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Need 7th grade remedial math


nannyaunt
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One of my older nephews is in 7th grade in PS.  He has struggled with school almost since the beginning.  He has been having problems with math for several years, but since he was refusing any help I just left it alone.  Now, he is asking for help. 

 

Let me preface this next part by saying this is only my observations.  His mother refuses any testing.

 

I feel he is an auditory learner, but then I am not certain if I am using the term correctly.  He resists writing anything down and his handwriting is horrible.  He was diagnosed as dyslexic but since half his class was diagnosed as dyslexic, I am doubting the accuracy of the diagnosis.  I am certain there was a problem of some kind, I just don't think it was dyslexia.  He was having problems with reading but is now reading at grade level.  He has no idea how to sit down and study for tests.  His school teaches a class in study skills, but he missed it because he was in math/reading lab.  Basically, if he didn't learn it in class then he is lost. He is very computer literate and has self taught, learned from YouTube and learned things from other users online. 

 

I thought maybe CTC math would work.  I don't know much about middle school curricula as I am homeschooling his younger brother (Kalmost5).  He doesn't need drill on math facts, I personally drilled him on x/ over the summer.  I wondered if anyone else used CTC math or had a different suggestion.

 

 

 

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Without evals it is going to be really challenging to know what the root causes of his issues are.  And if the school diagnosed (was it the school?) half the class with dyslexia then yes, i would be concerned over the accuracy of that diagnosis.  But I wouldn't rule it out, either.  In fact, I would be pushing for a private evaluation through a neuropsychologist since that would not give just an LD label but hopefully give detailed information on where the details of where his weaknesses as well as his strengths may lie.  There could be a whole host of things happening that are tripping him up, stuff that may be fixable if those areas were targeted with proper remediation.  But since the parent is against evals, that makes this rather challenging.

 

My suggestion?  Read The Mislabeled Child by Brock and Fernette Eide.  Do that before hopping curriculum.  It may give you AND his mother a better idea of how to help him.  Smart but Scattered could also be a help.  And I REALLY would consider looking at Ronit Bird's Overcoming Difficulty with Numbers as well as David Sousa's How the Brain Learns Mathematics.   He may be missing some basic subitization skills or it could be something else.  Ronit Bird's book is great for remediating subitization skills.

 

As for math programs in particular, have you looked at Homeschool Buyer's Co-op?  There are some remedial math programs there.  I don't know how good they are.  There is also Khan Academy and it is free.  Math U See might help but it is expensive.   My own daughter with learning challenges is using CLE this year and it is a really good fit for her.  I got on the website, printed out the placement tests going all the way back to Level 1 (first grade even though she is in 8th grade this year) and had her do each placement test.  I noted any she missed so we could target those specific areas.  Huge huge difference in her math ablities after I ran her through the Ronit Bird book, a program called Dynamo Math (British) and then CLE.

 

 Since you don't really know where the disconnect lies, picking a math curriculum may be hugely challenging.  I don't know much about CTC math so I cannot speak to that.

 

You might post this on the Learning Challenged board.  Good luck and best wishes.

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My kids use CTC Math and like it, but Pat (the creator) has said that past sixth grade, CTC Math is more of a supplement than a curriculum. It's helped my kids a lot, they used it over the summer and are now getting A's and B's in math when they used to get B's, C's and the occasional D. :-! They are in 1st, 2nd and 4th grade. They still have trouble understanding the lessons every now and then, so sometimes I have to explain it them, or find an appropriate YouTube video.

 

Khan Academy was useless to us. It didn't help them at all.

 

HELP Math is really good, it's for older students (grades 4-8, I think) and you can also look into Gizmos... I think it's Learning Gizmos. It's made by the same people who created Reflex Math.

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