Being Careless with Math?

[TheAttachedMama]

We use Singapore math.   Typically, I teach a lesson using the HIG as a guide, work the example problems from the textbook together, and then assign the workbook as independent work.  Then I check the work that day and have the child fix any missed problems.

 

WELL---my daughter has some bad habits when it comes to math.

 

She *always* misses about half of the problems.  (This is not a new problem.  She has done this her entire school career since first grade!)  In an actual class, she would probably just get an F on every assignment...right?   And then she may have to repeat the class if she fails the subject.  But in our homeschool, failure is not really an option...right?   The goal is to teach.   I won't move on until she shows she understands and can do these types of problems.

 

SO--- I hand her back the assignment and she corrects her careless mistakes until she gets a 100%.    She can always correct her work, and so I believe the problem is not in understanding...the problem is not being careful.  

 

I was hoping that the natural consequence of having to re-do half her math each day would be enough to help her start to do better.   Her school day is going longer because she wasn't careful the first time.  However, after 4 years, that doesn't seem to be working.  (hitting myself on the head.)    My concern is how I can prepare her for a class that mom isn't teaching.....when you can't just re-do your math each day.   The answer you give the first time counts.

 

BTW--She also does the same things on tests/quizzes when I give those.   

Edited September 22, 2017 by TheAttachedMama

[OneStepAtATime]

Can you break it down into EXACTLY what she is not doing correctly?  Is she failing to line things up right?  Missing what the symbol is that designates what operation she is doing?  Reversing numbers? 

 

Does she have issues in any other area?  Struggle at all with fine motor skills?  Out loud reading?  Anything?

 

Since this is ongoing, daily and has never altered, I would be looking at an underlying cause.  Either a focus issue or possibly a developmental vision issues or something along those lines.

[regentrude]

Very normal, even with strong math students.

How long is the assignment? Can she concentrate on math for this long in one sitting? Some kids cannot focus on math for more than 30 mutes at a time; she may simply need it broken down into smaller chunks.

Have you taught her to properly write down math work? Show work, one equation per line, no run-on equation signs?

Is she taking enough space for her work? Students who try to squeeze math into the small space between printed problems very often omit steps, and don't get a  good visual overview of the work. Teach her to take plenty of space for her math problems.

What exactly are her careless mistakes? I highly recommend the use of colored pencils for things like signs and parentheses. This slows her down, and it also emphasizes common sources of mistakes.

[vaquitita]

Barring any other problems... What helped my careless math student was giving him MORE work if he missed lots of problems. In addition to fixing the wrong ones. It wasn't a punishment so much as a consequence. You must need more practice at that. To make it more positive, I assigned more pages but told him he only had to do half the problems. If he got them all right, great he was done, but if he missed problems then he had to do the other half. Being able to skip problems was very motivating for him.

 

I don't still do this, because he became much more careful. He still gets some wrong for careless errors, but only 0-4 instead of half the page.

Edited September 22, 2017 by vaquitita

[shinyhappypeople]

Can you sit with her and give her immediate feedback for each problem?  That is the ONLY thing that has helped with my 12 yo.  

 

How old is your daughter? What does she have to say about the situation?  How does she explain the fact that she always make a lot of careless mistakes?  Is it frustrating to her?  

[Lecka]

No, you wouldn't fail a child for this at an outside class. 

 

This child would be one of those kids who makes careless errors and they would work on trying to improve that issue.

 

That is not the same as:  truly not understanding, total guessing, etc. 

 

I think -- the same way you can tell by her other interactions with you, that she is understanding overall ------- an outside teacher would also have those same interactions with her. 

 

Edit:  Realistically I think if it was at a point where the child might be held back, but everyone could tell that wasn't in the child's interests based on the child's understanding and class participation, that they would go to some kind of alternate assessment.

 

But when a child demonstrates understanding by their participation, it doesn't make sense to hold them back. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 22, 2017 by Lecka

[LinRTX]

For my kids what helped was making them redo the entire lesson when there lots of careless mistakes. I did not tell them which ones were wrong, just said they worked too fast and were not paying attention, so they needed to redo the lesson carefully. After several days of doing the entire lesson twice (and sometimes 3 times), they realized it was faster to slow down and pay attention the first time.

 

[mykidsrmyjoy]

Barring any other problems... What helped my careless math student was giving him MORE work if he missed lots of problems. In addition to fixing the wrong ones. It wasn't a punishment so much as a consequence. You must need more practice at that. To make it more positive, I assigned more pages but told him he only had to do half the problems. If he got them all right, great he was done, but if he missed problems then he had to do the other half. Being able to skip problems was very motivating for him.

 

I don't still do this, because he became much more careful. He still gets some wrong for careless errors, but only 0-4 instead of half the page.

I've done this with my DD. When I am confident she understands how to work the problem, but is just being careless in doing it correctly, I will tell her she can skip the next 3 problems if she gets the first 3 correct, for example. That has been a huge motivator in making sure she does things correctly.

[TheAttachedMama]

Very normal, even with strong math students.

How long is the assignment? Can she concentrate on math for this long in one sitting? Some kids cannot focus on math for more than 30 mutes at a time; she may simply need it broken down into smaller chunks.

Have you taught her to properly write down math work? Show work, one equation per line, no run-on equation signs?

Is she taking enough space for her work? Students who try to squeeze math into the small space between printed problems very often omit steps, and don't get a  good visual overview of the work. Teach her to take plenty of space for her math problems.

What exactly are her careless mistakes? I highly recommend the use of colored pencils for things like signs and parentheses. This slows her down, and it also emphasizes common sources of mistakes.

 

1)  But I limit her math work to 30 minutes.  She is using JUST the Singapore regular workbook which really doesn't assign a ton of problems.   It is about as quick and painless as you can get in a math workbook IMHO.

 

2)  I have taught her to properly write down her math work.  Repeatedly.  Ad nauseam.  I have even had her write little notes in the side that she needs to show work, box her answers, etc.   She often still "forgets" to do this.

 

3)   She does not take enough space for her work, writes really sloppy, "forgets" to write lines uder things, etc.

 

4)  Her careless mistakes are all over the place.   Here are some examples off the top of my head:   Not paying attention to symbols.  (subtracting when she was supposed to add).  Leaving numbers out.   Forgetting steps.  (Simple things---Like forgetting to finish her long division problem to the end.     She probably got distracted before she finished and went on to the next problem.)   Skipping entire problems and leaving them blank.   Not reading instructions.   Forgetting things she knows but "just forgot"...and "Like, oh yea...I was supposed to find a common denominator."   Problems lining things up which causes mistakes.  

[Arcadia]

If your daughter could do the work, is she bored with it? Singapore primary math took my kids 10 to 20 mins daily, then they did their own math enrichment. When I let my oldest speed through instead of assigning pages daily, he finished SM5A to SM6B in a summer. He just so want to get it over with and moved to AoPS prealgebra.

 

The harder the work is, the less mistakes my kids (and my nephews) made. Checking boring work for careless mistakes is an acquired skill for my kids and relatives.

 

My husband’s relatives are careless because they want to finish fast to go out and play with friends. So different underlying reasons.

 

Since this is ongoing, daily and has never altered, I would be looking at an underlying cause. Either a focus issue or possibly a developmental vision issues or something along those lines.

Or a couldn’t care less issue or a bored out of their minds issue. I have these issues with my relatives and my kids.

 

No mistakes on outside exams that counts but daily work is a hit or miss. My kids doesn’t want to be put into remedial English or math group so they did the placement tests properly for their public school teachers.

 

The public school teachers did gave them As based on final exams despite incomplete homework in B&M public school. Elementary school grades doesn’t matter anyway but there is grade inflation even then.

[regentrude]

1)  But I limit her math work to 30 minutes.  She is using JUST the Singapore regular workbook which really doesn't assign a ton of problems.   It is about as quick and painless as you can get in a math workbook IMHO.

 

2)  I have taught her to properly write down her math work.  Repeatedly.  Ad nauseam.  I have even had her write little notes in the side that she needs to show work, box her answers, etc.   She often still "forgets" to do this.

 

3)   She does not take enough space for her work, writes really sloppy, "forgets" to write lines uder things, etc.

 

4)  Her careless mistakes are all over the place.   Here are some examples off the top of my head:   Not paying attention to symbols.  (subtracting when she was supposed to add).  Leaving numbers out.   Forgetting steps.  (Simple things---Like forgetting to finish her long division problem to the end.     She probably got distracted before she finished and went on to the next problem.)   Skipping entire problems and leaving them blank.   Not reading instructions.   Forgetting things she knows but "just forgot"...and "Like, oh yea...I was supposed to find a common denominator."   Problems lining things up which causes mistakes.  

 

How old is she?

Can it be that the work is too easy and she is bored?

What happens when you sit next to her while she works and redirect her immediately? She may not be mature enough for independent work.

[Laura Corin]

I stuck a list of all the checking steps to the desk. Then I wouldn't look at the work until I could see that all the checks had been accomplished. I would just say, Go back and check again. He learned.

[RenaInTexas]

She sounds almost exactly like my son. It was an executive functioning type issue. He got 100% on most redos, the issue was never understanding the problem. I did exactly what you are doing now, but if he scored lower than a 70% he had to do an intervention assignment to give him more practice on the topic. I also made sure to emphasize that the last step to working a math problem is to check your work. I do this even when I demonstrate a problem, I check my own work. If he proclaims, 'I'm finished!'. I ask, 'Have you checked your work?' ... No ... Then you are not finished.

 

He does work his math problems more carefully now and those types of silly mistakes are basically gone. But, to be honest, I am not sure what worked. I do believe that the issue gets better with age, but I also believe that the consequences were necessary to encourage that development.

 

Now, if I can just get him to read the directions before he starts his work....I think the last two 0% on assignments will get him to slow down and read the directions. 1st page was estimating multi-digit products, next 2 pages said to estimate and then calculate to verify his estimate. Guess what he did...yep, continued to estimate (only) on the next 2 pages. So 0%....even though all estimates were correct. SMH!

 

BTW, he is now in 5th, the careless mistakes were bad in 3rd, improved in 4th, and so far pretty much gone in 5th...except the reading directions thing.

 

 

 

[TheAttachedMama]

How old is she?

Can it be that the work is too easy and she is bored?

What happens when you sit next to her while she works and redirect her immediately? She may not be mature enough for independent work.

 

 

If your daughter could do the work, is she bored with it? Singapore primary math took my kids 10 to 20 mins daily, then they did their own math enrichment. When I let my oldest speed through instead of assigning pages daily, he finished SM5A to SM6B in a summer. He just so want to get it over with and moved to AoPS prealgebra.

 

The harder the work is, the less mistakes my kids (and my nephews) made. Checking boring work for careless mistakes is an acquired skill for my kids and relatives.

 

My husband’s relatives are careless because they want to finish fast to go out and play with friends. So different underlying reasons.

 

 

Or a couldn’t care less issue or a bored out of their minds issue. I have these issues with my relatives and my kids.

 

No mistakes on outside exams that counts but daily work is a hit or miss. My kids doesn’t want to be put into remedial English or math group so they did the placement tests properly for their public school teachers.

 

The public school teachers did gave them As based on final exams despite incomplete homework in B&M public school. Elementary school grades doesn’t matter anyway but there is grade inflation even then.

 

She is age 9 and working in Singapore 5A/5B.    I really don't think she is bored with the work.    In fact, I was even thinking of putting her back a level in Singapore (except using CWP and IP combo so she isn't doing the same book again.)    I am hesitant to do that because we have already gone over budget in our homeschool curriculum this year, and I'm trying to avoid spending anything more.   (But I will if that is going to be the best thing for her.)

 

She couldn't just race through 5a/5b even if I wanted her too.   I have to teach a lesson every day before she can do the workbook exercise or else she can't figure out how to do them.  I usually have to work through quite a few examples from the textbook with her too.   She is not the type who can just look at the textbook/workbook and self-teach.   Is this odd?  I thought that was probably normal?  

 

She probably WOULD do better if I sat right next to her each day while she did all of the work.   The thing is....I am having a VERY hard time doing that.   Every one of her other subjects is pretty teacher intensive.   And I have a needy 4-year-old, and a 5th grader (who also has a pretty teacher intensive schedule.)   Singapore math has been nice in that I could have her do some of it semi-independently.   (I teach her for about 30 minutes in math, and then have her work on her workbook semi-independently until finished.   Her workbook takes her about 30 mins.)   

[fralala]

Well, when I was in school, we rarely sat and did a page of problems on our own at that age. Math when taught well is not a solitary effort, but often collaborative and involves communication. Kids do problems up on the board. Other kids chime in. Kids work things out in groups. This was true for us in all of my math classes, including high school. The only time we worked alone was on tests, which are artificial situations that our teachers relied upon because they often couldn't put in the 1:1 time required to ensure we were all really learning the concepts.

 

So, I think maybe some of your concern is misplaced, but also your expectation that your child should do math alone just because she's capable of understanding it. This is okay, I think, for rote practice of facts, but it's not the best practice in math teaching. (Now, some kids love doing math practice independently, and that's fine, but needing or wanting more scaffolding is very normal. And since most kids don't have the opportunity to see lots of written math in the same way that they read, it is often necessary to get them accustomed to showing their work in a consistent and clear way.)

 

I don't know what to suggest about time. I have not mastered this and do fewer subjects so that we can hit math well. But I'd actually rather spend less time doing math daily than have my child develop bad habits on her own, which is exactly what happens here.

[Angie in VA]

For my kids what helped was making them redo the entire lesson when there lots of careless mistakes. I did not tell them which ones were wrong, just said they worked too fast and were not paying attention, so they needed to redo the lesson carefully. After several days of doing the entire lesson twice (and sometimes 3 times), they realized it was faster to slow down and pay attention the first time.

 

 

This worked here too. 

[regentrude]

For a 9 year old, independent work is a lot to expect. How long do her independent assignments take? 

 

I  understand that it is difficult juggling other kids as well, but I am wondering whether your expectation is realistic. I found that even 12 year olds needed my presence during math work.

Edited September 23, 2017 by regentrude

[Arcadia]

I would make that semi-independent workbook time buddy system instead. At 9 I had to be all eyes on my DS11 for all subjects and then go towards semi-independent as he is ready. Since semi-independent isn’t working out well for your daughter, just giving her the full 30 mins of your time for workbook might end up with less errors and less time spent correcting careless mistakes.

 

My oldest is a perfectionist and can be a workaholic. I used to assign him two pages of the SM workbook daily and he could finish in 10mins. His computation speed is just fast and his perfectionism means that he gets annoyed with his own careless mistakes. Even now, he gets annoyed with his careless mistakes but he gets over it, while DS11 is neutral about careless mistakes. So DS12 can survive independent study while I concentrate on DS11 but I have to watch out for his perfectionism especially for literature.

 

For DS12, careless mistakes coincide with lack of sleep and growth spurt. Can’t do anything about timing of growth spurt like 6 year molars and 12 year molars came early for him, he started growing taller last year. So I just try to make sure his sleep is adequate.

 

I have only two so it is easier for me to alternate helping each child than if I also have a preschool age child. The curriculum we used were also suited more for self study so guiding took much less time than if I had to do the teaching. However my kids enjoy workbooks because they like the structure. Public schools curriculum works well for them. If the curriculum that works for your kids are teacher intensive, you might want to consider schooling year round or just do a little in the weekends. My kids did an hour of academics on Saturday and Sunday of whatever they choose. Kind of like study hour. It did give us a time buffer though to finish earlier on a weekday.

[TracyP]

...

 

She probably WOULD do better if I sat right next to her each day while she did all of the work.   The thing is....I am having a VERY hard time doing that.   Every one of her other subjects is pretty teacher intensive.   And I have a needy 4-year-old, and a 5th grader (who also has a pretty teacher intensive schedule.)   Singapore math has been nice in that I could have her do some of it semi-independently.   (I teach her for about 30 minutes in math, and then have her work on her workbook semi-independently until finished.   Her workbook takes her about 30 mins.)   

 

I am teaching 5 kids plus I have a toddler, so I hear ya! I realized when my oldest was around that age that I needed to be present for math. The only math that she could do semi-independently was work that was pure review. So math became and still is my #1 mom intensive subject. That means I spend at least 2.5 hrs / day on math between all my kids. Considering that other subjects like learning to read and writing are also teacher intensive, I simply cannot do teacher intensive foreign language, history, or science. You also might want to consider letting some other subjects be less teacher intensive, so math can take priority. It might not even have to be long term for you, but for now it sounds like it would help her.

[rose]

For my kids what helped was making them redo the entire lesson when there lots of careless mistakes. I did not tell them which ones were wrong, just said they worked too fast and were not paying attention, so they needed to redo the lesson carefully. After several days of doing the entire lesson twice (and sometimes 3 times), they realized it was faster to slow down and pay attention the first time.

 

This is what I would do.

[blondeviolin]

I circle the incorrect problems and they must correct them before moving on to that day's lesson.

[MotherGoose]

I have a similar problem with my 11 year old. I make her redo incorrect ones too but i like the pp suggestion of having child redo the whole assignment without telling what is wrong.

[Milknhoney]

My ds is like this. I now require that he recheck all of his work before the answer key ever comes out. He usually finds most of his own errors. I think developing the habit of rechecking your work before turning it in is a good one to carry into a future situation of being in a classroom with another teacher.

 

Also, if part of the problem is not accurately recalling math facts, then maybe give her additional drill sheets or flash cards. My ds has excellent conceptual understanding of math, but he would have a lot of errors because his calculations would be off. I really hit hard with drill sheets until he had them down. It's too difficult to do more advanced math if you still have to count your fingers. While she's still working on memorization, you could allow he to keep a multiplication table to reference while she's doing her work.