What do you do with a child who makes simple math mistakes?

[ChristusG]

DD is almost 9 and in 3rd grade....but working on 4th grade Abeka math. So she does very well in math. She catches onto concepts very quickly.

 

However, lately, she's begun making simple mistakes. She'll do a double digit multiplication problem, such as 98 x 45, but she'll forget that she has a number that she has "carried" to the other column. So the entire problem turns out wrong. Or in the midst of a larger problem, she'll accidentally write that 8x4 is 36 instead of 32....so the rest of the problem turns out wrong. She KNOWS these concepts. She has memorized basic multiplication facts. I'm not sure if she's hurrying or distracted or what. But it is happening over and over. On Friday, she has 32 math problems to do and 17 of them were wrong. Usually by only one number or something like that.

 

I don't know whether to keep going in the book or not. I hate to keep going forwards when she's getting so many wrong. But then again, I KNOW that she KNOWS the concept of how to do the problems. Whenever I'm unsure if she knows the concept, we stop and work on that particular concept until she gets it. But it's not that. The actual concept is fine. We go over her math work every day. She does it independently. She brings it to me, I check it, and we go over the wrong ones together. I explain what she did wrong, how she needs to slow down, make sure it is correct, etc.

 

Sometimes I wonder if the small writing in the book is getting her all jumbled up. Today I took the problems that she got wrong and wrote them larger, on a piece of paper. The book gives such little room to work longer problems and she tends to write really big. So by the end of the problem, her work is getting all squished together. I tried rewriting them for her today and she redid them....she got more of the correct, but there were still quite a few with simple mistakes.

 

What do you do with a child who does this? Move on? Stop where we are?

[AK_Mom4]

I make DD correct the ones she missed. Silly errors usually don't take her very long to find.

 

9 was about the age where we started doing the problems on graph paper with big squares or in a notebook turned sideways so she had the lines as markers. This helped a great deal because my kids write big too.

 

For DD (and DS before her) the silly mistakes are always because of rushing thru boring material. If this is stuff she really does know how to do, then I would just keep moving forward. Make sure she always goes back to fix the problems. For us, eventually maturity catches up and they start being more careful with the work in order to avoid doing everything over.

[dbmamaz]

if there are a TON of problems, you might start letting her do only every other one, so if she has to go correct all of her errors, its not taking twice as long? i usually do only half the problems unless my kid isnt understanding the concept

[ChristusG]

I make DD correct the ones she missed. Silly errors usually don't take her very long to find.

 

9 was about the age where we started doing the problems on graph paper with big squares or in a notebook turned sideways so she had the lines as markers. This helped a great deal because my kids write big too.

 

For DD (and DS before her) the silly mistakes are always because of rushing thru boring material. If this is stuff she really does know how to do, then I would just keep moving forward. Make sure she always goes back to fix the problems. For us, eventually maturity catches up and they start being more careful with the work in order to avoid doing everything over.

 

Ooh, graph paper is a great idea! I might have to get us some of that! Love that idea!

 

 

if there are a TON of problems, you might start letting her do only every other one, so if she has to go correct all of her errors, its not taking twice as long? i usually do only half the problems unless my kid isnt understanding the concept

 

Honestly, we don't even do every other one. I go through and circle the ones that she has to do. It's not usually even half of each page. She usually does three pages per day, but only the ones I've circled. Maybe I'll cut it down to two for a while, at least until she can be more consistent with her answers.

[LMD]

That's my DD. It's like she's only engaging half her brain. Close enough is good enough and she moves on... commiserating here! She doesn't tend to do it much with Beast Academy though, I think because the problems are more complex than just drill so full brain power is needed...

 

I like the graph paper idea too.

[mom2boys030507]

When my oldest start to consistently make these types of mistakes, I cut down the number of problems BUT for every problem after 3 or 4 wrong, he had to correct the problem and do one more. This quickly took care of the careless mistakes and helped him learn to slow down and still showed me that he understood the concepts.

[FriedClams]

We correct the problem and add one for practice.

[FairProspects]

With the carrying, I go back to the concepts and that usually fixes ds's problems. I split out that subset. For example, today he messed up carrying the 1000 from 600 + 600. Once I said it was hundreds, he could easily fix it. Ds is dyslexic (IIRC this may be going on with your dd too), so he is always going to be prone to calculation errors, he has to mentally learn to think in the concepts to correct them. Adding more work or practice in our case will not fix careless errors, ds just has to learn to think about the problem differently and check his work.

 

He also uses graph paper for most problems.

[chepyl]

My son does the same thing. I know he does it when he rushes. Most of the time I just have him look at the problem and he knows what he did wrong.

 

I started requiring fewer practice problems. I circle about half the problems in a lesson. If he does not miss any, we move on. If he misses 1-2 we rework only the missed problems. If he misses 3+ we report, discuss, look back at the lesson pages, and add more problems from the lesson.

 

He staryed to love math again when we started doing it this.way. I let him move at his own pace and grade every few days. He is making fewer and fewer mistakes from rushing.

[Alice]

My son does the same thing. It’s usually when he’s bored and gets the concept but is rushing to get it done. Most of the time I just make him go back and correct mistakes.

 

Sometimes the Life of Fred approach works, I’ll give him an assignment and say if they are all correct he won’t have to do the rest of the page. If he misses any even for careless mistakes he has to do more.

 

Sometimes I use M&Ms or jellybeans or something like that. I’ll put out 10 treats, and tell him that for every careless mistake he makes I eat one. :) If he misses something because he’s confused or if he asks for help he gets the treat, but if it’s a careless error I get it. You could do the same thing with pennies if you want to avoid food.

[Hedgehogs4]

we correct them. The frustration of having to go back and take the extra time is usually enough to create a more careful student.