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Dragon vs long division (CLE 403)


hsingscrapper
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Just keep on keeping on.

 

 I've got a similar kid . . . now's he's thirteen and he still struggles with long division.  He's done CLE from third grade on up and still, (now in sixth grade CLE) he consistently misses division problems every week.  Interestingly enough, he just hit the method of "short" division and he's getting them all right, all the time, up-side-down, right-side-up, it doesn't matter, he's consistently getting them right which tells me that he probably completely understands the methodology of division, just makes silly mistakes during the long division process.

 

I did just remember that when we were in the fourth grade book, I made him a cheat-sheet for long division showing the steps.  We also went over every problem that he missed on the white board and he would have to explain each step to me.  

 

 

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Agree with the post above.  Use a laminated "cheat sheet".  Only it isn't cheating, it is helping his brain to keep doing the steps in the correct order every time to cement those neural pathways and internalize the process.

 

 Every time he gets lost and does it incorrectly it is the confusing path that is being cemented, not the correct one.  

 

Do several problems together on a dry erase.  

 

Have him use the sheet for reference.  

 

Sit with him and make certain he is getting lots of positive reinforcement for every part of the process he does correctly.  

 

Talk him through it with lots of praise.  

 

Slow down and just work on this process for a while if necessary.

 

In other words. help him to internalize those patterns with as much scaffolding, consistency and positive reinforcement as he needs to be successful far more than he misses.

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What on earth is "short division"?  We are long-time CLE users too, and hit a wall in 4th with my 2nd son and actually did the WHOLE YEAR over.  He had been ahead; now he's in 500 in 5th grade.  But it's better--  Long division was a bear.  And now in 5th grade, he is hitting ones like 5479/43, where you have to round the divisor and estimate how many times it will go in--and he's doing multiplication problems on the side, and it looks very complex to me.  He "gets" long division by a single digit, but he can't do the multiplication within the problem.

 

So I really want to know what "short division" is :)

 

I can say, some things that helped were:

Using a piece of lined paper turned sideways, to help line up the digits;

We always draw an arrow to show when we drop the next digit, just to help it stay lined up.

 

We talked our way through a LOT of problems to nail down the steps.

 

B--

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Short division is long division without all the writing out part, basically. You do the same steps, but instead of multiplying, subtracting, and carrying down on paper you do that stuff in your head.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_division

aha! thanks.  Maybe we'll get to that in CLE 500 or 600 and I'll see if it clicks :)  I don't know that I've ever seen that before--and I was a middle/high school math teacher for a few years.  Honestly, my students were so confused, didn't even seem to know their multiplication facts, that we never would have gotten to "cool short cuts", lol.

 

B

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My daughter is in the CLE 500s and they definitely teach it (short division) there. I can't remember which lesson it's in. DH taught DD how to do short division before we started CLE with the 400s last November, and short division was enough to get her through until maybe book 504? Now she needs to do actual long division...and is having trouble remembering the steps as it seems much more complex to her than actual long division (even though it isn't...it just feels like so much more writing to her). I think I need to laminate her a cheat sheet too.

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I think the algorithm is sort of intuitive if you understand partial quotients.

 

We were way past this stuff by the time ds got to division in Beast Academy 4B, but I really liked the way it was presented and unlike a lot of Beast work, I think it is pretty accessible to non-mathy types. In particular, they gave a bunch of solve in your head problems that I thought was really good... Like 24,008 divided by 8 or things like that. I think problems like that actually help kids see the reasoning behind he algorithm...

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Use draft or grid paper, that way he knows where to put the numbers and it will be easier to line it up. 

 

You can also take a break from it...do "other" math like drills, word problems, it's all beneficial...and then get back into it.

 

Try Khan Academy as well, when my kids are not able to grasp a concept, they usually get it there.

 

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I think the algorithm is sort of intuitive if you understand partial quotients.

 

We were way past this stuff by the time ds got to division in Beast Academy 4B, but I really liked the way it was presented and unlike a lot of Beast work, I think it is pretty accessible to non-mathy types. In particular, they gave a bunch of solve in your head problems that I thought was really good... Like 24,008 divided by 8 or things like that. I think problems like that actually help kids see the reasoning behind he algorithm...

We were 10 when we were taught long division and the teacher didn't like or understand maths himself. It wasn't until I was older I reslised what I was doing and I still can't explain it well.

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Today my son and I just read over physical and chemical properties of matter and heterogeneous/homogeneous mixtures.  We have done it before with various resources, but it has always been a difficult one for me.  It wasn't until today that the light bulb went off and really got it.  Total ah-ha! moment.  My high school chemistry was taught by a teacher who was retiring and very much did not want to be there that year.  I remember him totally bailing on many subjects that you could tell he was just done with.  This was one of them.

 

It is interesting how those little things tend to elude us.  Everyone usually has a few.

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