Suddenly waaaaaaaaaayyyyy slow in math.

[diaperjoys]

I don't get it. My 8yo has been using CLE Math 2 this year, and doing (I thought), very well with it. Then we took a break. One week break, plus one week of patchy school because I was sick.

 

Now, he's gone from completing his time tests in 2 minutes, to only getting 4 or 5 problems done in two minutes. Just to see, I had him finish the time test yesterday, and he spent another 45 minutes, and that was with the abacus. Sounds like a first class example of loitering, (which we do have an issue with), but in this instance his bottom was in the chair, and he (most of the time) seemed to be working.

 

I don't get it. He took the test for LU 205 yesterday, and scored 98%, seems to grasp the material, but it took him at least an hour to do the test, maybe more.

 

Anyone else have this issue? What's the solution? I took some time and re-organized his flash cards yesterday, grouped them by +1, +2, etc, rather than fact family, and pulled out my time tests that are also grouped the same way, and we did some serious drilling with the first group. But this child should be almost ready to learn multiplication, and we're almost back to ground zero with addition and subtraction. What to do???????

[ChrissySC]

We slowed down too. However, I would push ahead, and I did. I hesitated too, much like you. Let me just say that we will be back to grade level in another month. :) Do not worry about the facts. Keep going. I even gave dd a multiplication block to work more quickly. I know. This is not something that most parents or teachers would support, but I firmly believe in mastery through repitition. She must still find the answer and work with the answer, which in turn after several times puts it in her head.

 

I really would like to suggest the triangle flashcards. The cementing of the concepts - inverse operations specifically - finally hit home with these cards. I printed and used clear contact paper to reinforce. They are at donnayoung.org to print.