied up in anxious knots as well, and not necessarily OCD anxiety knots--I think people use OCD when they mean perfectionism, and the family I know that deals with OCD is paralyzed by ritualized behaviors their child exhibits. This sounds to me like perfectionism and sticking with what feels safe. Anxiety can look like avoidance, defiance, all kinds of things. Like a tough outer shell with marshmallow man inside. If this is the case, you might have to lower the stakes considerably, prove to him what he is good at, bolster what is falling through (math facts) with reasonable accommodations (maybe fact charts with separate fact work), and convince him how smart he is and how many times smart people fail at things because they are tackling harder problems. This is what we did at home, and we have to tweak things now and then as well as learn which days are good days for challenges and which days are not.

 

We like the Singapore IP books. Best decision ever in our house. Not too many problems, no distracting pictures, and exercises that work out the conceptual side of things while involving some direct computation and challenging word problems.

 

He sounds possibly 2e. The part that makes me think this is that the inefficiency seems to outclass the out of the box thinking. Some kids are out of the box thinkers without the accompanying inefficiency (or they make progress at being more efficient on their own with minimal help). Inefficiency seems to be a hallmark of 2e kids. My son can't be held to a standard of what he is capable of unless i take into consideration the amount of effort that it takes to show the upper limits of his capabilities. It might be taking him 10x the effort of another kid to hit that level, and expecting him to hit it all the time would be too much. It doesn't mean he's less smart; it means he needs a different approach, more scaffolding, less work but at a higher level, etc. Sometimes it's more appropriate to settle on moderately challenging material and work on shoring up some methods that promote better efficiency (via executive functioning, etc.). It sounds like your son might need some well-defined patterns for problem-solving not because his are so terribly faulty but because he doesn't have the level of scaffolding he needs in order to execute his own intuitive ways of doing things. Some kids will eventually see the easier way, but it might not be until it smacks them upside the head. If the failure rate is too high, they do give up before anything occurs to them that they could do differently.

 

HTH

All of this perfectionism talk, 100%.

 

My oldest is NOT VSL. Definitely not. BUT, she's got perfectionism written all over her. If the math even SEEMS too difficult, all of a sudden everything she's learned will fall out of her head. Friday, we were skip counting eights (cue freak out) and I ask her what 16+8 and she flailed for a second and screamed out, "I don't know!" No joke, she's been doing problems like 16+8 for the last 3+ yrs. so after she freaked out! I asked her to solve it and to talk it out and eventually she got there.

 

She also struggles with her math facts. And timed tests? Oh, they are the worst.

 

I'm not sure how you work past this debilitating perfectionism (maybe she should see a psych...), but I have decided I am so done dragging her through it. Rather, this year we are "backing up" with Teaching Textbooks and slowly going through the rest Beast Academy. My aim with TT is to rebuild some confidence and drop the stakes a bit. I'm hoping she feels more comfortable there and if she feels in her safe zone, then maybe she'll adventure out of it on her own. (She's a lot like a cat in that respect. Pull her out of her box and she'll kick, scream, scratch, etc. Let her come out naturally and she'll explore on her own.)

[Dmmetler]

If you can find a copy of the New Primary Maths series from Singapore, that might be a better fit visually. My DD didn't much care for the children in SM standards, but fell in love with NPM, where the illustrations were mostly of animals. She also loved the fact that a lot of the word problems and examples were "Singapory"-so we often had to google to figure out what they were talking about. It gave her a little extra challenge, and helped get her through a "but it's all the same, when do I learn new math?" hump. We did move on to pre-algebra/early algebra at age 7, but got her through NPM 5b first.

 

I'm a meanie-I don't let her use a calculator. She has to work it out herself. Don't care how, but you said you wanted to do algebra, kid, so that means you do the problems. And while I was frustrated at her ability to look at a problem and give an answer, without writing anything down or being able to explain it, AOPS did a great job of teaching her the need for doing both without my having to be the bad guy. I do notice that sometimes in computations she struggles with remembering what to do, and. I suspect that's because she simply didn't have as much time and repetition for it to sink in. The good news is that she's starting to realize this on her own, and will go and find a lesson on Mathletics or Khan academy to refresh those basics.

 

The other thing that helped DD accept a need to learn arithmetic was math contests-the first World Math Games she did (unfortunately, it won't be back until 2015) when she realized that she got all her problems correct, but was totally left in the dust because she was so slow compared to many of the other competitors helped a lot, as did her realization that it was fun to go do math with other people.

 

I will say that I don't think DD is a VSL-she's a pretty sequential kid. However, she is a whole-parts learner and finds repetition boring, which is what led to the "I can factor quadratics, but don't ask me to add 16+24".

[SarahW]

I've poked around for New Primary Math, but with little luck. I did find something called In Step Math which is another colorful Singapore math series. I'll keep looking around...

 

But I may be able to get my sticky fingers on 3rd edition PM. I looked at samples of the American books on the Singapore Math website, and it seems like 3rd edition is more straight forward and easy to move through. And my other half prefers metric, and I see little use learning how to calculate equivalent measures in Imperial (other than practicing multiplying by 12 or 3), so that's another plus for the 3rd.

 

I found the collection of Khan videos for 3rd grade SM on udemy - are those based on the U.S. or Standard or CC editions?

[KeepItGoing]

IP has different sorts of problems than the textbook. The textbook has basic problems, IP stretches it with a LOT of mathematical thinking.

 

Funny—my mother was with us when my son was doing the first-grade IP. I asked her to supervise him while he did his math. She came away from it with a glazed expression on her face. "I would have thought I could follow first-grade math, but I can't figure this one out." My son, could, though!

 

I credit IP with huge leaps in my own understanding of math—even though I have always done well mathematically.

 

Funny about Pluto. If you want, I think I can connect your son to someone who is involved with Pluto studies and can tell him about how math can help him out. Someone who would love to see Pluto re-classified, by the way! Contact me privately if you're interested and I'll give you the details.

[Momling]

In your shoes, I'd consider math as being two courses. Think - tortoise and hare.

 

In one course, you use a standard textbook like SM or Saxon. Use the grade level where he struggles (sounds like grade 1) and work through it skipping nothing. Don't change series, but commit to one. If he struggles on a topic, work on it longer and move on when he understands. If he clearly knows how to do something, encourage speed, but don't skip. He may not love it, but remind yourself that fixing gaps is more important and review is okay.

 

In your second math course, at a different time in the day, choose a textbook that tickles his fancy or challenges him to think or is fun for both of you. There are lots of supplementary math books out there - sir cumference, LOF, Zaccaro, HOE... With this class, it's okay to skip around or to miss a day or double up. This is the have-fun math.

 

BA is awesome, but I can imagine how much frustration is there if he hasn't gotten the basics of adding and subtracting. I'd definitely step back and take it slowly and consecutively. When he reaches that 3rd grade level in all of his skills, he'll have a much better experience with BA.