Pulling my hair out with Math!!! Help

[Prairie]

DD, age 11 keeps making stupid little mistakes and is currently averaging a D in Math. I'm using Saxon 7/6 w/Dive and supplementing with worksheets and my own explinations when necessary. I don't have her do all the problems, just half. (As has been suggested over and over.)

 

So I tossed this to a couple friends and they suggested:

Start over with math facts, adding, sub, mult, & division-work on them and some math games for about a week.

Then...start giving her the math tests again, until you figure out where she got lost.

 

WHAT DO YOU THINK? Any suggestions?

 

I think she needs a more 'immersion' type math program with the review.

 

Anyone....anyone? :willy_nilly::willy_nilly::willy_nilly:

[LinRTX]

Does she not understand the math, not know her math facts, or is she just making careless errors? All of mine began making careless errors around this age. They knew what they were doing and had their facts down cold, but were rushing through the math just to get it done.

 

When I sat with them and corrected they easily saw the problem (copied it down wrong, mis-added, multiplied when they should have divided). It was not that they did not know what was wrong; it was that they did not care to be careful and check their own work.

 

I simply made them own their work. So they did it, I checked it, and handed it back if the work was unacceptable. I did not tell them which problems were wrong, just that they were doing sloppy work and that was not acceptable. They then did the work again.

 

A few days of this and they started being careful the first time. Who wants to do the same math lesson 3 times in one day?

 

Now if their was a problem understanding a concept we went over (and over) it until they understood. For that problem, I found that having them talk me through their thoughts as they worked a problem would show me where the faulty logic was.

 

Linda

[Ray]

I am guessing that by "mistakes" it is meant toward errors of computation or procedures. If it is part of the problem something we do is to severely reduce quantity of session time and drastically increase session frequency of the specific topic.

For example; say we have 'find the quotient. Check by multiplying. Twenty problems like 5/8 : 7/12 =. Here we would only do 2-4 of the 20 to limber up before each math session until completion of the twenty. In this way boredom can be delayed hopefully long enough to internalize the computations, and also continue working forward.

 

[ note I do not use Saxon,if that matters ]

[FrogMom5]

When my ds began doing this, around the same age, a friend suggested I bump him up into something more rigorous. That did the trick. Once he was more challenged, he stopped making the silly errors. If you're sure she knows her basic math really well, trying using something more challenging.

 

Just a thought.

Denise

[Prairie]

When I sat with them and corrected they easily saw the problem (copied it down wrong, mis-added, multiplied when they should have divided). It was not that they did not know what was wrong; it was that they did not care to be careful and check their own work.

 

Linda

 

This is exactly what she is doing! Or she doesn't listen to the lesson closely enough and gets it mixed up. For instance todays lesson was changing fractions into decimals. Instead of putting the numerator in the division box, she put the denominator...even after I had shown her 3 times! AAAAGGGGGHHHHHH!

[Mallorie]

I started having my oldest do his math on graph paper. You can get a notebook of it, and it really helps them to keep things neat: one number per box. Once their work is neater, it's easier to get them correct.

 

Another thing with Saxon to remember, *from the way I understand it*, they will do certain problems on the DIVE, work through them whatnot. Then the actual assignment only has a few of that type of problem, and the rest are things that were covered several weeks ago. I think it confuses some kids. This is just what I was told recently, I need to look further into my ds's work and examine how much truth there is to this. We're struggling a bit with the DIVE+Algebra1/2.

[Hedgehog]

This is exactly what she is doing! Or she doesn't listen to the lesson closely enough and gets it mixed up. For instance todays lesson was changing fractions into decimals. Instead of putting the numerator in the division box, she put the denominator...even after I had shown her 3 times! AAAAGGGGGHHHHHH!

 

If you know that it's simply a matter of careless mistakes, then you can "motivate" your DD to pay better attention to the details. Around here, we have consequences for certain percentages, which I've adjusted as time has gone on to suit individual kids.

 

For DD11:

 

 

• 100% gets you a treat, eg. coffee out with mom, one on one.

• 91-99%: you correct the mistakes on your original paper, alone, reading through previous lessons as necessary

• 81-90%: you redo the entire paper, without looking at your original work

• less than 80%: go back x number of lessons and work through every problem that's relevant to the mistakes you made

• No progress to the next lesson until the current lesson is finished, every problem correct.

 

 

So far, it's worked great. I don't think she's got less than 91% for several weeks, and quite a few 100%. :D

 

For DD9, it's different. She's doing the same level Math as DD11, and occasionally has misunderstandings of the words used in the text of the lesson, which is a problem of English, rather than Math.

[LinRTX]

Ok, have her work out the problems after you explain it to her. BUT have her explain the reasoning for each step. After each step ask her "Are you sure?"

 

My youngest is in Saxon 76 right now. She has done Saxon from the beginning. This book is a hard book. Working with fractions and decimals cause many people problems, but they need to know how to do it.

 

There is a lesson earlier in the Saxon book on the 3 ways to write a division problem. Review that lesson.(I do have the old hardback Saxon books. I'm assuming there is such a lesson in the new ones.) Then take her back to the lesson on converting fractions to decimals and ask her if she is doing it correctly.

 

Some days I feel like I'm pulling my hair out with the fraction/decimal lessons. I am constantly repeating "What kind of problem is this. What are the rules for working with this type of problem? Did you do it according to the rules?"

 

This is my 4th child through Saxon. My other 3 have done well on the SAT test(the big one) and in college with the Saxon math. Keep plugging away. She will get it.

 

Linda

[Prairie]

I started having my oldest do his math on graph paper. You can get a notebook of it, and it really helps them to keep things neat: one number per box. Once their work is neater, it's easier to get them correct.

 

Another thing with Saxon to remember, *from the way I understand it*, they will do certain problems on the DIVE, work through them whatnot. Then the actual assignment only has a few of that type of problem, and the rest are things that were covered several weeks ago. I think it confuses some kids. This is just what I was told recently, I need to look further into my ds's work and examine how much truth there is to this. We're struggling a bit with the DIVE+Algebra1/2.

 

 

That is exactly the way Saxon is...that's why I was wondering about a more submersion approach to math...with review. I'm probably asking too much!

[Joyofsixreboot]

I circle whatever is wrong then they go rework the problem and find the error. My ds almost always knows the procedure but he just blanks out or something. If he reworks the problem he almost always finds his mistake.