never ever going to understand place value

[MeganW]

I have a child who is almost 8. We have worked and worked and worked at place value, including working through Miquon Orange (several times), most of RS A, and MM 1A. She gets it at the moment, but it is gone several hours later.

 

She just does not get it. She does not understand that the place the number is sitting in matters. She wrote the date today as Feb 91, 3102. Today both numbers were backwards, but it is about 50/50 as to whether they are backwards or not.

 

We've been through vision therapy, and she is reading beautifully now, so I don't think vision is a factor.

 

Thoughts? Suggestions?

[NittanyJen]

Your child is 7. Place value will come up again ... And again... And again. Seriously, it comes up again in Singapore 5A. I don't mean to trivialize understanding concepts, but if this child has just done MM1A, then the topic is just being introduced at this point, not mastered.

 

My gifted child (yes, gifted with a specific strength in mathematics!) was still reversing digits in early third grade-- writing 31 for 13, for example (no, he's not dyslexic, either-- and now at age 9 he's buzzing through Singapore PM 5 and no longer reversing anything), at about age 8. Some of it at that age can be simply developmental.

 

Can he tell you the answers verbally? Draw a picture or show you with manipulatives? If so, then it isn't a place value problem; it's a writing thing. If that's it, let him keep going on math and work on the writing separately (and support the math by helping him write for now, or putting a dot under reversals and having him fx them without making it an issue). But he will see place value again and again and again. He will get more chances to develop his understanding.

 

 

[ChicoryChick]

My 2nd d

d had trouble learning Place Value. This is what I did to help her get it (and it worked).

 

I took Steve Demme's (MUS) idea of creating decimal street. I made a small green house that fit exactly 9 green squares (we used the MUS manips), to the left I made a blue house that fit exactly 9 blue rods and to the left of that I made a house that fit 1 red square (we just stacked other red squares on top of that). I actually made 3 of these streets. So if we were adding 362 + 119, I would put 3 red squares in the red house on the first street and 1 in the red house on the 2nd street, 6 blue rods in the first blue house and 1 in the 2nd streey blue house, and 2 in the first green house and 9 in the 2nd. I would then take the 3rd street where they had to ove to because there wasn't enough room for everyone. Since only up to 9 greens could live in the green house 10 of the 11 had to turn into a blue rod and go live in the blue house. 1 green would remain in the green house and we would add 1 to the 7 blue rods already living in the new blue house to make 8. Of course the red house would have 2 in it.

 

I would then color the columns of her addition problems to help remind her of the color house. The ones column would be green, tens blue and hundreds red.

 

She seemed to have not trouble after doing that a couple of times. I found out later she was a VSL learner. :)

[redsquirrel]

Almost 8 is still pretty young. It might get better in the next few months. When my younger was almost 8 (turned 8 in January) he was consistently confusing 8 and 9. WHY?? It made no sense. He can read, he can count, he can count by 2s, 3s, 5s, 10s, he can play times attack, he did understand place value but...the numerals 8 and 9 were interchangeable. It really worried me.

 

He did it again today and I realized he hasn't done it in at least a month. So, slowly it is wearing off. So keep working on it a little bit every day. Keep using those cuisnaire rods and base 10 blocks and white erase boards

[Arboreal TJ]

Get to 9 change kind!

 

What drove home place value for my guys was showing them a number like 1024 and asking if the 1 was bigger than the 4. If you build the number with manipulatives it's easy to see that 1 of the thousands kind is bigger than 4 of the units kind.

[MomatHWTK]

Use pennies, dimes and dollars? Or $1, $10 and $100s. Khan Academy has a good video set for place value.

[Once]

My son is about the same age and struggles with place value as well. I understand, like I am sure you do, that he is young and these things take time. I also know the feelings you might be experiencing....that sense that the learning just isn't happening the same way it does for other kids. I am still not certain that he has got it but I reviewed the MUS Decimal Street with him, had him made a big poster and put it on the wall, as well as used cards like this link had.

http://theadventuresofbear.blogspot.com/2010/06/building-numbers.html

 

I hope this helps. Hang in there. Repeat it and try again tomorrow!!!

[thebacabunch]

Manipulatives, manipulatives, manipulatives. Then some more manipulatives.

[SKL]

I just went through something very similar with my first-grader today. I agree that it takes some kids a long time to get the place value concept.

 

I have the base ten set and also a "place value" chart that uses little straws in pockets - a pocket each for ones, tens, and hundreds, along with pockets to display the appropriate numerals. I find the place value chart is most helpful as far as showing how you convert ten ones to one ten. However, I foresee that this is an exercise we will have to do a number of times before it sticks. Even my advanced kid (also a first-grader) really doesn't get "carrying" yet.

 

And both of my kids still reverse numbers (and letters) when they are writing. It decreases over time. Today my kid was skip counting and wrote " ... 10, 12, 41, .... When I pointed this out, she got defensive and said, "maybe I wrote it backwards." As if the order of the numerals was no biggie. Sigh. It'll come.

[laundrycrisis]

Using dimes and pennies cleared it up for our DS2. The way we write two digit number is first the number of dimes, then the number or pennies. When you have ten pennies, you must trade them for a dime. Etc.

[ProudGrandma]

My 2nd d

d had trouble learning Place Value. This is what I did to help her get it (and it worked).

 

I took Steve Demme's (MUS) idea of creating decimal street. I made a small green house that fit exactly 9 green squares (we used the MUS manips), to the left I made a blue house that fit exactly 9 blue rods and to the left of that I made a house that fit 1 red square (we just stacked other red squares on top of that). I actually made 3 of these streets. So if we were adding 362 + 119, I would put 3 red squares in the red house on the first street and 1 in the red house on the 2nd street, 6 blue rods in the first blue house and 1 in the 2nd streey blue house, and 2 in the first green house and 9 in the 2nd. I would then take the 3rd street where they had to ove to because there wasn't enough room for everyone. Since only up to 9 greens could live in the green house 10 of the 11 had to turn into a blue rod and go live in the blue house. 1 green would remain in the green house and we would add 1 to the 7 blue rods already living in the new blue house to make 8. Of course the red house would have 2 in it.

 

I would then color the columns of her addition problems to help remind her of the color house. The ones column would be green, tens blue and hundreds red.

 

She seemed to have not trouble after doing that a couple of times. I found out later she was a VSL learner. :)

 

I second decimal street...that really helped my kids. And I took it a step further too, when we hit the place value concepts of Hundreths, Thousandths and Millionths...I called these neighborhoods....so it would be taking the number 123, 456, 789....and telling them to first say the 3 digit number (1 hundred, twenty-three) and then tell me what neighborhood that number belonged to...(one hundred, twenty three millionths)...then we did the next set of 3 digits and so on. It really helped. I told them that the comma divided the neighborhoods up...and it really made sense.

[Karen in CO]

My 8yo who recently finished vision therapy finally got place value with MUS Alpha and decimal street. She has also finally realized that math is about understanding and not memorization. We started and stopped lots of math programs when I realized that she was just being clever but not really understanding. So far, MUS has finally made her have that BIG look of understanding. She finally got place value.

 

She still write numbers backwards, but we're working on that. I claim ignorance - I can't read backwards numbers at all. It makes her laugh then she corrects them.

[Nart]

Is it just the teen numbers? Does she get 92 is more than 29? If you ask her to build those two number with C-rods can she see that 92 is bigger? The problem with teen numbers is that unlike 20-99 the first digit you hear is in the ones place. If nineteen followed the rule it should be teennine. I kept telling my son the teens were rule breakers who push in front of the word but have to get sent back in line to the ones place. I think making mistakes involving teen numbers is like when a child doesn't use the correct irregular past tense like "I buyed" it instead of I bought. It will dissapear in time.

[amyinva]

Does it go something like this:

 

 

 

;)

 

My 7yo does the same, by the way .

[MeganW]

OK, so I don't need to be investigating a learning disability, and re-running first grade math 18 more times, huh? Someday, I will quit panicking and be more confident!

[fshinkevich]

For place value, I really recommend a good set of base ten blocks (preferably with flat tops, not ones that "lock" together) and an out of print book called "Number-Blox: Book A a manipulative mathematics program" by Evelyn M. Neufeld and James S. Lucas. There is also a Book B.

 

Book A is intended to start in K (a child that doesn't know how to write numerals) but everything can be adapted to an older child. The trading games and recording are fantastic for "getting" place value.

 

If interested here are links to both books on Abebooks (I'm sure they can be found on other used sites as well): http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=5143998982&searchurl=an%3DNeufeld%252C%2BEvelyn%26sts%3Dt

 

http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=9565768955&searchurl=an%3DNeufeld%252C%2BEvelyn%26sts%3Dt

 

Good Luck!!!