Behind in Math

[AmyinMD]

My 9th grader is really moving slowly through math and I'm not really sure what to do.  She is a strong student in everything besides math and really wants to attend a 4 year university.  Math is a huge struggle though mainly with getting her to understand concepts.  She is currently doing MUS Pre-Algebra but is only on Lesson 8 and she will be 15 in May.  We have tried other math programs with her (Saxon and TT) and those were worse than MUS.  She asked to go back to MUS because she said it made more sense to her.  We already do math year round and it will easily take at least  year to finish Pre-Algebra because she has such a hard time getting concepts.   We spent over a year each on Epsilon and Zeta even going through the summers.   If we take anything more than a 2 day break she seems to forget everything she has been doing.   I'm a little worried we may not manage to get through Algebra 2 by the time she graduates.  

 

I found a local class for Algebra starting in September so I am considering that if it fits our schedule.  She thinks taking an outside class would help a lot and they are planning to use MUS.  I have been looking at online options but I think she would have a hard time with the pace (could also be an issue with an in person class).  I am considering a tutor but I am running out of time in our schedule to do outside classes.  Are there any other options to consider?  Two of my girls are dyslexic (my 17 and 10 yo girls) and my dh is also dyslexic.  My 14 yo never had any trouble with reading and she is a very strong student in all other areas aside from math.   I'm sure she will not pick any sort of career that uses much math but she seems to not understand even relatively simple math concepts.

 

[kiana]

Stay with MUS if it's working and just keep working patiently year-round.

 

There are other board members whose students barely made it through algebra 2 or did not make it, who still managed to get into 4-year colleges.

 

I don't know if the outside class would be a good idea given that she needs to move slowly -- I would TRY it, but I would be ready to pull her out if she starts to flounder.

[maize]

Maybe post on the Special Needs board, it sounds like your DD may have dyscalculia and there are others with experience with this learning disability over there.

[Tiramisu]

If you have a family history of dyslexia, your dd has had math problems for a couple of years, and she is now in high school, my recommendation would be to get an evaluation to get a better understanding of the cause of her difficulties and get any needs documented. It's really important not to wait at this point. I think your dd is probably very bright, which has allowed her to compensate very well, but she may have a visual problem or a weakness in perceptual reasoning. Ninth grade was the time that my eldest dd's problems became more pronounced and I got her evaluated for the first time. She has a collection of relatively minor processing glitches that cause problems for her despite her being bright and capable. She also had a strong preference for MUS and I think it was because of the clean formatting and generous white space. My second dd also had problems doing math slowly but no problems with reading. In eighth grade, she had a developmental vision exam and was dx'd with convergence insufficiency and a tracking problem. Since she did vision therapy for 13 weeks last year, math became much quicker and she made fewer mistakes. 

 

Unless your insurance covers neuropsychological evaluations, an evaluation by a developmental optometrist is a relatively inexpensive way to get started and it will rule out treatable vision issues. You'll need to look for doctors at covd.org because this type of vision problem is not an acuity issue that regular optometrist's test for.

 

Whenever I hear of bright kids having math problems, I always think VISION. I've seen it happen so often on these forum that a mom will despair of their child's math problem and it turns out it's vision.

 

 

[sbgrace]

Is it possible she has dyscalculia? We have dyslexia in our family background. My sister isn't dyslexic, but she does have dyscalculia, which wasn't diagnosed until she was in college.

 

Determining whether this is the underlying issue, and getting a diagnosis if so, might help you with her instruction going forward, but it's probably just as important in terms of securing accommodations for SAT/ACT testing and college.

 

I know some things mentioned for dyscalculia here are Ronit Bird books and Dynamo math.

[Jann in TX]

She needs to be evaluated-- I agree with the other posters that there are 'red flags' with a family history of dyslexia (a mental processing disorder-- the eyes see just fine-- it is the BRAIN that turns things around!).

 

Sometimes students with mild dyscalculia can progress to Algebra and other high school level maths.

Often they do not because they cannot make the realtionships necessary to apply basic math.  They may have memorized their tables (after LOTS of practice) but they cannot apply it to situations (what is 5 groups of 2?). 

 

An evaluation will help you find out her potential.

 

Even MUS cannot help most students with dyscalculia.  It is not just visualizing- the student has to be able to USE numbers.

 

--

If your dd is strong in other areas she may still be college material (just not in a math /science field).  I know of some great students/friends who had full scholarships to college even with a DX of dyscalculia. 

 

Students with dyscalculia should not trudge through high school maths they cannot understand 'just because'.  They should work on life-skills math and 'coping' so they can function as adults with a limitation.  It is not as simple as using a calculator.. people with dyscalculia don't understand what process to USE to get their answer.

 

 

 

[AmyinMD]

If you have a family history of dyslexia, your dd has had math problems for a couple of years, and she is now in high school, my recommendation would be to get an evaluation to get a better understanding of the cause of her difficulties and get any needs documented. It's really important not to wait at this point. I think your dd is probably very bright, which has allowed her to compensate very well, but she may have a visual problem or a weakness in perceptual reasoning. Ninth grade was the time that my eldest dd's problems became more pronounced and I got her evaluated for the first time. She has a collection of relatively minor processing glitches that cause problems for her despite her being bright and capable. She also had a strong preference for MUS and I think it was because of the clean formatting and generous white space. My second dd also had problems doing math slowly but no problems with reading. In eighth grade, she had a developmental vision exam and was dx'd with convergence insufficiency and a tracking problem. Since she did vision therapy for 13 weeks last year, math became much quicker and she made fewer mistakes. 

 

Unless your insurance covers neuropsychological evaluations, an evaluation by a developmental optometrist is a relatively inexpensive way to get started and it will rule out treatable vision issues. You'll need to look for doctors at covd.org because this type of vision problem is not an acuity issue that regular optometrist's test for.

 

Whenever I hear of bright kids having math problems, I always think VISION. I've seen it happen so often on these forum that a mom will despair of their child's math problem and it turns out it's vision.

 

 

My 17 yo had an evaluation by a developmental optometrist when she was 7 years old.  She had issues with tracking and did a year of vision therapy.  It made a big difference in her reading.  She is one of my dyslexics.  She has never had much trouble with math though aside from a little bit of number reversal.   That was when we lived on the west coast though I would need to find someone in MD. 

 

I know a developmental optometrist looks at different things than a regular optometrist but my dd's eyes are 20/200.  She really can't see a thing without her contacts/glasses.  She had an eye exam maybe 4-5 years ago and they were 20/20.  Then about 2.5 years ago she kept saying she couldn't see the board at Challenge so we had them checked again and both were 20/200.  

 

That's interesting about the white space on MUS.  Saxon was the absolute worst program with her and I never could understand what about it she disliked so much but maybe it was related to lack of white space.  TT so many kids love and she hated it.  She did one level of it and I had to sit with her for most of the lessons.  I never really noticed any issues with math until she got to long division.  I've noticed lately the younger kids have their MUS books out and she will say she has forgotten how to do certain things they are working on.  

 

Our insurance doesn't cover educational evaluations.  I'm assuming neuropsych would fall under that.  My 7 yo son has had neuropsych evals done through our school district but he is enrolled in school.  

[JanetC]

I believe that you can still get a school evaluation via Child Find as a homeschooler regardless of where you live, however whether the school has to provide special services will vary by state. Check with your state homeschool advocacy groups for details.

 

 

 

[Tiramisu]

My 17 yo had an evaluation by a developmental optometrist when she was 7 years old.  She had issues with tracking and did a year of vision therapy.  It made a big difference in her reading.  She is one of my dyslexics.  She has never had much trouble with math though aside from a little bit of number reversal.   That was when we lived on the west coast though I would need to find someone in MD. 

 

I know a developmental optometrist looks at different things than a regular optometrist but my dd's eyes are 20/200.  She really can't see a thing without her contacts/glasses.  She had an eye exam maybe 4-5 years ago and they were 20/20.  Then about 2.5 years ago she kept saying she couldn't see the board at Challenge so we had them checked again and both were 20/200.  

 

That's interesting about the white space on MUS.  Saxon was the absolute worst program with her and I never could understand what about it she disliked so much but maybe it was related to lack of white space.  TT so many kids love and she hated it.  She did one level of it and I had to sit with her for most of the lessons.  I never really noticed any issues with math until she got to long division.  I've noticed lately the younger kids have their MUS books out and she will say she has forgotten how to do certain things they are working on.  

 

Our insurance doesn't cover educational evaluations.  I'm assuming neuropsych would fall under that.  My 7 yo son has had neuropsych evals done through our school district but he is enrolled in school.  

 

Personally, I think long division taxes many kids' resources. When my youngest hit long division, based on my experience with my other kids, I wrote for her to eliminate some of the stress of it and I think it was pretty successful. I advocate scribing for kids and do so generously. And it was ironic that I made a point of scribing long division for my youngest and rather suddenly she started writing on her own a lot more after that. Long division seems to be the start of more complex math with more steps to remember and ones that might be not be conceptually obvious. So it's a point where weaknesses might become more apparent.

 

Also, about Saxon, that's what made me finally seek out a developmental vision eval with my second! We had used CLE before that with success but a long of hand-holding. CLE is is not as cleanly formatted as MUS, but because it's a workbook, there's a good amount of white space and the numbers aren't too small and squished together. When she moved to Saxon for algebra, things got tougher, but because I was working with her I could catch her mistakes and many were from misreading the tiny operation signs. In her case, the same mistakes wouldn't happen when we used a white board. So I could figure out her visual system was strained.

 

And I have to add, we had a very similar MUS experience with my eldest who has some processing issues. She loved MUS but she retained very little. She would claim to have never learned something before and I had to pull old notebooks of hers out to proved that she'd done it. 

 

Despite the math problems, stay hopeful. My dd who had VT last year is doing great in high school, even in math. And my eldest dd with the processing issues did well enough on the math part of her SAT. Yes. It was lower than her verbal score, but so what. She's done fine in college in a very tough program. She prudently decided to take her math requirement at cc over the summer, where her grade wouldn't affect her GPA and scholarship. My only mistake, looking back, was probably not slowing down and cementing the fundamentals....because I thought my dd was so smart and didn't realize soon enough that a child could not retain something they learned because I never forgot anything. LOL. So I think you are wise to not rush it. But do get those evals!