Singapore math question

[Dustybug]

So my DD is struggling with simple math concepts. She does NOT know her addition and subtraction math facts, which wasn't bothersome to me until now. We are using Singapore (US edition) and up until a couple of months ago, we were using the hands on activities in the HOD guide to accompany it rather than the HIGs. She seemed to be thriving. When she hit a wall, I switched to the HIGs and that has helped tremendously. However, she seems to now be stumped on simple things like figuring out how to find the empty part on a number bond or how to solve a horizontal equation. All things that she seemed to have down pat not long ago. THEN she will GUESS and answer rather than take her time to figure it out, often being only a number or two off. This drives me crazy because I know she KNOWS how to do this, she is just rushing and not stopping to think about it. I need to test her this month, but now I'm worried she's going to bomb the math section simply because she is hurrying. I think the HOD guide did us a small disservice in adequately teaching the Singapore method. Too bad I didn't realize that until we were nearly done. :/

 

Word problems seem to slow her down as well. She is working in her Intensive Practice book right now and had this problem: I am less than 17 and more than 8 + 7. Who am I? She figured out 8+7 and then put 15 for the entire answer because she skimmed and didn't read the whole question thoroughly.

 

I don't know if I'm failing miserably teaching Singapore math because it is so unfamiliar to me or if it's something else. She is very bright and CAN do this. She's also a perfectionist and gets very disheartened when she can't do something right the first time. When I stopped moving forward in her workbook to go back and cover some things, she cried because she felt like that meant she was doing something wrong. *sigh* Should I switch to a different program? Now would be the time. I've already purchased Singapore 2A/2B for her for next year, but I could sell it and replace it with something else. We used Horizons for a while for supplementation and she seemed to do fine, I just hated the review overkill.

[Dustybug]

Not really sure why that showed up bold. lol

[Dana]

I found 1 to be the weakest of the Singapore series. We used US edition for 1 and then switched to standards for 2 onward.

 

Basically, stick it out.

With my son, I found the IP books to be excellent for helping with frustration. He'd get a problem wrong & I wouldn't tell him why it was wrong, just hand it back and say try again. (I was sitting with him the whole time.) He'd try again and sometimes still wouldn't get it. We'd then just move on... do a different problem in the IP book or a different subject. Then we'd try the problem again the next day.

 

I think trying the problem and then putting it away and coming back to it did a wonderful job at teaching him that with math (in particular), sometimes you don't just get the right answer. The point is to think about a problem, document your work so you (or someone else) can follow it and reproduce it. It also helps with the perfectionist tendencies, because he's getting used to the idea that you have to set it aside and return to it later on occasion. Now, I wouldn't do this if it were a problem from the Workbook, but from IP or CWP... set it aside and return to it.

 

If he isn't showing his work, that's a different issue and I make sure he shows the work before setting it aside. Often I will have him do the work on scratch paper so he has more space or we'll use manipulatives.

 

I found that using Miquon along with Singapore worked really well in Gr 1-3 too.

 

Don't get discouraged.

 

If it's a reading problem, I'll have my son read the problem aloud to me... sometimes I say, "Explain your work to me." At this point, that's usually enough for him to catch his errors :) But it took a few years to get to this point with some battles along the way.... that's where you are :)

[Splash]

With my daughter we spent a lot of time telling her that if she always got everything right, never needed help, never had to go over something again, then I must not be using the right level book for her. She should be learning and learning from our mistakes is valuable and will help her learn harder math in the future. Took a bit but her attitude regarding mistakes is much better now. She knows books pages are practice and learning tools. She demands a test now and then and wants perfection there but at least tears over missed problems has disappeared.

[blondeviolin]

I wouldn't worry about testing. I doubt the first grade tests will be as rough as the IP for even SM 1. My girl goes through math slumps sometimes. Then I have her walk me through how to solve certain problems. If she can teach me (or her even better, Daddy), then I know she knows how to do it, even if she's being odd about it during math time.

[chiguirre]

I'd try Miquon over the summer too. It's just different enough from SM to be a nice change of pace, but it teaches a similar approach to math. The rods were fun for Trinqueta at that age too.

[ondreeuh]

Miquon Orange covers addition and subtraction to 10, and Red covers +/- in the teens. Cuisenaire rods are used to model "number bonds" and the kids are asked related questions - for example, in Orange, the kid is given a page with an outline to put the rods for 2 + 4 = 6 (a red rod and a purple rod together are the same length as a dark green rod). Then the page has questions like:

 

2 + 4 = __

4 + __ = 6

6 = __ + 2

and all the other ways that fact family can be combined.

 

Even if you don't use Miquon, Cuisenaire rods are perfect for modeling addition and subtraction problems in Singapore if you spend some time learning the relationships between the rods.

[Eagle]

We tried to do things with c-rods and ds didn't like them at all until I finally relented and got Miquon. Best decision ever. Although he still doesn't always want to use the rods, he really likes Miquon and is learning so much even though we started back at orange and he (in theory) knows much of the content already. There is a difference between memorizing 4+5=9 and seeing that a 4-rod and a 5-rod are the same length as a 9-rod. Then you can "discover" all the other combinations that are equal to a 9-rod. Miquon is really giving him a different view of numbers and a very solid base.

 

Miquon is very inexpensive compared to other curriculums. You can even order the books as PDFs and download if you don't want to pay shipping. It would make a good supplement or standalone. The books are not numbered, so she will not see a grade number.

[letsplaymath]

It is very easy for us as parents to give the impression that the answer is the important thing in math. It is very easy for children with perfectionist tendencies to focus on answer-getting and to feel like failures and want to give up if they get a wrong answer. But the answer is the absolute least important part of a math problem! The important things are learning to see the relationships between the parts of the math situation, to think it through, to make sense of it and understand how it works.

 

I do NOT ask my kids to memorize anything at this age. But I DO ask them to tell me how they figured things out. Over and over I ask them. How did you get that answer? Whether the answer is right or wrong doesn't matter, I still ask. How did you think about it? How did you figure it out? Why do you say that? What will you try next? This problem is trying to trick you--will you let it get away with that? How will you think it through?

 

And we play a whole lot of games, and spend only very short sessions on workbooky stuff -- no more than 10 minutes per grade level, maximum. But we do lots of talking and we take turns making up little math problems for each other, things like that. The kids especially like to make up problems for me, to try to stump me.