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Consistent problems with math computation skills


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Dd15 just got her latest IOWA test scores back.  As she has since first grade, her math computation scores are in the toilet (ie. less than  20%).  She is a visual-spatial learner and has always had trouble learning her math facts. (Ds19 has been the same but it hasn't stopped him from doing well in college calculus.)   In school though, she's getting a B+ / A - in Algebra.  And her other math scores on the IOWA were 75% so when you put in the abysmal math computation scores and get the math total, it averages out to 58%. 

 

So here are my questions:

 

Does it matter?  She wants to go into medicine.

Does this indicate a math LD?  Or is it just part of being a visual-spatial learner who has trouble with those pesky memory things? 

How would I work on it for someone like that?  She gets mathematical concepts easily. 

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For IEPs in school, someone can have Specific Learning Disability in math calculation. Or they can have SLD in math problem solving. They don't have to have both in order for it to be considered a learning disability.

 

Use of calculator is a possible accommodation provided on an IEP, but I believe there are sections of standardized tests that still cannot be taken with a calculator.

 

DS has SLD math problem solving, so he doesn't have the calculator accommodation, and I'm not quite sure how it works.

 

DD has dyslexia. She has problems with math calculations, but the school did not give her math SLD. She goes to a private dyslexia school where they are allowed to use math tools, such as multiplication charts and calculators for all work, and they teach them various ways to use them that are not immediately obvious (such as, there is a way to use the multiplication chart to reduce fractions).

 

But her school does not promise to bump standardized test scores. Their methodology is to ensure understanding of concepts.

 

That's probably not very helpful. Hopefully someone else will chime in. There may be a benefit to having the SLD documented in order to get accommodations for the ACT/SAT.

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Does it matter? She wants to go into medicine.

Does this indicate a math LD? Or is it just part of being a visual-spatial learner who has trouble with those pesky memory things?

How would I work on it for someone like that? She gets mathematical concepts easily.

What kind of computation mistakes is she making? Are her answers reasonable: in the general ballpark of the right answer? Or are her answers sometimes wildly wrong, off by a magnitude or more? And, very importantly, can she *tell* whether her answer is reasonable or is way off? Aka, how's her number sense and estimation skills?

 

Since she's going into medicine, I think it's important to have enough number sense and estimation ability that she can recognize whether the calculator's answer makes sense. Being able to calculate medicine doses accurately - and being able to *recognize* a nonsensical answer when you see it - are really, really important. My engineering professors got extremely upset when kids couldn't recognize that they'd forgotten to change their calculators from degrees to radians, and just blindly wrote the totally-wrong answer down without even thinking about it. The ability to judge whether an answer makes sense is important for everyone, and in your shoes, I'd work hard to help your dd develop the ability to reliably estimate and judge the reasonableness of answers, and also that she gets in the habit of *always* double-checking her work for reasonableness. (If she's always been bad at computation, she might just assume she's getting most of them wrong no matter what, and not really try to check her work, figuring it doesn't matter anyway. That's how my oldest was with spelling: she knew she was going to get it wrong, so she just slapped down any old thing to get it over with and moved on, not bothering to double-check it, because it was going to be wrong no matter how much effort she put in, so she might as well give minimal effort and end the frustration faster, since the end result was the same either way.)

 

My surface understanding is that if her issues with computation are due to v/s or something not-math LD related, then developing good number sense and estimation skills so she can accurately judge the reasonableness of an answer is probably an achievable goal. You connected v/s and not being good at pesky memory things to her issues with computation: is that because she misremembers math facts and that's why she gets things wrong, or because she can't remember the steps of the procedures? Does she do any better if she has math fact tables? Or if she has the steps of all the procedures written down and can reference them as she does the problems?

 

From my limited experience with my dyslexic v/s oldest (who is weaker computationally than conceptually, but not to the extent of your dd), once she's grasped the overall conceptual point, if I walk her through each step of the procedure and explicitly connect it to the overall point, she usually has little trouble remembering the order of the procedure. Procedures with a lot of steps, a lot of "moving parts", can cause trouble, especially because she can get nine bits right out of ten and still get the overall answer wrong. (Her mistakes are usually getting math facts wrong (and memorizing them is coming slowly).). So her issues are usually how one small error makes the whole thing wrong, and that her computation number sense is limited by her iffy memory of facts: she just doesn't see the right answer at a glance, and sometimes over complicates the problem (adding more moving parts and so more chances to make a computation error) because of it.

 

Anyway, this sounds to me like an analogous situation to "learning to spell well enough to use a spellchecker effectively": get your number sense and estimation skills strong enough that you can recognize wrong answers, esp. very wrong answers, when you see them, and be able to effectively do something about it - that you can factcheck not just *your* computations, but factcheck the calculator's, too.

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What kind of computation mistakes is she making? Are her answers reasonable: in the general ballpark of the right answer? Or are her answers sometimes wildly wrong, off by a magnitude or more? And, very importantly, can she *tell* whether her answer is reasonable or is way off? Aka, how's her number sense and estimation skills?

 

Since she's going into medicine, I think it's important to have enough number sense and estimation ability that she can recognize whether the calculator's answer makes sense. Being able to calculate medicine doses accurately - and being able to *recognize* a nonsensical answer when you see it - are really, really important. My engineering professors got extremely upset when kids couldn't recognize that they'd forgotten to change their calculators from degrees to radians, and just blindly wrote the totally-wrong answer down without even thinking about it. The ability to judge whether an answer makes sense is important for everyone, and in your shoes, I'd work hard to help your dd develop the ability to reliably estimate and judge the reasonableness of answers, and also that she gets in the habit of *always* double-checking her work for reasonableness. (If she's always been bad at computation, she might just assume she's getting most of them wrong no matter what, and not really try to check her work, figuring it doesn't matter anyway. That's how my oldest was with spelling: she knew she was going to get it wrong, so she just slapped down any old thing to get it over with and moved on, not bothering to double-check it, because it was going to be wrong no matter how much effort she put in, so she might as well give minimal effort and end the frustration faster, since the end result was the same either way.)

 

My surface understanding is that if her issues with computation are due to v/s or something not-math LD related, then developing good number sense and estimation skills so she can accurately judge the reasonableness of an answer is probably an achievable goal. You connected v/s and not being good at pesky memory things to her issues with computation: is that because she misremembers math facts and that's why she gets things wrong, or because she can't remember the steps of the procedures? Does she do any better if she has math fact tables? Or if she has the steps of all the procedures written down and can reference them as she does the problems?

 

From my limited experience with my dyslexic v/s oldest (who is weaker computationally than conceptually, but not to the extent of your dd), once she's grasped the overall conceptual point, if I walk her through each step of the procedure and explicitly connect it to the overall point, she usually has little trouble remembering the order of the procedure. Procedures with a lot of steps, a lot of "moving parts", can cause trouble, especially because she can get nine bits right out of ten and still get the overall answer wrong. (Her mistakes are usually getting math facts wrong (and memorizing them is coming slowly).). So her issues are usually how one small error makes the whole thing wrong, and that her computation number sense is limited by her iffy memory of facts: she just doesn't see the right answer at a glance, and sometimes over complicates the problem (adding more moving parts and so more chances to make a computation error) because of it.

 

Anyway, this sounds to me like an analogous situation to "learning to spell well enough to use a spellchecker effectively": get your number sense and estimation skills strong enough that you can recognize wrong answers, esp. very wrong answers, when you see them, and be able to effectively do something about it - that you can factcheck not just *your* computations, but factcheck the calculator's, too.

She has good number sense. I think that she doesn't test well because of time issues. Ironically, she was allowed to have a calculator during the test but still did poorly on those problems.

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She has good number sense. I think that she doesn't test well because of time issues. Ironically, she was allowed to have a calculator during the test but still did poorly on those problems.

Does she do well with computations in real life? I was assuming her test scores were accurately reflecting her computational skills, but this sounds like it might be just a test thing, or at least partly a test thing?
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Could you do some "drills" focused on getting the facts right quickly with the use of calculator (efficiency, etc.), a facts chart, etc. Sometimes people don't always use accommodations quickly and efficiently. It would be a skill drill vs. an actual fact drill. There are so many ways to use a calculator--all the fancy buttons, calculating partial steps as if you are doing them by hand, some mix of both.

 

Neither of my kids calculate fast, but they are very accurate. 

 

Have she ever tried c-rods for math facts? Just curious--they are very visual. My second kiddo used them extensively in early math, and he still often pictures the rods (colors and lengths) in his head for calculations.

 

Both of my kids got faster at multiplication and division by playing with numbers--pulling them apart and putting them back together via factoring, using the c-rods to factor, etc. Kind of like learning someone's name by saying it a lot in the right context--my friend John, John--the guy I met at church, you know--John that is always the first one there. Basically repeated meaningful associative practice vs. drill. They also got faster by using a chart--eventually, they started to remember what they'd see on the chart. They also just used a lot of number sense cheats, though those are not faster always, though they can be fast if you get really good at them. But the "cheats" narrowed down the number of facts they needed to remember, and then eventually they would associate the "cheat" with the actual fact. So, if they remember that there are two 3's in a 6, then they can either take a 6's answer and divide it in half, or they can take a 3's answer and double it, etc. 

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Does she do well with computations in real life? I was assuming her test scores were accurately reflecting her computational skills, but this sounds like it might be just a test thing, or at least partly a test thing?

Well, now all of a sudden I didn't know! I will have to sit down with her and see. The last few years We were so focused on getting her up to grade level- something that we were successful at. But I wasn't really paying attention to the subsections of testing/ mathematical ability until now.

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I caught a doctor's math mistake which could have had big consequences... well, I guess it wasn't a calculation error though as I think the pharmasist did the calculations. It was a units mistake. My family all had a bad cough and saw the doctor together. The kids were prescribed a medication where the dose was based on weight... so they weighed all the kids and the 2 oldest weighed almost the same. When we got the prescription, the one child was supposed to take more than 2x the medicine than the other, so I questioned it. Turns out, one child's weight was given as in lbs and the other as in kg... a difference in a factor of 2.2 I asked what would have happened if I hadn't had 2 kids the same weight to make the error obvious to me.........

 

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A family friend noticed (after taking it for a month) that her cholesterol medication dose was doubled. At her scheduled appt with the doctor, she said, "I saw you increased my dose." The Dr said, "No I didn't!" It was a pharmacy mistake. My friend was very, very sick for 6 months and her liver almost failed. Sorry to derail the thread, but scoutingmom's post made me think of this very scary experience! It's important to know what dose you're supposed to take, and always check the bottle.

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Your DD sounds like a hard worker and I'm sure she has put forth a lot of effort to get to grade level. If she is passionate about medicine she will need to be able to do computations under test and other stressful situations. The MCAT and board exams are all day/multiple day affairs and are only part of becoming a doctor. I can tell you that it was much easier to do computations in a controlled testing environment when compared to the chaos of the ICU or emergency room.

 

Good luck.

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Dh is an RN, not a doctor, but that does give us some insight into some of the requirements of medicine. She's only 15 though. She may continue to go into medicine. She may not. But I want to do whatever I can do to prepare her for any eventuality. In other words, I don't want it to be my teaching or lack of teaching that holds her back.

 

 

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