The dreamy student

[blondeviolin]

 

Abby has never been a "fast" child. She never has cared for chase or any game requiring quickness. During the course of the day, cleaning her room might involve fighting off a dragon and saving a unicorn. This makes for a wonderful reader and reading has opened her up to a huge world of fun, play and imagination.

 

BUT, imagination and/or staring off causes math to take forever! Some days I tell her to put it away and we come back to it. She is especially prone to this when the math doesn't come easily. (It's her passive aggressive way of not doing.)

 

She's working on memorizing the times tables. She understands repeated addition, skip counting, has built it with rods. She gets it. When quizzed she knows all of her three times tables. Today I handed her a drill sheet with 100 3xs problems, set a timer for 5 min and she only had done 10. This also impedes multistep problems (especially subtraction with regrouping).

 

Any ideas? I've tried incentives, but then she's either thinking about the incentive or anxious (if it's a timed test. She does not display any symptoms of ADD besides this dreaminess. And the dreaming comes in phases...

[blondeviolin]

Double post. Dumb phone.

[Gentlemommy]

Mine is 8, and a page of 100 anything would have brought her to tears. It will come. Just maybe do ten at a time, twice or three times per day. She clearly understands what multiplying is, so it's just memorizing them now, which will take time. Times tables is typically taught is third grade, you're way ahead!!! She's doing great to already know skip counting!

[Gentlemommy]

Oh, and my dreamy girl is Abby too. :)

[ThatHomeschoolDad]

Yup, I have one of those. It's moderated with age (now 12), and DW tells me it's standard middle school developmental thing.

[LivingHope]

SWB's audio lecture, Homeschooling the REAL Child, is on sale right now for $2.99 and addresses this very issue. I just listened to it last night.

[Ewe Mama]

Alvin is my dreamer. When his head is in the clouds I send him for a romp on his trusty stead (hoppy ball or mini trampoline) for about three minutes to vanquish whatever needs vanquishing and then he comes back, ready to work. He just needs to get the old blood flowing.

[PeterPan]

Just coming in here late to point out she probably has more symptoms and you're just missing them.  That slowness you described is processing speed.  It can be a challenge to work with.  She's old enough to get evals, so you might pursue it.  It would give you the right words for what you're seeing and a good psych will also give info on how to work better together.  (quality of advice varies with the psych, don't go with just a ped diagnosis)

[sbgrace]

My 9 year old son is very much like that. Math is the major problem area. If I can't engage his imagination, it's going to be a struggle. He has, according to the testing we had done, really poor sustained attention. He just plain checks out/has his mind on his imagination or whatever very quickly. He's there but not there. He's always creative, imagining, and distracted. But it's really doesn't interfere majorly in areas outside of math. In my son's case, inattention can look like processing speed issues.

 

Anyway, random thoughts based on my experience:

 

1. I need to be with him to redirect focus and attention with math. It doesn't work, yet anyway, for me to expect him to self moderate to complete multiple problems without me. I do sometimes have him work on 2 or 3 problems on his own. This is to build success with independent work. But this wasn't possible at all even as early as last year.

2. Working on the white board can help. Sometimes it can distract too!

3. I've learned to prioritize quality over quantity. If I have his mind for x (say 5 some days....) minutes in full that's better than a longer session with him barely attending and ending in frustration.

4. This means we progress slowly compared to his twin. However, this particular child--when he clicks in for me--retains well. I wait for the click. When something is solid, we move on.

5. We do math on most Saturday mornings. I do math in the summer. This means I can relax about his pace and yet we stay at academic level. I'm going for his (short) math attention ability. So these aren't long sessions at all. 

6. We stop and move (jump, bouce, run, etc.) between things. Sometimes with this I can get some review, break, some new math, break, a bit more to see if the new stuff stuck.

7. I've also sometimes split math into two sessions. Generally, though, it works better for him to just do it first thing. Sometimes I ask him something about the day's lesson at the end of the day or at some random point in the day.

8. He makes silly mistakes due to inattentiveness. We've developed some techniques to try to compensate, but this is an issue.

9. When we hit topics that take a lot of concentration/focus and/or practice to master, it's often slow going. This child has strengths in visual spatial areas and so is more interested in geometry type topics. So if we really have to stall, I can sometimes combine with some of those topics that engage better. We would do one long division problem a day along with geometry stuff for example.

 

You might look into Right Brain/visual spatial learning stuff to see if it fits. If it does, there are good books about that. The book Strong Willed Child or Dreamer also helped me to understand and parent him better.

 

[Terabith]

Try Times Tales.  My youngest who is very unicorn and dragon obsessed has really struggled with remembering and processing addition and subtraction facts started Times Tales and now knows half of the multiplication table cold after hearing the stories once.

[PeterPan]

Try Times Tales.  My youngest who is very unicorn and dragon obsessed has really struggled with remembering and processing addition and subtraction facts started Times Tales and now knows half of the multiplication table cold after hearing the stories once.

Hey, I should try this with my crazy, story-driven boy!  :D

[Terabith]

I've been tempted to try to come up with stories for addition and subtraction facts, but I really want her to use the strategies a la Singapore and Right Start. 

[PeterPan]

I've been tempted to try to come up with stories for addition and subtraction facts, but I really want her to use the strategies a la Singapore and Right Start. 

I think the point of the stories, at least the Times Tales, is to help them visualize a picture.  ADHD and whatnot (spectrum, dyslexic, etc.) kids are often VSL, so having a picture for it plays into that.  I don't think it has to be contradictory.  They can understand why the patterns are there (we used RS) and still use the stories to visualize.  See if you use patterns and strategies, that requires processing, which is typically very low on these kids.  (Like I think if you got her eval'd, you'd be shocked, assuming she is what you've described.)  So to derive an answer every time just isn't practical.  Also, then tend to have very widely spaced mini-columns in the brain (read Dyslexic Advantage by the Eides), which makes things take longer to connect, which also explains the low processing speed.  So they need a LOT more exposures to make the neural connections to get automaticity, and they *tend* to make those connections by bumping around to lots of other parts of the brain (history part, this part, that part).  

 

In other words, when you give a VSL narrative thinker a story for their math, you're actually working WITH their brain, not against.  If you want to also make other kinds of paths, that's cool, go for it.  We did, and I can tell you those pathways didn't seal and get fast till dd was, um, well 12-13.  That's a long time for you to wait!  With ds (my child of the 2nd chance, taught with hindsite), I'm going to do the stories AND the conceptual understanding.  It doesn't have to be one or the other.

[1shortmomto4]

It sounds like you have a visual spatial/right brained thinker on your hands - I have a dreamer, too and he's VSL all the way.  Very creative, loving, sweet and math manipulatives can quickly change into a great story at any given moment.  They don't like drill work - hence the melt down with all those problems.  I bet you'll find that after a few brief lessons in math there is no need to drill - they just know it and she'll fall apart every time you give her something that is repetitive in nature.  Forget paper - use some apps or a leapster - something that seems like a game but gets the job done.  TimesTales works great, too because they look for pictures in their brains to make the connections but don't make that the end all and don't expect quick answers to the multiplication problems - not until they get into higher maths and then they just seem to know the answer but can't always write it out to show their work,  Work to her strengths - her creativeness and you'll find great success.