Question about Math Facts/Math

[Twilight Woods]

DD #2 when practicing math facts will take forever to recall the answer of lets say 4+5=9. BUT if I say write all the facts for 9 she can whip them out no problem including subtraction in the form of number bonds. I dont understand it. She does have slow processing so could this be a factor? OR is it b/c the "number bond" is a visual thing.... how she best learns and the flash card is not?

 

Also, we are using Saxon and will add in CWP for 2nd grade. I love it. It's how I was taught and fits my teaching. She will do it. She however does not need the repeition. SHe is the I know it lets move on with just a smidge of sprial review. She gets is conceptually with little effort.... Will Math Mammoth fit the bill and not drive me crazy like Singapore? I want to stick with ONE main math program from here on out and will add BA when she is ready for it.

 

I hope this has made sense.. I am short on sleep :)

[hunterhomeschool]

Our son was using Saxon Math for 6 years in public school and now has a math delay of at least 18 months. He still struggles with his math facts for 7's... Saxon Math is tightly tied to the Federal Common Core and is designed to deliberately be confusing and cause dysfunctions in math for otherwise normally functioning students. I would ditch the Saxon curriculum completely if it were me. My son has autism and already has enough of an uphill battle without making that worse.

 

He HATES the bizarre spiraling repetition... perhaps a few kids can learn like that, but generally most children's brains just do not function that way, even those with learning disabilities. Public school curriculum providers are big on convincing schools that they have the newest and best "idea" that will fix everything, so that the school districts will discard all old curriculum and by new... that is why they have come up with the whole "worksheet/workbook" curriculum thing... because they are not reusable for 10 to 15 years like the textbooks from our era and our parents era (also the parents do not get to view the meat of the curriculum this way, only the very vague idea of it via the worksheets that come home... thus they can hide all of their liberal political notions from parents who would take the schools to task for teaching politics instead of academics... and yes, even many of the Saxon math story problems contain liberal political teachings.) Try one of the math curricula that does not try to confuse kids with the Federal Common Core... approach math in a straightforward, linear fashion and you will most likely get beyond this problem with your daughter.

 

With my children we decided on the Rod & Staff curriculum as our main curriculum provider (utilizing a few others where needed, like 4-H curric. for agricultural subjects because we are a farm family.) We largely based this decision on their Math and Science curricula, the fact that Christian beliefs underpin the entire curriculum in every subject was a strong influence with my husband and I. As both of my sons' reading ability improves, we will also be utilizing Ray's Arithmetic (yes, it is antique, but still a great program)... right now it is a bit to heavy on story problems for us to use it very much until our boys are independent readers. We also use McGuffey's Readers/Speller and others from the Eclectic Education Series.

 

I hope this helped. Your daughter's problems with Saxon Math were similar to my son's adn they are about the same grade level, given my boy's delay in math. He's supposed to be late 3rd grade and is struggling at late 1st grade/early 2nd grade work. It's completely frustrating to have my 1st grader almost caught up to his elder brother (who's supposed to be a 4th grader) in math. By fall, they will probably be at the same grade level and be able to be taught in the same class.

 

Tomorrow is a huge day for us, it is our oldest son's last day of PS and he will be completely homeschooled after this (not only is he severely behind grade level due to his school's educational neglect, but was treated to a great deal of abuse by the so called public educators who staffed that school). We were able to move his brother out of district via the open enrollment law, but they do not apply to special needs kids in SD. The younger is being pulled out of the summer, as I need a couple months to establish routine and make some gains with the older one. My 18 month old daughter is not going to PS... EVER after what we've been through with the oldest (a horror story that would curl the hair of every parent on this forum probably.)

[nrself]

I'd be interested in seeing what others think about this. It reminds me of my ds. If we go through our flashcards in the usual way, on the harder ones he pauses significantly and sometimes gets stuck completely. If I lay them out on the table and let him choose which one to answer then slide them into a pile on the side, he zooms through completely.

 

I'm guessing the answer is using a little of everything. Otherwise you wind up with facts like my older ds. He knows them great on the flashcards and fact sheets, but can't seem to apply it in his actual math work. Especially division.

 

Nicole

[Ravin]

I don't know about Beast Academy, I was warned the problems tend to scale up in difficulty rapidly within a set.

 

Have you looked at Life of Fred? We do it as a read aloud and the problems are at the ends of the chapters.

[wapiti]

DD #2 when practicing math facts will take forever to recall the answer of lets say 4+5=9. BUT if I say write all the facts for 9 she can whip them out no problem including subtraction in the form of number bonds. I dont understand it. She does have slow processing so could this be a factor? OR is it b/c the "number bond" is a visual thing.... how she best learns and the flash card is not?

 

Also, we are using Saxon and will add in CWP for 2nd grade. I love it. It's how I was taught and fits my teaching. She will do it. She however does not need the repeition. SHe is the I know it lets move on with just a smidge of sprial review. She gets is conceptually with little effort.... Will Math Mammoth fit the bill and not drive me crazy like Singapore? I want to stick with ONE main math program from here on out and will add BA when she is ready for it.

 

I hope this has made sense.. I am short on sleep :)

 

It sounds like Saxon would not be the best choice for her. As for whether MM will drive you crazy, that depends on what bothered you about SM. The pages of MM can sometimes be a little crowded, though I haven't looked at the grade 2 pages in a while - they didn't seem problematic to me. If she gets concepts quickly, I would not be afraid to move through MM at an accelerated pace. There are cumulative review pages for each chapter in a separate folder to use as you desire.

 

Eta, to answer your original question about the facts, it does sound like the visual of number bonds is better for her. Whatever you choose, I would emphasize teaching to her visual strengths and I'd try to avoid learning through sequential weaknesses or weaknesses with rote memorization.

[Heathermomster]

Do what works. Seems like number bonds are a nice fit for your DD, and number bonds are an essential concept for math understanding, especially with higher level maths.

 

DS prefers using a basic software program for math drills with the 10-keypad.

 

I used flash cards with DS for division facts, but only after he was really comfortable with the facts.

[Twilight Woods]

Thank you everyone for your responses. I am thinking we will probably ditch saxon and move to MM. She did the first part of MM1 and she liked it so I think she will have no problems switching back to it.