If a student does better when you do the writing

[mom31257]

what does that mean? I have a homeschooled math student I'm tutoring, and he does much better with his daily work (faster and more accurate) when his mom writes on a white board and has him think out loud telling her what to write.

 

Any ideas on why he's this way, and how can I help him move to being able to do math on paper himself? He's going to be doing Algebra 1 next year, and she's really concerned about testing. Thanks for any help!

[MomatHWTK]

For my DS it means a processing speed disorder combined with ADHD. For a friend of mine, it means her child has dygraphia.

[LisaKinVA]

For my two... it was dysgraphia.

[mom31257]

How can you tell which it is, and are there methods to help the student improve?

[mom31257]

Also, this seems to be just in math. He's able to write essays well and creative with the flow in writing. He also has good handwriting.

Edited March 6, 2012 by mom31257

[EKS]

My son has dyslexia and ADHD and he was like this. I finally handed to pencil over to him at age 12 in Algebra I, though I still copied the problems from the book for him that year.

[FO4UR]

My 9yo is like this. I make him write about 1/2 of his math work.

 

I know he has visual perception issues. I strongly suspect dyslexia. He has *very* nice handwriting (when he wants it to be nice), but writes reversed letters, and words, and complete sentences (in beautiful cursive, no doubt!)...perfectly mirrored.:001_huh: When asked to read back what he has written, he reads it without a hitch...he doesn't get that it's backwards unless someone points that fact out to him.

 

 

 

He is good with numbers, especially mental math and solving word problems. Still, he has difficulty with *reading* numbers. He can visualize and work with 546,789 in a way that I think is advanced for a 9yo, but he has trouble reading "five hundred forty-six thousand, seven hundred eighty-nine.":001_huh: For drill today, he multiplied several multi-digit numbers...easypeasy...the hard part was reading the answers to me.:confused:

 

He has a bunch of asynchronous skills all throughout math & LA. He will pop out with the answer to Singapore CWP like it's FUN!!! But, going back and going through the steps to see how he got there is sometimes difficult. If he's also doing the physical writing, his concentration wanes to the point where I either have to give him easy problems to focus on the writing....or write for him so he can focus on more difficult math.

 

 

I'm not sure if what I am doing is best, but I tend to have 2 streams of math. 1 stream of math that is easy review/drill where his main focus is communicating what he knows on paper. 1 stream of math is oral and hands-on and scribed for him...and pushes him ahead conceptually.

[MomatHWTK]

Ds had testing done by a developmental pychologist.

[MHowell]

WOW. Maybe I'm crazy but I never realized this wasn't a normal thing.

 

DD is about a grade ahead in math if I use a white board or chalkboard and write everything for her, while she does all the calculations in her head. She does not test well in math at all at school.

 

If you go off test grades, she is a C student in her 5th grade class. Once homework and work sheets are factored in she's getting a B. But we just did some algebra last night off her homework that she didn't even struggle with when I wrote it for her on the board. I feel bad now, but I actually got annoyed :blushing: that she asked for help when she did it so easily. :confused:

 

Should I have her tested? She used to be a strong reader but lately has been whiny about it, I chalked it up to wanting to ride her bike since it's been so nice here, but maybe I'm just being an awful mom?? :confused:

[MHowell]

WOW. Maybe I'm crazy but I never realized this wasn't a normal thing.

 

DD is about a grade ahead in math if I use a white board or chalkboard and write everything for her, while she does all the calculations in her head. She does not test well in math at all at school.

 

If you go off test grades, she is a C student in her 5th grade class. Once homework and work sheets are factored in she's getting a B. But we just did some algebra last night off her homework that she didn't even struggle with when I wrote it for her on the board. I feel bad now, but I actually got annoyed :blushing: that she asked for help when she did it so easily. :confused:

 

Should I have her tested? She used to be a strong reader but lately has been whiny about it, I chalked it up to wanting to ride her bike since it's been so nice here, but maybe I'm just being an awful mom?? :confused:

 

She also has awful handwriting, though punctuation is no problem.

[Dmmetler]

For my DD, it simply means that she's young-she's fine on work at her grade level, or even a year or two ahead, doing the writing herself, but is really able to soar when she dictates to me or talks into my digital voice recorder. One of the things that we were told when she was assessed is that this is fairly common for kids who are advanced academically-they're not always going to be able to keep up in writing until their bodies catch up a bit.

 

And some people are simply better at thinking by talking than by writing-others are the other way around.

[AHASRADA]

For my ds, it's a combination of ADD, working memory and processing speed. He needs to be able to devote all of his working memory to focusing on the math problem. If he needs to jump back and forth between looking at a textbook, copying the numbers, making sure he copied them correctly, allowing correct spacing, etc. it takes him forever, he gets distracted and makes mistakes.

 

He has slowly worked into strategies such as keeping a finger or post-it note under the problem he is copying and using a black Sharpie to do his math work because it stands out on the page, making it harder to lose his place. Before he began doing this on his own, I would hold my finger on the problem, catch any mistakes quickly, and pull him back if his mind started to wander.

 

HTH,

[TechWife]

You have almost described my son! He has dysgraphia and a couple of other issues. I write the problems on the white board, he works them and then we take a picture of it for his algebra teacher. We just print them on regular paper.

 

We are getting ready to transition to using Notes Plus on the iPad for math. He has done one lesson on it and we have some issues to work on as far as getting the problems lined up correctly, but I think we'll get there. One of the good things a out notes plus is that we can set it up for graph paper, which helps with lining things up and he can do his graphs on it. We just print them out and it almost looks like he did it on regular graph paper.

 

For testing, she can get accommodations with the proper documentation.

[cougarmom4]

How can you tell which it is, and are there methods to help the student improve?

 

I have an idea of what you might try....

You know how in writing, SWB says there are two parts of the process--figuring out what to write and physically writing it. Perhaps this carries over into math--that there are two parts to completing a problem--figuring out the answer and physically writing it down.

 

It sounds like this student may be struggling with either keeping the numbers in his head long enough to get them down on paper or the act of actually writing the numbers themselves.

 

For writing, SWB suggests dictation as a way to improve this part of writing, so maybe you can do dictation of numbers?

 

Maybe I'm off my rocker, but it was just a thought that came to me and perhaps it's worth a try!

[MomatHWTK]

Moe, I can't answer your testing or not question, but I can tell you that the processing speed issue that was uncovered during DS' testing actually came as a surprise to me.

 

We were testing for a wide variety of issues, mostly behavioral and the academic issues were almost a side note. Now, having that knowledge and the input of his therapist I am able to accomodate those issues. I'm sure it would have been a long time, if ever, before I found out about the processing had we not been looking at other problems.

[mom31257]

I have an idea of what you might try....

You know how in writing, SWB says there are two parts of the process--figuring out what to write and physically writing it. Perhaps this carries over into math--that there are two parts to completing a problem--figuring out the answer and physically writing it down.

 

It sounds like this student may be struggling with either keeping the numbers in his head long enough to get them down on paper or the act of actually writing the numbers themselves.

 

For writing, SWB suggests dictation as a way to improve this part of writing, so maybe you can do dictation of numbers?

 

Maybe I'm off my rocker, but it was just a thought that came to me and perhaps it's worth a try!

 

Interesting...I wonder if anyone has used this before. I am wondering if it's a processing thing because he seems to think quicker than his hands can write.