Deeper Issues?

[shinyhappypeople]

So, the good news: convergence insufficiency diagnosed and managed with glasses (and hopefully VT in the future).

 

I thought her vision was THE thing that was holding her back academically.  I thought being able to manage her CI with glasses was THE ticket to her being able to learn at a more normal pace.

 

Crud.

 

She doesn't know her "plus 1" math facts.  She hasn't internalized that you cannot do 2-6 (we're nowhere near discussing negative numbers yet).  She can only do regrouping with subtraction when she knows that the lesson is about regrouping, and so she uses the lesson context as her hint.  Make sense?  But give her a subtraction problem out of context and all bets are off.  

 

She can add and subtract, but her skills are nowhere near the level of fluency you'd expect from a 10 year old.  Unless she's really paying attention, she forgets to mentally register whether she's looking at a plus or minus sign.  She's doing Reflex Math, which is adaptive, and it started her all the way at +0 facts, including the rule.  My 10 year old needed the rule.

 

But, on the other hand - she's brilliant in many ways, a gifted artist, sculptor, and maker-of-interesting-things.  She love-love-loves Dragonbox Algebra.  She has deep social intelligence, loves to cook (for a long time the only thing she'd read was cookbooks), and is a natural athlete.  SO MANY STRENGTHS.

 

And yet... so many foundational glitches and gaps are becoming glaringly obvious.  And I don't think it had as much to do with her vision as I originally thought.  I blamed *everything* on her vision.  In hindsight I can see how naive that is, but.... I didn't know better.  Now I do.

 

One bright spot: she has requested that I switch her back to Math Mammoth. (Formerly using TT, halfway through TT4.  Don't.get.me.started.)  She did the MM Multiplication 1 book (the first half, but not memorizing the facts).  Anyway, that is one concept that she understands inside and out.   I'm not sure if I'll start her at the very, very beginning of MM or at Add/Sub 2A.

 

Thanks for listening.  This is mostly just a vent, but if you have any thoughts to share, feel free.

[mommymonster]

I wish I knew you in person, so we could drink coffee and shake our heads at our oddly similar children.  :grouphug:  We did glasses and VT last school year. I totally thought that it was *the* thing that was going to smooth out our school challenges. It has helped, but... there's more.

 

Lately, I've been really just sitting back and observing my son and his quirks lately, and really thinking about where he shines and crumbles. Here are some things that I've asked myself, which may or may not be of use: 

• Does she have "number sense" -- like 13 is more than 11? 5 is more than 3? If not, then that should be attended to first. We worked on dot patterns post-VT, and that seemed to really help. We still have the issue that DS denies the existence of the number 12...  :confused1:
• Is your daughter able to add/subtract if you have her close her eyes and then ask her the problem orally? My son does much better with verbal problems, but has trouble when things are written down. It's probably part of his vision processing issues. We did VT, but it's still an issue. 
• Does she do better when things aren't timed? My son *freaks* out when things are timed, or he feels pressured. I'm working to make sure he doesn't feel pressured, especially with math.  Games (Sum Swamp, Presto Change-o, Zeus on the Loose) seem good for keeping things low stress, and they seem to give him more math practice than just asking him to do a page of problems. I tend to ask him to "check" my work, as well. We've found that an allowance does amazing things for money skills. You mentioned she likes cookbooks. Can you ask her to double or triple recipes, or half them?  Lovely fraction work, and snacks!
• The way you describe her, it makes me think perhaps a right-brained leaning tendencies? Perhaps? Does she do better with the portions of math that are not straight up computation? My son loves Dragonbox, as well! He also does better if there are stories surrounding the math problems. 

I'm probably just yammering on at this point, so I'll send hugs and best wishes.  :grouphug:  :grouphug:

[kbutton]

Well, your going to hear very good suggestions that are outside my experience range, such as Ronit Bird books (I can't tell you if you need those). I will tell you what resources I've used that help with place value, regrouping, etc.

 

Education Unboxed has free videos that generally go well with cuisinaire rods. They are a great way to find and fix holes, IMO. They have conceptual information as well as ways to practice math facts. The rods help some kids picture the value of numbers, and they can remember that in their heads. My little guy sees the rods and their values in his head when he calculates numbers. It's a wonderful visual tool for him.

 

We learned place value with the Decimal Street concept taught by Math U See. If you get the general idea (I think there may be a video demonstrating this), then you can make your own version with c-rods. You can teach regrouping with decimal street. My son taught himself to carry and borrow with decimal street on his own. I would ask him to make 45, and when he was comfortable making numbers and telling me what they meant (four tens and 5 units), then I asked him if he could subtract 5 (or less). Once he was comfortable with that, I asked if he knew how to make 45-7. He figured out readily that the tens are made of units, and he'd break up those tens to regroup with rods. (He doesn't do it on paper yet, but he taught himself this in preschool with some well-placed questions.) MUS shows place value by counting up with houses for each place value--only 9 of any one kind (units, tens, hundreds) can live in that house. When you get ten of something, they become the next place up and move to the new house. It's pretty effective.

 

If you find that she's not getting these concepts (vs. understanding but just needing reinforcement to remember), you probably do need to go back to number sense (someone would probably recommend Ronit Bird for that, but I haven't used those books).

 

My older kiddo (started in school, not home) understands lots of concepts, but he gets hung up on computation. He can do it, but he's slow, and the facts don't stick. We give him charts for facts, but we made sure he got the concepts first. For my younger son, we just started with concepts, and we work on making the facts stick as it becomes important--fact drilling in school stunted my older son's natural progression with understanding the concepts. He stopped thinking about number sense and started counting on his fingers, etc. His number sense really languished. I have nothing against fact practice--it was just emphasized in a way where he said, "hey, I can't seem to memorize these, and figuring it out takes too long--let's just use my own hand calculator and not think about math at all."

[SandyKC]

She doesn't know her "plus 1" math facts.  She hasn't internalized that you cannot do 2-6 (we're nowhere near discussing negative numbers yet).  She can only do regrouping with subtraction when she knows that the lesson is about regrouping, and so she uses the lesson context as her hint.  Make sense?  But give her a subtraction problem out of context and all bets are off.  

 

She can add and subtract, but her skills are nowhere near the level of fluency you'd expect from a 10 year old.  Unless she's really paying attention, she forgets to mentally register whether she's looking at a plus or minus sign.  She's doing Reflex Math, which is adaptive, and it started her all the way at +0 facts, including the rule.  My 10 year old needed the rule.

 

As I read your full description, two things crossed my mind: Memory recall issues and/or executive functioning.  Given your DD can perform lessons with regrouping when she knows it is, and likes that Algebra program, it would seem that she has the capability to work with the math. However the glitches, being ones that seem to occur with remembering or noticing key operations, seem like they could be a quirky memory-recall issue.  You could always add a cognitive enhancement program like Brainware Safari into the mix and see if it helps over time--not a "quick fix" but could improve her memory-recall issues.  Just my thoughts for what they're worth.

[Kanin]

Shinyhappypeople, I just read this thread. How are things going? I'd love an update because I'm teaching a kiddo (14) who sounds similar (in some ways) to your DD, except abstract thinking is not a strength for him like it is for your daughter. My student can also add and subtract well, but he doesn't know when to do them! He doesn't understand, for example, that if you spend money, you need to subtract. 

 

Anyway, I'm curious what you're doing and how it's going! 

[shinyhappypeople]

Shinyhappypeople, I just read this thread. How are things going? I'd love an update because I'm teaching a kiddo (14) who sounds similar (in some ways) to your DD, except abstract thinking is not a strength for him like it is for your daughter. My student can also add and subtract well, but he doesn't know when to do them! He doesn't understand, for example, that if you spend money, you need to subtract. 

 

Anyway, I'm curious what you're doing and how it's going! 

 

Thanks for asking :)

 

She's 11 now.   Math is going well for her.  She's plugging away, making steady progress.  She still likes Math Mammoth and I am NEVER switching her until we've done all Math Mammoth has to offer. And even then I might call Maria Miller and beg her to fly to California to tutor my kid.  :)  

 

DD had already completed Multiplication 1, and this last fall she did Division 1 and she's doing Add/Sub 2B right now.  (I know the order we chose for the topics seems weird...  I have my reasons. ) .   I have her do every problem except the puzzles (those make her cry).  She appears to be gaining a real understanding of the math, rather than relying on rote memory.  I think it's been good mental habit training for her, she's learning how to think about numbers, see the patterns (MM is big on patterns), etc.

 

I don't think I mentioned reading and writing in the OP, but I'll update that, too. :)

 

Reading is tricky.  She reads by looking at the shape of the whole word, sounding out the beginning (and sometimes the ending) of the word, and relies on sight memory and context clues.   Luckily, she has no problem learning and applying phonograms and can dissect the sounds in words, no problem.  It's just her word attack skills that are causing her to struggle. I find myself having to explicitly teach her: LEFT TO RIGHT, always read words LEFT TO RIGHT.

 

Anyway, I'm still figuring out our next move.  I'm strongly considering Logic of English.  That would give her all the phonograms she needs and plenty of word attack practice, and we could finish it this spring.  We'll see...  In the meantime, she's reading using my Kindle Fire and whyspersinc (audio book, highlighting the text as it reads).  She calls it "Leap Frog for grown-ups."  LOL  It's allowing her to read what her friends are reading.  This is HUGE.

 

Writing is making us both cry.  Literally.  We've been doing Essentials in Writing and.... just no.  She doesn't hate it, but after yesterday,  I kind of do.  I end up re-teaching the lessons, there isn't enough detail or explicit instruction.  So, we're dropping that because at this point it's all just a big mess for us.

 

I'm thinking about using IEW after we do Logic of English or whatever we end up doing for reading.  But... yeah.  Writing stinks.   Handwriting is also tricky.  That's a problem for another day.  

 

I'm allowing myself to focus on solving one piece of the puzzle at a time.  This has been a huge, positive shift in my thinking.  We've figured out the math piece (knock on wood).  Now we're focusing on reading.  Writing is next...  heaven help us both.   :crying:

[Kanin]

Wow, that's a great update! So glad math is going well. It makes me feel like that could happen for my student eventually, too. I love how you're able to relax and go with the flow. 

 

As far as writing goes... every kid I ever tutored HATED to write, hated it. It was like pulling teeth to get them to write a single sentence. I don't have any good tips for that other than to say... I have a sneaking suspicion that writing a lot at an early age, like 11, is not really important. Maybe just stick with fun projects like inventing a restaurant and writing the menu, starting your own family newspaper, writing your own potions recipe (if she's a Harry Potter fan! :)).

 

 

[kbutton]

Wow, that's a great update! So glad math is going well. It makes me feel like that could happen for my student eventually, too. I love how you're able to relax and go with the flow. 

 

As far as writing goes... every kid I ever tutored HATED to write, hated it. It was like pulling teeth to get them to write a single sentence. I don't have any good tips for that other than to say... I have a sneaking suspicion that writing a lot at an early age, like 11, is not really important. Maybe just stick with fun projects like inventing a restaurant and writing the menu, starting your own family newspaper, writing your own potions recipe (if she's a Harry Potter fan! :)).

 

Thanks for sharing your sneaking suspicion about writing. I have a 2e kiddo that really will struggle with writing in certain respects, so I want to start the basics early. However, the other side of me says, this will be easier later. My compromise is to do what I can and work on the thinking skills that support writing (organizing, compare/contrast, giving words to what makes these things the same and different, etc.). And it seems to be working.