1st and 3rd graders need more support

[xixstar]

I need some good alternative suggestions or support for my current plan. We recently put our daughters into school for a few reasons, one of those honestly being my lack of follow through with teaching and them falling further behind.

 

The school did assessments and they are both below grade level in reading and math / this is not surprising news.

 

I want to help them get caught up at home. They attend a late (time wise) school and don't even get home from school until 4pm. They are very reluctant to jump right into more work -- but I don't see how to avoid that. I wish they got home earlier but that's irrelevant.

 

For 1st - I plan to simply do the homework and review work sent home by her teacher and continue AAR. I think that will get her caught up in reading. For math, I have MM - maybe we can use that to address topics she struggles with - subtraction and she is still slow on her number facts. But the additional review work her teacher sends home may be enough to fill her gap. I am not super worried about this child.

 

For 3rd - I met with her teachers today because the assessments didn't tell us a lot and she needed a few weeks in class for everyone to get a better understanding of where she is. I am feeling a little disheartened now, dd appears to be further behind than I thought.

 

We need more help with phonics, writing and math. I am think of just doing AAS with her to work on the phonics instead of doing AAR too. She is my most reluctant child so I know I will only get a certain amount of productive time each day.

 

Math is pretty far behind, she does not have a firm grasp on multiplication and her multidigit addition and subtraction also needs help. Again, maybe MM will be enough? We were doing Right Start and I know that is now where we should look.

 

I am a do the next thing kind of person, but it seems like that won't really be the best approach because it won't help them move faster. I also need reminded that it will take time to fill these gaps so I can't expect a quick solution either. So pick out lessons that looks like the skill they're missing for math? Do small amounts on each lessons working up to ones addressing obvious gaps?

 

Both children are getting extra math and ELA interventions as school - the youngest they started right away, the oldest will finally start next week. They are both bright children, their gaps are a reflection of a lack of consistent instruction and not any other learning challenge. Well that and gaps between what our curriculum focused on versus what the school does.

 

Trying to not feel overwhelmed and sort out a path that will help them both.

[Bluegoat]

If school end late, does it also start late?  You could do something in the morning, like multiplication drill, if there is a little time.

[tm919]

What curriculum are they using in school? And is there homework (how much)? Particularly for math, you might want to use something with similar "language." But, this is a big transition and you may find you can't do much on weekdays but get homework done and go over the papers that are coming home from school in detail. 

[Tanikit]

I use bath time and bed time with my children for afterschooling - usually I read to them while they are bathing, but for my younger child I also give her a set of 10 duplo blocks and work daily on the facts that add to 10 using the manipulatives (they do not use enough manipulatives in her school) and any others that need reinforcement. Five minutes really is enough for math facts review if it is done daily and consistently. At bed time my younger child reads to me (you could use this time for phonics review if necessary) and we do 5-10min of Math. 

 

For my older child I have been doing about 15min of Math and she may read a chapter or an article to me. I also do some language skill with her which must take about 10min. They get weekly homework at school, so I try to get as much of that done on Monday or Tuesday which gives us the rest of the week for other work, but if the school homework is not teaching her anything then I will rather do something else with her and her teachers have been happy with this.

 

If you are consistent with what you are doing and the school is doing extra then your child should catch up, but it will take some time depending how much repetition your kids need.

[xixstar]

Thank you for the feedback.

 

We are adding morning review for my morning child (1st grade). She's up early anyways and it helps me not have both of them needing me at the same time in the evenings.

 

For phonics the schools uses Fundations. There are discrepancies in what we call things from AAR versus what they do. And they push "sight words" hard - they're really just high frequency words.

 

I can ask what they use for math, it's not been obvious from the materials that come home.

 

They don't bring home much homework though I suggested more math practice be sent home and the 3rd grade teacher likes that idea.

 

The ELA teacher thinks 3rd grader needs to do some daily writing. DD struggles just to formulate sentences she says. So I am thinking just a simple daily journal to write but I also wonder about adding a little of the Brave Writer approach so that I do some of the Jot It Down approach to help take away some of the written struggle so she can practice organizing thoughts more without being bogged down by the writing challenge too.

[amymarie3]

For practicing math for your younger daughter the game Shut the Box is a good option.  It's a fun dice game where they have add small numbers to play the game. 

 

Since you are looking for add on information you may consider Life of Fred.   My 1st grade boys do a chapter a week and the worksheets that I found in the LoF Facebook group and it's a fun way for them to get a bit of extra practice without it necessarily feeling like extra work.

 

For multiplication here is a great resource for learning them in a different way https://www.tjed.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/LetsLearnTimesTables.pdf

 

I also started watching Mental Math by Great Courses and it is a fantastic program that shows many shortcuts for doing math quickly and correctly.   

 

I try to mix up the math that I have mine do to keep them from getting bored MM 2-3 days a week, playing math based games or computer programs 1-2 days a week, and one day of LoF.   

 

[vonfirmath]

The ELA teacher thinks 3rd grader needs to do some daily writing. DD struggles just to formulate sentences she says. So I am thinking just a simple daily journal to write but I also wonder about adding a little of the Brave Writer approach so that I do some of the Jot It Down approach to help take away some of the written struggle so she can practice organizing thoughts more without being bogged down by the writing challenge too.

 

My son started 4th grade having done VERY little writing, despite being in public school all the way through. His 3rd grade teacher really let him down in not requiring the writing. WE did some over the summer, but I trusted that the school knew what they were doing... I'm glad your daughter's teacher is focusing on writing now. In 4th grade, they are definitely expected to be able to write.

 

For my son, it helps to write notes about what he wants to say and then write whatever it is.  He really struggles to both write and compose at the same time.

[tm919]

My son started 4th grade having done VERY little writing, despite being in public school all the way through. His 3rd grade teacher really let him down in not requiring the writing. WE did some over the summer, but I trusted that the school knew what they were doing... I'm glad your daughter's teacher is focusing on writing now. In 4th grade, they are definitely expected to be able to write.

 

For my son, it helps to write notes about what he wants to say and then write whatever it is.  He really struggles to both write and compose at the same time.

Agree - my daughter prefers freewrite + snip & pin (or whatever it's called) but they are required to write so much (and she's in first!) that she uses keyword outlines a la IEW to produce quickly.  What she does isn't a masterpiece but she can do it quickly with notes and an outline. I feel like bravewriter just takes so long to produce something finished, even though what it produces is often way better in the end, that it can be tough to use as a quick method in school.

 

As far as fundations, it's pretty common around here... The "trick word" focus isn't my favorite (or yours, it sounds like!), but one good thing is there are a lot of resources for it on the internet. I'm not sure I'd want to buy the worksheets off TPT, but it's possible you can combine free worksheets with whatever the teacher will provide to you.

Edited December 5, 2016 by tm919

[Joanna]

For practicing math for your younger daughter the game Shut the Box is a good option.  It's a fun dice game where they have add small numbers to play the game. 

 

Since you are looking for add on information you may consider Life of Fred.   My 1st grade boys do a chapter a week and the worksheets that I found in the LoF Facebook group and it's a fun way for them to get a bit of extra practice without it necessarily feeling like extra work.

 

For multiplication here is a great resource for learning them in a different way https://www.tjed.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/LetsLearnTimesTables.pdf

 

I also started watching Mental Math by Great Courses and it is a fantastic program that shows many shortcuts for doing math quickly and correctly.   

 

I try to mix up the math that I have mine do to keep them from getting bored MM 2-3 days a week, playing math based games or computer programs 1-2 days a week, and one day of LoF.   

Thank yu for that <3

[OneStepAtATime]

In regards to the math in particular your children might need some review with manipulatives to learn how to break everything apart and put it back together again and to understand what addition/subtraction/multiplication/division really is, even if they can do these operations.  When I was in school there was so much focus on rote memorizing math facts, especially the times tables, that I didn't make the connection that we were doing fast addition or that division was the flip side of multiplication, etc, until much later and it hindered me.  Just telling me later on didn't help either.  I needed to SEE it, I needed to play with those things to understand.  Doing so helped a lot with recall and functionality.

 

You might also look at CTC math or Time for Learning or Prodigy math or something along those lines to help supplement.  They might enjoy doing some math on the computer.