I'm stumped. What say you???

[Denisemomof4]

Has anyone ever heard of such a thing or experienced this themselves?

 

My dd will doe one math problem on paper over and over and over and still have the wrong answer. I will get her the dry erase board and give her the exact same math problem, and she will get the answer right. This has happened multiple times.

 

Huh?:confused:

 

I sometimes get concerned, thinking she should be able to do it on paper. Maybe I shouldn't be as she obviously is UNDERSTANDING the work, but it's somehow easier on a dry erase board.

 

Does anyone have ANY idea why???

[coffeegal]

Has anyone ever heard of such a thing or experienced this themselves?

 

Maybe I shouldn't be as she obviously is UNDERSTANDING the work, but it's somehow easier on a dry erase board.

 

Does anyone have ANY idea why???

 

I have no idea why, but I would do difficult math or logic problems on Dad's chalk board that I couldn't solve on paper. Maybe it's something about being able to step back and see the big picture? :bigear:

[Big Buckin' Longhorn]

Has anyone ever heard of such a thing or experienced this themselves?

 

My dd will doe one math problem on paper over and over and over and still have the wrong answer. I will get her the dry erase board and give her the exact same math problem, and she will get the answer right. This has happened multiple times.

 

Huh?:confused:

 

I sometimes get concerned, thinking she should be able to do it on paper. Maybe I shouldn't be as she obviously is UNDERSTANDING the work, but it's somehow easier on a dry erase board.

 

Does anyone have ANY idea why???

 

I have no idea, but my son went through a bout of this.

 

I finally resorted to putting ALL of his math problems on the white board and he had to stand up to do each and every one of them.

 

After a week or two when he finally asked me WHY he had to do all of his work at the board, I told him, that he never bothered to get the problems right the first time, only the second time when I put them on the board for correction, so I just fast-forwarded to the part where he got them right. ;)

 

After that he was ready to try doing problems on paper again. With much more success. :lol:

[TechWife]

I have no idea why this is happening, but if you figure it out, let me know. I have a son who does the same thing.

[Jean in Newcastle]

How is her eyesight? A white-erase board would have things written much bigger.

[FaithManor]

I second an eyesight test but you should know that unless you see a pediatric/developmental opthamologist, she won't be diagnosed with immature visual pathways because that is a much more indepth/specialized battery of tests than most eye docs do.

 

Also, writing in larger print on a dry erase board with a marker requires less fine motor skill than a pencil on paper. The color jumps out at the eyes as well. If she has even a hint of blurry vision, she will do better with the dry erase board and this is true if her eyes tire easily or get dry. But, not having to try soooo hard to write can be a big help for a child.

 

My middle boy could spell orally or with magnetic letters and board when he was young but couldn't write those same words correctly no matter how hard we tried. He took all of his spelling tests with the magnetic letter and our refrigerator until about the middle of third grade when the light bulb went on inside his head and handwriting suddenly didn't short-circuit his long-term memory retrieval.

 

Oh, and dh wants you to know that for the first two or three years of school his teachers thought he was a complete dunce because he wouldn't put much down on paper. As it turns out, it was a sensory issue. HE HATED the feel of the paper against his hand. Somewhere along the way he did outgrow this but, I have to tell you, he still has this major problem touching a piece of paper if his finger tips are damp.....oh my word, he is practically grossed out by the texture!

 

Faith

[Barry Goldwater]

Is dry erase board safer? What I mean is, if you get the wrong answer, just wipe and retry, so less pressure & stress, so the brain operates better? While pencil / paper seems more permanent? stress goes up? I know you can erase a pencil, but not as easily as wiping dry erase?

 

Please post if you figure it out...I've seen some wild stuff like this in our homeschool too...so interesting how the brains operate!!

[Denisemomof4]

well, she reads perfectly fine and does all her OTHER school work perfectly fine on paper, but when it comes to math - she does better on a dry erase board.

:confused: Why can't kids just come with their own, personal instruction manual? From womb to arms with that little booklet. I'm telling you, it could work. ;)

[Denisemomof4]

Is dry erase board safer? What I mean is, if you get the wrong answer, just wipe and retry, so less pressure & stress, so the brain operates better? While pencil / paper seems more permanent? stress goes up? I know you can erase a pencil, but not as easily as wiping dry erase?

 

Please post if you figure it out...I've seen some wild stuff like this in our homeschool too...so interesting how the brains operate!!

 

this makes sense. It really does.

[Mynyel]

A few ideas: I bet she writes bigger on the white board, giving the numbers more space, less likely to confuse things. Some people need white space to keep everything straight/ see more clearly.

 

Higher contrast since there are no lines to get in the way.

 

Is she using colored markers? I had a friend in college who could remember anything if it was in color, but nothing if she wrote in black. The colors may help your dd trigger part of her brain that helps with math.

 

is she standing at the whiteboard? Maybe she needs physical movement to help engage those parts of her brain.

 

On paper, is she making the same mistake, or type of mistake, each time? Is it something different each time?

 

:iagree:

 

The more your body is involved in what it is doing the easier it is to remember and do things. For instance when you write on the white board you typically use your whole arm not just your hand.

Same thing with memorization. When you are memorizing something, hold the book or paper or whatever it is in one hand then hold something in the other like a ball or something and you will memorize faster.. Your body is more engaged.

That is why people pace when they are in deep thought. It gets the blood flowing.

[ElizabethB]

I don't know why, either, but I love my white boards and use them with most of my students, especially at the beginning. They seem especially helpful for young students and beginning remedial students for both math and reading, although I do more reading tutoring than math tutoring.

[AHASRADA]

Is dry erase board safer? What I mean is, if you get the wrong answer, just wipe and retry, so less pressure & stress, so the brain operates better? While pencil / paper seems more permanent? stress goes up? I know you can erase a pencil, but not as easily as wiping dry erase?

 

Please post if you figure it out...I've seen some wild stuff like this in our homeschool too...so interesting how the brains operate!!

 

This is the reason we have always done spelling words on the dry erase board. If the child has to try and re-try various vowel combinations, for example, it is much easier and less frustrating to do so by simply swiping the letters away with a thumb than erasing a hole through the paper!

 

DD10 also does a lot of math word problems on the board, jotting down bits of information, organizing it with little pictures, then realizing she is thinking about it the wrong way, quick erase and change, etc. in a way that she would deem too "messy" to do on her lesson paper.

 

BTW, we are using individual 8x10" boards on the table, not a large one on the wall, and it still works better for some things than paper.

 

Good luck getting to the bottom of this!

[silliness7]

Oh my! We do math on white boards too. It creates so much less stress. Weird. Ours are lapboards so no standing but you can still write bigger and no lines. Very interesting.

[Denisemomof4]

Is she using colored markers? I had a friend in college who could remember anything if it was in color, but nothing if she wrote in black. The colors may help your dd trigger part of her brain that helps with math.

 

i

 

THIS is it!!!! THANK YOU!!! This, coupled with the fact that it's easier/less stressful, this is it!!!

 

I bought some brightly colored dry erase markers that she LOVES. We are using the small 8 x 10 mostly, although sometimes she uses the large one. But it's the color. She does better with color!

 

 

Maybe I should have her use colored pencils when doing her school work? Do they make some that can be erased?

 

It's color!!!

[Suzanne in ABQ]

My son did all his math on a dry erase board for an entire year (I think it was 4th grade). At first, I'd write the problems for him, and he would do the problems in a different color. Eventually, he started writing them out himself. Then, he just started using paper.

 

I have no idea why it worked this way, except that maybe the larger strokes triggered something in his brain, and made it work better. I figured that if it helped, I'd let him do it.

 

I've since learned that cross-lateral motion (hand moving across the midline of the body) helps open up the corpus callosum between the hemispheres of the brain, allowing information to pass from short term memory into long term memory. I'm thinking that the larger writing strokes encouraged this.

 

I'd definitely let her use the white board.