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Stressing over math!!


kmom
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We have always used Singapore Standards with only one year in a different curriculum. My dd is an about to turn 10 fourth grader. During third grade last year it started to be more difficult for her to grasp the new material....I do think she is a bit of a perfectionist and gets stressed when concepts don't come easy or take more time for her to grasp. She gets very emotional (tears,anger) when she gets a problem wrong or isn't getting it after me going over it again and again. She says she hates math (this started sometime last year...could be from hearing other kids say it).

Sooo... I'm seeing that although she can multiply and divide the mastery based ways of Singapore are no longer working well. She is not retaining some basic concepts by not having more review. We are moving slower through the material than ever before as I don't want to just move forward knowing she is not grasping concepts. I am also seeing her division facts are very slow and that is adding to her frustrations. Yes we are practicing them in a variety of ways.

I am beginning to think she needs a more spiral based math...thoughts and suggestions are welcomed!! I do not want her to hate math and feel so frustrated that there are tears way more in the past year than ever😪

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I have one of those easily frustrated types too, and you can't learn when you're emotional! He also needed more review, which I was going to great effort to add. Finally I decided it just wasn't working well enough anymore.

 

I'm moving from a Singapore math based program to CLE. CLE is spiral (plenty of review) and very incremental, just not as conceptual as Singapore. I will just add any missing conceptual teaching as we go (googling kahn, education unboxed, or youtube videos, using Math Mammoth, etc. when things seem procedural). I just got the program today. I'm hoping it's a better fit.

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We are using Teaching Textbooks for this exact reason. My oldest is VERY procedurally inclined so TT a couple of grades ahead is great. I still can't let go do the conceptual math thing, so we do a lot of beast academy and explaining of why and how within the realms of what she's learning.

 

We recently took two weeks off from everything (including math) and jumped back in today with a quiz, which she scored 100%. So it is working and sticking.

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Fourth grade math is stinking hard work! The difficulty level ramps up in fourth grade, by a significant factor. it's not surprising for a student to hit a wall at this level.

 

For instance, I once analyzed a "simple" fraction calculation for a blog post. I counted *seven* steps the student has to remember and perform in order to solve that single problem -- and several of those steps had sub-steps of their own. No wonder kids get confused!

 

So a new math program might help, if it speaks to your daughter's learning style better than Singapore Math does. But don't be surprised if she still struggles. That's pretty much the nature of fourth grade math.

 

Whatever program you end up using, it may help to work it buddy style. That made a huge difference in my daughter's attitude toward math at this age.

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My oldest did Singapore through 5th grade and then got bogged down. The mastery based wasn't great for him. He forgot a lot. Plus, I just didn't feel like I was doing a good job teaching it. Somehow... I don't know how we missed a lot of procedural stuff, especially with fractions. I'm not blaming Singapore, like I said, it is probably my teaching, but I felt like when we switched to A Beka, it was much clearer on finding common denominators, and factoring, and all that stuff. So, we switched to A Beka for 6th grade and he seems to be doing much better with that. And it could be because I was taught in a more "A Beka way" growing up, so it made more sense to me to teach it this way. As I said, I don't know where the break down happened with Singapore, or why, but we are doing a math that works for both of us and I guess that's all that matters.

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