Question for those experienced with MM at levels 2,3&4.

[smilesonly]

not that i'm seriously considering switching maths for my dc...:001_rolleyes:

 

miss maria says an 80% and higher on her placement tests reveals that dc are ready to advance to the next level.

 

ds had trouble with the word problems to test out of level two-other than that he is able to do the work.

 

questions. should i have him go back to 2b for review, or will 3a provide enough review? and, does miss maria actually teach dc how to attack word problems?

 

thx!

[boscopup]

Hmmm... In grade 1, she includes some "THINK:" lines which help the kids by reminding them what to look for. She largely drops that in later grades. When a new type of word problem is introduced, she does demonstrate it, but doesn't go into great detail. In 4A, she teaches bar models (what Singapore uses). In grade 1, she also encourages drawing a picture if it would be helpful.

 

She doesn't hold the kid's hand like I've seen some curricula do. I'm not really sure what to tell you about placement. The word problems are pretty important, as that is where she hides the review. ;) I would e-mail Maria Miller and ask what she suggests you do, given the situation. My gut thinking is that you might want to at least go back through 2B and hit the word problems. You might could use the samples for that even?

[Stuart]

I don't have a lot of experience but I'll add my thought. Is your son a strong reader with good comprehension skills? He may be having a hard time decoding what the problem is asking for.

[sagira]

I don't have a lot of experience but I'll add my thought. Is your son a strong reader with good comprehension skills? He may be having a hard time decoding what the problem is asking for.

 

This is what I was thinking. Ds tends to zoom through the reading without actually understanding what it is the problem is really asking. He can, but it's hard for him to slow down. The answer also comes to him all at once. He needs to be reminded constantly to work out each problem, show his answers, write out number sentences. I let him figure it out first, then work backwards. He's a big picture kind of guy, too.

 

I made up my own system for attacking word problems.

 

Step 1- Read the whole problem

Step 2- Reread the problem, slower this time, making sure you understand what they're asking, especially question 1/a

Step 3- Say the answer if you have it, or write it on scratch paper

Write down all the numbers. See how they connect and how you need to wield them to get to your answer: is it addition? Subtraction? Multiplication?

Step 4- Write the number sentence(s).

Step 5- Work them out, part by part

Step 6- Check your answer

Step 7- Write out your answer in words as a complete sentence, inserting your final answer.

Edited November 7, 2011 by sagira

[Ummto4]

Maria teaches word problem pretty explicitely in MM 1 and 2 (as far as I remember)

For instance, she explains that to find 'differences' or solve 'how many more/less type of problem, a student can use either subtraction or counting up (finding the missing addend). Later at the end of MM2 and MM3, she helps students to solve multiplication word problems, e.g. use multiplication to find 'more of the same thing, e.g. 2 pills daily for a week equals how many pills ? Same with division.

However, before she provides the short cut, she gets students to draw lots of pictures to visualize the word problems.

 

Bar diagram as an aid to help solve word problems (especially when the numbers get bigger) comes up in MM3 and MM4.

 

Just FYI, the word problems in MM 4 gets more complicated because now it deals with 4 operation. Students are taught the order of operation and by MM 4, students are expected to be able to write number sentences to go with more complicated word problems.

[Create Your Ritual]

I began using MM when I took dd out of school at the end of 3rd grade. We reviewed things (mostly multiplication tables) and started in Level 4 for the beginning of 4th grade. Let me tell you ... there was A LOT of crying and frustration at the beginning. She had come from Saxon in ps and the level of word problems in Level 4 was beyond her comprehension. I started getting silly with them. We would draw pictures on the board that represented the problem. We would draw everything we could out. By the time December rolled around, the higher level (or maybe just different level) of expectations was beginning to get easier. This year in level 5 she is breezing through it, scoring 95% on her tests.

 

The main thing that I noticed that helped us this year was that I loaded the math onto her laptop and am having her do it off the computer. This means that she works the problems on lined paper, has to keep it organized, has to show her work. It's made ALL the difference in her getting almost everything right. In the beginning of this year she was frustrated when i would not accept sloppy work, or had her do it over. But now, she will say all the time how proud she is of the organized work and how nice it looks on her page. This is a huge leap from last year. I honestly think being able to have room to work the problem and learning to keep it organized (along with the initial drawing of the stories) has helped immensely.

 

All that said, ds started at level 1 and moved through 1 & 2 the first year. He is on level 3 now and completes two pages each day. He definitely learned tricks that dd never learned, because he is using it from the very beginning. ds also has his loaded on his laptop and completes all the problems on lined paper. I have them put the page #s and the date at the top of the page for each day, and they turn the work in to me when they are done. There are a few things that I print out. Graphing, multiplication tables that need to be filled out.. but 95% of the time they are doing the work on lined paper. It has saved on printing, and honestly the results have been a lot better.

Edited November 7, 2011 by SaDonna

[smilesonly]

thanks for your replies.:)

 

ds actually has very good reading and comprehension skills. however, math is not his thing.;)

 

he totally gets the mm methods of multiplying, but the word problems and the,"adding to_" are foreign.

 

i may email maria..

 

thanks!:grouphug:

[wapiti]

I began using MM when I took dd out of school at the end of 3rd grade. We reviewed things (mostly multiplication tables) and started in Level 4 for the beginning of 4th grade. Let me tell you ... there was A LOT of crying and frustration at the beginning. She had come from Saxon in ps and the level of word problems in Level 4 was beyond her comprehension. I started getting silly with them. We would draw pictures on the board that represented the problem. We would draw everything we could out. By the time December rolled around, the higher level (or maybe just different level) of expectations was beginning to get easier. This year in level 5 she is breezing through it, scoring 95% on her tests.

 

The main thing that I noticed that helped us this year was that I loaded the math onto her laptop and am having her do it off the computer. This means that she works the problems on lined paper, has to keep it organized, has to show her work. It's made ALL the difference in her getting almost everything right. In the beginning of this year she was frustrated when i would not accept sloppy work, or had her do it over. But now, she will say all the time how proud she is of the organized work and how nice it looks on her page. This is a huge leap from last year. I honestly think being able to have room to work the problem and learning to keep it organized (along with the initial drawing of the stories) has helped immensely.

 

All that said, ds started at level 1 and moved through 1 & 2 the first year. He is on level 3 now and completes two pages each day. He definitely learned tricks that dd never learned, because he is using it from the very beginning. ds also has his loaded on his laptop and completes all the problems on lined paper. I have them put the page #s and the date at the top of the page for each day, and they turn the work in to me when they are done. There are a few things that I print out. Graphing, multiplication tables that need to be filled out.. but 95% of the time they are doing the work on lined paper. It has saved on printing, and honestly the results have been a lot better.

 

Thanks for describing this - that's very interesting that you've been able to instill this particular discipline at an early age! We're still struggling a bit over here with our switch to lined paper (with AoPS Prealgebra, after finishing MM 5).

[Create Your Ritual]

You would laugh if you saw what she was doing last year as compared to this year. I think I might have even blogged about it I was so astonished myself! ha All that said, I am thrilled at the difference. It will definitely come. In the beginning of the year I would model for her what I was talking about by laying out the first problem and completing it on her paper, then she would just follow suit.

 

Hopefully it continues.. I am happy for now with our progress though.