Feeling frustrated

[TracyR]

Ugh. I am feeling very frustrated at the moment. I'm not sure what to do actually.

 

My oldest daughter is 12 and she has always been very good with math. This is her first year with going to a brick and mortar school and its a good school. A small Catholic school. The teachers are great, the principal is out of this world. Yet my daughter seems to be struggling. Not in a horrible bad way but she slightly struggles with the fact she was held back in the 6th grade due to the school using an advanced curriculum. The fact that she can not wrap her brain around Saxon math.

 

Her poor teacher has tried just about everything she can think of to help my daughter with the math. She has the ability to do the math just that I (and her teacher) think she is NOT taking her time and whizzing through everything. Her teacher says the only time she does slow down is if she sits next to her after school when they are doing tutoring. But she can't do that in class.

 

We are both at a loss for what to do,and I feel frustrated because all of these years I was able to pick what works for my daughter and she was confident in math. Now she tells me she hates math. I don't want that either.

 

What can I do to help come up with a solution to this problem? I already have three other children that come at me with home work after school. My 4yr old likes to do 'extra' stuff and I spend a lot of time with my 1st grader and her reading , and my 4th grader who isn't very good with math and likes to whiz through her work too.

 

I feel like I put in more work with this than I did with homeschooling.

Sorry to rant but I'm just getting frustrated. :banghead:

[Guest MomSleadd]

Ugh. I feel like I put in more work with this than I did with homeschooling. :banghead:

Tracy, I believe you have answered your own question. You have demonstrated why homeschooling is superior to institutional schooling--even the best of schools can't compete with the individual attention given at home. If you miss homeschool, why not go back to it? Many moms have had the same experience, finding that it was actually more work for them when they put their children into day school than when they homeschooled. Save yourself time, money, your daughter's heart and confidence, and bring her home. I realize you may feel overextended with all of your children vying for attention. But this is a season in your life when you only have one chance to do it right. Listen to yourself and I believe you have your own answer right under your nose.

Pacing oneself is a difficult thing for young math learners. Many children, I have found, will race through something thinking it's easy, to their own detriment. It is also a pride issue, but requires your patient, hovering help to get her through this, to pray for her character, and model patience to her yourself.

 

God bless you!

MomSleadd

homeschooling mom of five, ages 23, 21, 19, 17, 14

Edited December 9, 2010 by MomSleadd

[Melinda in VT]

Have you talked to your daughter about slowing down? What does she say?

 

Does she not understand the work? Or does she just make 2+3=5 kind of mistakes because she rushes?

 

Has she ever taken an IQ test? I had one child who really needed to see the subtest breakdowns to understand his/her strengths and weaknesses as a learner and understand what he/she could do to improve things. (Somehow, hearing me or a teacher say "show your work and double-check it" didn't make much of an impression, but hearing "your working memory is not as strong as your conceptual understanding so writing things down will help you avoid little mistakes that grow to big mistakes" made a huge difference.)

 

:grouphug: to you and your daughter.

[mazakaal]

Here's a crazy idea. Does your dd's class do math at a scheduled time each day? Could you bring another math curriculum into the school, pull dd out of the math class, and give her a 'private tutoring lesson' during that period? Then you're not having to work with her after school when you're juggling all the other kids, she's not frustrated with Saxon math, and she actually learns some math with her 'private tutor.'

[fairytalemama]

How about a short before school math session with her and the also speedy but not accurate 4th grader? Even if it's just 10 or 15 minutes, it will give you the opportunity to emphasize that they need to slow down and take their time when they do their work.

[Katrina J]

I'd like to offer a different point of view and solution. Bear in mind that I'm not familiar with Saxon math and may be way off base.

 

It sounds to me like your 12yo dd hasn't adjusted to learning math in a group situation. Perhaps she has become accustomed to listening to your excellent one on one explanations and then speedily completing the problems. You mentioned that she can learn from the teacher in afterschool tutoring, so the teacher's approach and the math itself might not actually be the problem.

 

I would suggest that as a 12 yo she needs to put more emphasis on listening to the teacher in class, working out exactly which steps and concepts she understands and doesn't understand for herself and then asking for clarification in class. Then she needs to slow down and makes sure she completes each problem or set of problems correctly before she goes onto the next one. If she doesn't follow this process then she needs to be encouraged firmly and positively to go back to the beginning and start again. She's old enough and clever enough to work out 80% of it for herself but probably doesn't realise she's capable of doing so. Whizzing through can be very superficial, and relying on individual tuition isn't sustainable in the long run.

 

Katrina

[TracyR]

Well, I've asked her if she isn't understanding the math and she tells me " Yes, she understands it."

So I am going to have her bring home the book to see what it is she is having difficulty with. I thought maybe it was her times tables, but she rattles them off.

 

Her teacher noticed when she worked on the same set problems that she was getting them right. So I think it has to do with the randomness of the math program. At least that's our guess at the moment.

 

Its definitely not a learning issue. She has A's and B's in everything else. She had a D for her progress report this 2nd quarter so we really need to bring it up.

[AmyinMD]

My 12 yo is in ps for the first time this year and has As and high Bs in everything but Math. I think a lot of it is the style of teaching math at school is so different for her. She was using TT6 last year at home and now she's doing McGraw Hill (?) at school. It's mostly worksheets, they very rarely do problems out of the book. The latest fractions unit she got Fs on both quizzes and a D on the test. She's done fractions before so I just don't get it. Dd has an A for homework so she's turning it all in. I'm not sure what the exact problem is but she seems to have a hard time following what happens in class. If I don't reteach it in the afternoon she has trouble. I spend as much time helping with homework as I did on homeschooling. That is not what I was expecting and I do not add afterschool work. Dd doesn't have time.

 

I hope you can figure something out. It is hard to watch dd having so much trouble. She's never loved math but has always moved along at a pace I was okay with. We could spend longer on units she had trouble with which doesn't happen in a school environment. They do let kids retake the tests though and that happened on the integers unit for dd. She had a D on the first test but was able to do extra work and retake it and got a low B.

[Melinda in VT]

Well, I've asked her if she isn't understanding the math and she tells me " Yes, she understands it."

So I am going to have her bring home the book to see what it is she is having difficulty with. I thought maybe it was her times tables, but she rattles them off.

 

Her teacher noticed when she worked on the same set problems that she was getting them right. So I think it has to do with the randomness of the math program. At least that's our guess at the moment.

 

Its definitely not a learning issue. She has A's and B's in everything else. She had a D for her progress report this 2nd quarter so we really need to bring it up.

 

If the randomness is the issue, is it possible she's not looking at each problem carefully enough to understand what they're asking her to do?

 

I have two kids like that. If the first problem is addition, they just assume they all are and will merrily add all the rest of the problems, ignoring the little subtraction, division, etc, signs.