Math is sucking the life out of me (CLE 6th grade)

[JessReplanted]

My son has never been strong in math. We switched from Singapore to CLE in 3rd grade, and that seemed to help him a lot. 3rd & 4th grades were pretty smooth, but 5th and 6th have been so challenging. He is (finally) on book 10, and it just feels like it's never going to end.

 

I am a big fan of CLE. I think that he needs the constant review, however, I don't know that the constant review actually helps him remember very much. Every day is a big challenge. I correct his work daily and he generally has mistakes on 30-50% of the lesson. He either has to correct this  himself or we correct it together.

 

Has anyone else experienced this?

 

Is it just going to click one day (this happened with spelling - it was miraculous)?

[OneStepAtATime]

Maybe you should slow down?  Do half a lesson a day and focus on a smaller number of problems?  Do buddy math on a dry erase board for a while to see where the disconnects are.  Maybe incorporate some conceptual lessons on the side.  Add in some games and manipulatives.  Break things down into smaller pieces.  He may have moved too quickly through the lower levels and is now missing some key pieces that he is not fluent with.  I would definitely slow down, maybe even go back to 501 and have him do those problems again to see if there are any missing pieces from Level 400 and below.

 

Also, you might consider giving him a typed out checklist of things to check each time he does a problem.  Maybe have him do 5 problems a day using that checklist.  Have him verbalize to you what he is doing.  Then have him check the problems and any he missed see if he can use the checklist again to see where there might be a disconnect.

 

If he is consistently missing problems, you need to find out if he is genuinely missing important processes, missing math facts, not solid on concepts, struggles with reading the instructions carefully, has trouble holding numbers in his head, etc.  He may have low working memory and cannot keep up without outside assistance now that material is more complex.  Or it could be something else entirely.  Slow down, take a few problems at a time, and try to find out what is really tripping him up.

[OneStepAtATime]

Maybe even run him through Khan Academy but start back a few levels.

[Another Lynn]

Jess,

I also appreciate the review in CLE and felt it was particularly helpful for one of my less-mathy kids.  However at the end of CLE 400, there were definitely things she wasn't getting.  At the time I thought Saxon would be our choice for the upper grades so I switched her after CLE 400.  Though I've heard of people going from CLE 400 to higher levels of Saxon, she could not test out of 5/4, so we started there.  I can't say Saxon solved all our problems.  We used it two years, and I think she did make progress.  I'm planning to use key to fractions, decimals, percents this fall and then decide what next, but I doubt it will be Saxon or CLE.   

 

I don't really have advice for you, but I understand your experience.  For my mathy kid who used CLE (from 300 - 600), he got concepts just fine.  For my less mathy one, though she benefited from the review, I think she still did not get some concepts or make certain connections.  I think sticking with CLE is an option, but you might need to identify where he's struggling and firm up conceptual understanding in those areas. 

[Mommy to monkeys]

The end of 4th and beginning of 5th were really tough for my oldest two kids. For my oldest we ended up going back several light units and starting afresh. With my daughter we just slowed down, did half lessons along with extra long division and multiplication problems. Both kids got over that hump and are doing exceedingly well now. My 12 year old is in the early 700's and my 10 year old in the mid 500's. I'm glad we pushed through instead of jumping ship.

 

[OneStepAtATime]

The material covered in the 500's can be really tough to master.  There is a lot at that level of math that may take time to process, irregardless of which program you use.  You might look at incorporating some other resources, slowing down and doing half lessons, etc.  Have you looked at Hands on Equations?  

[katilac]

I definitely wouldn't just wait it out, hoping for things to click someday. He's a bit too close to high school for that, imo. 

 

Does he make that many mistakes on tests as well, or just daily work? 

 

If he scores much better on tests, I would consider that he might be bored with too much review and hence inattentive for daily lessons. If he still has work to finish up, I'd likely try something new to cover those topics, plus others he is still shaky on. It doesn't have to be an expensive new curriculum - there is usually plenty of free stuff and samples on the internet for that level, and it might help you start figuring out what might be a better approach. 

 

If he hates CLE, he might be willing to spend a little time each day trying out other options, lol. 

 

I'd strongly consider talking to a teacher or tutor who works with that age, and having them work with him for a few sessions. They might know a little better if he is having typical struggles, or if something else might be going on. Even if he doesn't have a specific learning challenge, there might be methods and strategies that could ease his way. 

 

Edited to add that you might also check your library; ours has plenty of math books. 

[JessReplanted]

I definitely wouldn't just wait it out, hoping for things to click someday. He's a bit too close to high school for that, imo. 

 

Does he make that many mistakes on tests as well, or just daily work? 

 

If he scores much better on tests, I would consider that he might be bored with too much review and hence inattentive for daily lessons. If he still has work to finish up, I'd likely try something new to cover those topics, plus others he is still shaky on. It doesn't have to be an expensive new curriculum - there is usually plenty of free stuff and samples on the internet for that level, and it might help you start figuring out what might be a better approach. 

 

If he hates CLE, he might be willing to spend a little time each day trying out other options, lol. 

 

I'd strongly consider talking to a teacher or tutor who works with that age, and having them work with him for a few sessions. They might know a little better if he is having typical struggles, or if something else might be going on. Even if he doesn't have a specific learning challenge, there might be methods and strategies that could ease his way. 

 

Edited to add that you might also check your library; ours has plenty of math books.

 

 

He consistently tests in the 80's. When we go over problems together, for the most part, he seems to know what he's doing. However, there are times when he just forgets how to do something. And, I can understand that. I feel like there is a lot thrown at him in one lesson.

 

Maybe it is just too much.   I don't know. Thank you for all of the ideas.

[katilac]

He consistently tests in the 80's.  

 

If he consistently tests in the 80's but makes many more daily mistakes, I would definitely consider a curriculum change. 

 

Another thing I tried when my kids went through the careless stage was to assign substantially fewer problems than the book called for. If they scored an A or high B, lovely, I might show them their mistake but otherwise move on. Low to mid B might be reworking some or all of the missed problems, and/or doing a few new ones (if I thought they needed more practice to get the concept, it was new problems as well). 

 

A C meant showing them where they went wrong on the missed problems, and assigning them a new set. If that happened more than once in a period of time, I might sit with them while they worked the missed set. 

 

If he is working on his own, you may need to sit next to him or at least very near him during math to redirect his attention and short circuit any daydreaming. 

[ondreeuh]

We had a similar issue with CLE. We got though the day-to-day work (and I was fully involved in teaching and checking work) but there was very little long-term retention of many concepts. I think the incremental approach had my son hyperfocused on the "steps" to do and he did not understand the big picture of what he was doing, why he as doing it, and what kind of problems he should apply it to. He had learned how to solve little computation problems, but he did not actually build a skill set that allowed him to reason through complex problems and choose the skills to solve them. When given similar problems from another program, he didn't know where to start - and that is when I completely lost all confidence in CLE math.

 

My son had done CLE 200s, 300s, and 400s. At that point I was OK with CLE but we switched to Saxon 5/4 because my son attended a village school for a bit (long story). After finishing Saxon 5/4, he could not test out of CLE 500s so he did that the next year. At the end of the 500s he took a standardized test and bombed the math portion. I decided that the incremental approach of both CLE and Saxon was a terrible fit and switched to a program that was more mastery-focused but had regular cumulative reviews (Holt middle school math). Course 1 (6th grade) was a rough year as we had a STEEP learning curve, but Course 2 was much smoother as he did retain a lot of what he had done in C1.

 

He has done extremely well, and I am doing even better by my younger son who is using Math in Focus. CLE and MIF are so extremely different, and i can really appreciate how MIF helps the student internalize the concepts and use them in a variety of ways.