Really need some advice re: math

[plain jane]

My 11yo continues to struggle with math. I switched her from SM since it was obvious that she didn't think that way and it was very painful to see her get so many wrong when she was trying so hard.

 

She has been doing Saxon since the beginning of last year. She did 6/5 last year and this year (6th grade) is doing 7/6.

 

Last year she did quite good with the program. I wouldn't say she excelled but all her scores were over 85% on the daily lessons and 90% or higher on tests.

 

This year is a completely different story. She is struggling. Some lessons she gets scores in the 60% range. I've had her go back and redo many of the lessons and as a result, she is only on lesson 51 even though we are in our 19th week of school. I wanted her to make sure she was getting everything correct before moving on.

 

Clearly it's not working for her but I don't know what to do. There are a few things that she has found difficult from the beginning (double/triple digit multiplication for one) and others where she knows what to do but makes careless mistakes (writes the numbers down wrong or forgets to reduce fractions).

 

I am at a loss. She is very discouraged with her marks. In fact, she always feels that she does better than she scores.

 

I don't know what to do to help this child. I feel bad for her and I want her to succeed. I also know how important math is and I need some advice on how to proceed.

 

Another area she has some difficulties in are fractions. Last year, along with Saxon she completed the entire Keys to... Fractions books and scored very high on every page. I thought she had learned those concepts??? Yet, she continues to make weird mistakes.

 

A lot of it is she's careless. She also has tendencies to be very "spacey" and absent minded. She will start a problem (say #4 on lesson 20), have to go to the bathroom, and come back and complete the same problem but it will be a different lesson altogether (#4 on lesson 21) and then continue on like nothing happened.

 

She does care about her work and does her math every day but she still is not getting her scores up. I make her do all her corrections. I do them with her and in the odd time I can't, I have her do them with the Saxon Teacher CD.

 

Should I consider another program change? Should I drop her back down a grade level or two? She did well in 6/5 and I doubt she will take well to repeating the book. I can't put her back into SM. It just didn't click with her at all, despite my best efforts. She made it to the end of grade 4 but grade 4 was a tough math year for her.

 

Help me to help her!!

 

ETA: It is obvious that she has a very strong LA/Art bent and she excels in those areas so her low scores in math are not at all indicative of how things are across her other subjects.

[EKS]

Are you going over the lessons with her, teaching her the concepts and making sure she can do the practice problems? If not, this is where I'd start. Go back to 5-10 lessons before she started having difficulty and teach her from there. Or if she is only having difficulty on particular topics, reteach those topics and then have her redo the problems specific to those topics. When you move forward, you need to continue teaching her and ensuring that she is understanding at the time she is doing the lesson. Video lessons are not the same thing as being taught by a human in the same room. A compromise would be for both of you to view the lesson together and then for you to be sure she gets it.

[plain jane]

Are you going over the lessons with her, teaching her the concepts and making sure she can do the practice problems? If not, this is where I'd start. Go back to 5-10 lesson before she started having difficulty and teach her from there. Or if she is only having difficult on particular topics, reteach those topics and then have her redo the problems specific to those topics. When you move forward, you need to continue teaching her and ensuring that she is understanding at the time she is doing the lesson. Video lessons are not the same thing as being taught by a human in the same room. A compromise would be for both of you to view the lesson together and then for you to be sure she gets it.

 

 

Yes, I have been teaching her the concepts. She usually only uses the Saxon Teacher CDs to help her with corrections.

 

I am going to take your advice and reteach everything and see how that goes. She seems to do corrections really well when I sit beside her and walk through them with her (although I do very minimal to guide her as I want her to do the problems herself). It seems that when she does them on her own her mind wanders... although I am not ruling out lack of understanding either. :)

[ondreeuh]

I would try out a light unit from CLE. Probably in the 600s. It is similar to Saxon in the way it spirals, but it makes so much more sense for my son. He did 5/4 last year and was very discouraged the whole year. He was anxious about his mistakes and had trouble fitting his work into the answer sheets. He is doing great with CLE, which we had used prior to that year of Saxon. Using a worktext makes a huge difference for him. I don't make a big deal about the score either. I copy the problems he missed on the board and he gets another try to solve them. Most of the time he just needs a little re-teaching. Similar problems will be given for the future lessons, and he eventually gets it solid even if it took a little while at first to sink in. CLE also gives prompts to check your work.

 

My son finished CLE 4th grade, did Saxon 5/4, and then CLE 5th grade. There was absolutely nothing special about Saxon and he is doing much better with CLE. I do add more work on word problems though (Hands On Equations and some workbooks).

[Hunter]

It sounds like she just needs some more review.

 

How are her math facts? Has she mastered them?

 

If it were me. I'd work intensively on math facts if they are not already mastered, and then start the book over. I prefer a student to be getting 90% or better before moving on.

[plain jane]

It sounds like she just needs some more review.

 

How are her math facts? Has she mastered them?

 

If it were me. I'd work intensively on math facts if they are not already mastered, and then start the book over. I prefer a student to be getting 90% or better before moving on.

 

I prefer her to get 90% or better without moving on too. That is why I am adamant about corrections getting done and getting done properly.

 

She does have her math facts mastered and does really well on timed drills. It's not a math facts issue- it's everything else. :tongue_smilie:

[birchbark]

This year (6th gr.) we switched from SM to Systematic Mathematics. I liked SM, but was never sure how solidly DS grasped the concepts. Systematic is mastery-based and very incremental. Yet it still emphasizes conceptual understanding and application through word problems. The instructor does not think much of teaching math in a spiral fashion. (Which would be both Saxon and CLE, and SM to some extent.)

 

DS is much more confident in his math now, and I can clearly see his progress as I correct his work. You can poke around on their site and see what you think. It is a video program with one reasonably-sized worksheet a day. You print out the worksheet from a CD so the program is non-consumable and resellable if you desire. I am so happy I found this and plan to stick with it.

[plain jane]

I went through a bunch of dd's work today to review what she is getting wrong. At least 1/2 of the questions she gets wrong are due to either laziness in copying the problem out correctly or in reading the problem correctly and I'd say about 1/3 of the questions are wrong because of lack of clear understanding.

 

She has never once come and told me that she needs something explained and I really have no way of know what is going on. She claims she understands everything but her scores on the assignments show otherwise. So far this year (2013) her average mark on daily lessons is 67%. :(

 

I am frustrated because I know this has been an ongoing issue for her. I know if I search back on threads I've started these same issues will crop up. They do go away from time to time and she excels in her work, getting 85%+ on all lessons but then things seem to slide back.

 

I do not know how to motivate her to do her best in her daily work. I do not know how to get her to apply herself and internalize that this is important and needs to be done to the best of her abilities.

 

The parts where she doesn't understand, I can help with but the careless mistakes, I am at a loss as to how to deal with them.

 

I am frustrated at myself for not knowing how to proceed with this and how to help her.

 

I know if we start the math book all over again it will be the same thing because as I said, over 1/2 the problems are user errors, not understanding.

 

I am thinking of perhaps dropping her back to Saxon 6/5 and starting that book again, telling her she must score 95% on each lesson to go on. I do not feel she is applying herself at all and I'm crushed.

 

Perhaps a better teacher would know how to fix this. I don't know where to turn or what to do. I don't want to keep hopping curriculum but I feel Saxon isn't a great fit for her. I can't quite put my finger on why.

[plain jane]

I am bumping this back up because I am still struggling with what to do. We keep plugging away, reviewing concepts, reteaching, etc. But her marks are not coming up. In fact, she is getting very discouraged and thinking she is not good at math and no longer really wants to give it an effort. :( I am sad for her. We have talked about the importance of math and while she does understand, she still is very leery of it now.

 

I really don't know what to do and where to go for help. I don't know if starting the 7/6 book is going to help. She did do the SM 5a placement test and did pass (barely, but part of it was the word problems, which she has not been doing in Saxon, so I did allow her some grace for that). The rest of the understanding and work was there and she got almost 100% on the rest of the test.

 

She is asking to go back to SM (starting at 5b) but an acquaintance of mine, who is a PS teacher, is strongly suggesting we don't switch around programs because we will lose the scope and sequence and gaps will form.

 

I'm stuck. Please give me some advice I can use. I don't really want to start a whole new to us program as that may really throw a wrench into things. But maybe it's really the best? I'm so torn and feeling really sad right now.

[Ellie]

I would not go back to an earlier text. If anything, I'd go back to the beginning of the one she's working on now.

 

And if you're requiring her to get such a high percentage, then you could be part of the problem. Sorry. If she gets at least 75% right, she has earned the right to move on. She could just be frustrated at your requirements, which are higher than the publishers', even though she might not be able to put that frustration into words (and you might not listen to her if she did, and she knows that, too).

 

Does she take a very long time to complete each lesson? Some people have found it helpful to only allow their dc to work for a limited amount of time--say, 45 minutes--and then the dc pick up the next day where they left off (so, yes, it could take two days to complete one lesson). Turns out that when the dc are given that time limit, they are able to complete the whole lesson in that time. Weird, eh?

[plain jane]

I would not go back to an earlier text. If anything, I'd go back to the beginning of the one she's working on now.

 

And if you're requiring her to get such a high percentage, then you could be part of the problem. Sorry. If she gets at least 75% right, she has earned the right to move on. She could just be frustrated at your requirements, which are higher than the publishers', even though she might not be able to put that frustration into words (and you might not listen to her if she did, and she knows that, too).

 

Does she take a very long time to complete each lesson? Some people have found it helpful to only allow their dc to work for a limited amount of time--say, 45 minutes--and then the dc pick up the next day where they left off (so, yes, it could take two days to complete one lesson). Turns out that when the dc are given that time limit, they are able to complete the whole lesson in that time. Weird, eh?

 

 

Sorry, I meant go back to the beginning of 7/6 Saxon. She hasn't done SM 5b because we switched at the end of 4th to Saxon.

 

She does math for an hour, including the times drills. If she doesn't complete the lesson she finishes the next day. As a result she is only on lesson 70 and we are not progressing at a rate that will allow her to complete the program by the end of the school year. Something is wrong. I can't figure out what. I wish someone could come and tell me.

[thundersweet]

I could have written your post word for word right down to the 11yo dd. exact same problems. I hired a tutor for my daughter. She is just getting started so I don't see much improvement yet, but my dd really likes her and enjoys her math time with her. We had been using TT 7 up until last week. Her tutor suggested we try A Beka. We started this week with her doing all of the problems on her own. Her tutor went through everything to make sure she understood and then circled problems for her to complete each day. These are problems she knows how to do, she just makes careless errors. She too has this spacey attitude during math. The plan this week is to let her work these problems on her own and let her tutor grade them tomorrow. I wanted her to see exactly what I am dealing with as my dd seems to do well with her. I sat down today to take a peak and she has at least half of them wrong. Like you, I was crushed! I thought part of the problem was just her sloppy handwriting causing mistakes. For the most part, she wrote nicely in her notebook because she knows her tutor will be looking at it. So, maybe that's not our issue after all. Like your dd, she's very good in LA, writing, art, ect. Math is really her only problem subject. She is very creative. I wish their was an artsy math program....that would probably work.

 

I hope tomorrow her tutor will have some suggestions for me once she sees her work. She'll have a much better idea as to where her problems are coming from. At least I hope so. For what it's worth, her daughter was just like my daughter at a young age. She is now studying at MIT for her mathematics degree. She has told me not to worry. Just keep working with her. It's hard not to worry.

 

 

[*Lulu*]

If it is mostly carelessness and not lack of conceptual understanding I would not keep re-covering concepts but instead focus on teaching strategies to help her with the issue of careless errors.

 

Goggle "strategies for careless mathematical errors" or some variation of that and you'll find there are some good sites with tips for these sort of issues. Some are geared toward testing, ie SAT, others are classroom teachers sharing tips.

 

 

[thundersweet]

I did google for strategies and found this http://www.backfencepub.com/Careless%20Error%20page.htm

I think I may order it.

 

 

 

ETA, I just ordered it from Amazon new for 5.99 under the other buying options.

[Ellie]

Sorry, I meant go back to the beginning of 7/6 Saxon. She hasn't done SM 5b because we switched at the end of 4th to Saxon.

Oh, ok.

 

She does math for an hour, including the times drills. If she doesn't complete the lesson she finishes the next day. As a result she is only on lesson 70 and we are not progressing at a rate that will allow her to complete the program by the end of the school year. Something is wrong. I can't figure out what. I wish someone could come and tell me.

 

Does she have to do the times drills? Does she have to finish by the end of the school year?

[myfunnybunch]

If it is mostly carelessness and not lack of conceptual understanding I would not keep re-covering concepts but instead focus on teaching strategies to help her with the issue of careless errors.

 

Goggle "strategies for careless mathematical errors" or some variation of that and you'll find there are some good sites with tips for these sort of issues. Some are geared toward testing, ie SAT, others are classroom teachers sharing tips.

 

 

Yes.

 

I'd also address the general mental wandering issue. If math is not a strength for her, a whole hour of math all at the same time could be awfully fatiguing. Break the math lesson into natural increments, and split them up throughout the day. Times drills, then another subject. Go over the math lesson and do a few practice problems, then take a break from the math to do another subject or eat lunch or whatever. Then quickly review what you taught and let her do the independent work. You may find yourself spending the same amount of time on math, but more productively.

 

Make sure she's sleeping well and that she's getting exercise, maybe even right before she sits down to do her math. My eldest dd struggled with careless errors, much like your dd, around ages 11-12 especially. I found that taking a walk before math helped. It didn't solve the problem entirely, but it helped.

 

It sounds frustrating. I hope you find a solution that works well for both of you.

 

Cat

[AK_Mom4]

I have an 11yo here too. Some things that really help here

 

1 - for daily work, I check each math problem right after she does it. If she makes a dumb mistake, we catch it right away. Keeps DD engaged and focused.

2 - for years, we did math using large rule graph paper. This kept the numbers from wandering around, which was a problem that contributed to the careless errors. Now we use wide-rule notebooks, but skipping lines between steps in the problem.

3 - our schedule: 15-20 minutes math, break for piano practice, 20 minutes more, break for reading, finish math.

 

Now, I don't expect to have to do this too much longer. Next year, for example we will shoot for just one break in the middle. But as we move on to more complicated math, I think I will have her go back to using the graph paper ( smaller squares) as it is a great way to keep things lined up in algebra/trig.....

 

Hope this helps!

[Meriwether]

How does your daughter do on the tests? My oldest is also doing Saxon 7/6. She will miss 3-6 problems on every lesson, occasionally more. It is very frustrating because she makes silly mistakes. I just graded a week's worth of papers. She missed 29/150 for the week. This used to make me crazy. I still don't like it, but she only missed one problem on the test - she didn't reduce a fraction. She still has to make corrections, but I try to focus on the test scores.

[plain jane]

How does your daughter do on the tests? My oldest is also doing Saxon 7/6. She will miss 3-6 problems on every lesson, occasionally more. It is very frustrating because she makes silly mistakes. I just graded a week's worth of papers. She missed 29/150 for the week. This used to make me crazy. I still don't like it, but she only missed one problem on the test - she didn't reduce a fraction. She still has to make corrections, but I try to focus on the test scores.

 

She gets either 0, 1, or 2 (at most) wrong on tests. Usually it is only 1 wrong. Daily work it's almost always 8 or 9 wrong. It's a good day of she "only" gets 6 wrong.

[Meriwether]

She gets either 0, 1, or 2 (at most) wrong on tests. Usually it is only 1 wrong. Daily work it's almost always 8 or 9 wrong. It's a good day of she "only" gets 6 wrong.

 

This was my daughter a few months ago. She would copy the problem down incorrectly, her 9 would look like a four, she'd forget to reduce a fraction, she'd forget to put her decimal in a division problem answer, she'd add two numbers instead of multiplying them in a two part number, and, occasionally, she'd miss a problem because she didn't understand it. I'd mark them wrong and she'd look in her book and immediately say, "Oh, I should have done____________." This drove me nuts. I even posted about it here. It still bothers me a lot, but I read somewhere that the makers of Saxon don't even recommend grading everything if they are doing well on the tests. It sounds like your daughter is doing fine on the tests. She must understand the concepts better than her daily work shows.

 

My daughter is doing better than she was but obviously still has progress to make. We had several hard conversations in January along the lines of, "Daughter, if you were my employee I would fire you. This level of mistakes in unacceptable. You need to think while you are doing your math. You need to ask yourself things like Did I copy the problem correctly?, Do I have all appropriate marks (decimals) and labels?, Does my answer make sense?" These conversations were hard for both of us. Dd is smart and hard-working. I'm crazy about her and think she is something special. I am convinced, though, that if she were in a situation where her work was compared to the work of other students, she would get many perfect papers. I left the bar at her standard too long. She needed to hear me state that she wasn't meeting my expectations. She needed to be told explicitly that the goal of every paper is perfection.

[kiana]

Honestly, if it's carelessness and her test scores are okay, I wouldn't start over. Starting over would be appropriate if her low grades were caused by general lack of understanding rather than lack of care.

 

That being said ... I would work on the careless errors. I wouldn't have her redo the entire lesson the next day if there are careless errors, but (at this stage, with the number of errors you are dealing with) I would not mark the errors in detail. I would make an x by each problem that is wrong (as the ONLY mark that something was wrong) and say 'those problems are incorrect. Do them again.' I would have that be done the SAME DAY. So math should be done early, you should make time to check the same day and have her rework them later in the afternoon. And if she is able to do them correctly on the second go, I would count that as if it had been correct in the first place.

 

Honestly, your dd's work ethic sounds very familiar to mine when I was the same age. And that is why I suggest this, because redoing homework in the evening while my brother and sister got to play bridge with my parents was a very, very strong motivator to stop goofing off, pay attention, and do it right the first time.

[Catherine]

The miswriting sounds very much like my son. What has worked very well for him is learning more mental math, so that he is having to write out less. He makes a lot of errors when he writes-everything from writing the wrong problem, the wrong number, the wrong page etc etc. So the less he writes, the better. I also switched him when he was 6 from Singapore to Rightstart, which is heavily conceptual. The amount of drill is determined by you, the teacher. So you only review and practice as much as you think your student needs. I was very surprised when I taught him subtraction, multiplication, and place value. These were far harder conceptually than I anticipated they would be. But when he got it, he truly got it. He does fraction addition, and multiplication easily in his head now.

 

I also am sitting right with him all of the time he is doing math. This has been possible, fortunately. Otherwise, an entire page or lesson is done incorrectly and has to be repeated , and the frustration of this was too much for him. I still, at age 11, stop him after 1 or 2 problems but check and make sure he's on the right track. He'e learning how to do this for himself now.

 

I would strongly consider finding a program that requires less writing of your daughter.

[fairfarmhand]

I second the graph paper. Also, I would not start back at the beginning. I would go back and reteach the concepts that she is struggling with. Then I would proceed from there. I know Saxon says to do EVERY SINGLE PROBLEM, but to my dd is was daunting to struggle through 6-7 long division problems when the focus of the lesson was reducing fractions. So I started giving additional problems to practice the new concept, but only doing 2-3 of the "review" type problems. I'd also tell her, if you get these two long division problems correct, we won't do all seven. You will have proved to me that you understand this. This was so motivating for her. She could get out of extra work by PAYING ATTENTION!!!

 

My dd, I had to go back to sitting down with her. We'd check each problem as she did it. In your shoes, I would not treat daily work as a grade. IT is more of a practice thing anyway, and a gauge of understanding. SO treat it that way. "Hmmm....you got all three of these factoring problems incorrect. Looks like we need to review that lesson."

[Tullia]

If the number of problems missed in the daily work is still an issue, you might want to do some informal diagnostics. My son was pretty reliable at grading his own daily work, but he always assured me that he understood why he was missing problems--silly mistake, etc. etc. But, when I started looking closely at what he was missing there were some patterns which developed. Eventually I concluded that along with carelessness, and mental fatigue there were a few areas where he was weak on the concepts. What helped my son:

• I sat with him during the lesson and worked a few sample problems with him step by step with discussions about what to watch out for. Did you copy the problem correctly? Hmmm...why don't you look at how the problem is written in the book? Remember this concept gave you problems last week, and here it is again...
  
• He then did a set of problems mostly on his own, and graded his own work. (Occasionally he asked for help or wanted to review the day's lesson.)
  
• Then, we sat down together and looked at where he'd gone wrong--sometimes the missed problems were truly random, careless errors but sometimes I found evidence that he was consistently making the same errors--we just backed up and repeated the appropriate lesson which is fairly doable and not too hard on self-esteem.
  

Miswriting is not at all unusual for an 11 y.o and neither are short attention spans. Language arts come more easily for my son; he used to complain that math made his brain hurt! I agree with the advice to break up the different components into shorter mini-sessions during the day. I'm a proponent of independent work, but IME it's important to monitor math lessons very closely for two reasons; to foster discussions about math and to catch problems early.

 

And, something to keep in mind when making your long term plans is that your daughter's preferences may change over time. My son struggled with math in the early years, but eventually became intrigued by the challenges. He's now a college student majoring in computer science and contemplating either a math minor or double major. If you'd asked me about the possibility from the years 11-15 I'd have said absolutely no way! Math didn't really click with him until he was finishing high school and decided to pursue a STEM major. I think one of the breakthroughs he's found in college is developing a sense of the philosophy of math as well as exploring math/music connections.

 

ETA: I eventually decided that while Saxon worked fairly well for him until late middle school, he would have done better with a core curriculum that focused on mastery but still had generous amounts of review. However, every student and every situation is different. Curriculum hopping can add another set of problems. I don't want to put you off of something that's working for you.

Edited March 7, 2013 by Tullia