OneStepAtATime Posted June 16, 2015 Share Posted June 16, 2015 DD is coming along in so many areas. I am really proud of her. Long division is a struggle, though. I know there were some helpful suggestions regarding LD on here but I can't seem to locate them. Can someone offer some help? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted June 16, 2015 Share Posted June 16, 2015 Short division and a calculator for anything longer. Division by hand is overrated. My non-professional opinion, obviously. :D I'm just saying it was a losing battle for dd and she doesn't have an SLD math. I don't see why in the fool world it's even important for our kids. Short division is the most they'd ever want to do in their heads or by hand, when you get practical about it. Beyond that they'd use a calculator. It is nice to be able to divide by 10, estimate by 25, and roughly estimate for reasonableness of the answer you get (so you know you got something reasonable from the calculator). Beyond that, I'd move on. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted June 16, 2015 Share Posted June 16, 2015 Or were you wanting the "here's your excuse to eat lots of chocolate because you MUST get your child to do this" answer? :D 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scoutingmom Posted June 16, 2015 Share Posted June 16, 2015 I agree. It would be rare to be in a real life position where you needed to do long division on paper - everyone has a calculator. I plan to teach short division, and to just go over long division so my son knows the idea/concept - but then I'd move to how to use the calculator to do it. I agree with knowing how to judge if the calculator answer is a reasonable answer. I'd also require my kids to use checksums to check the answer (which is a part of their math program.) btw - RightStart math agrees with this. They teach short division, then teach long division... but they do not do a lot of long division. This was a choice by the author because she felt that the amount of effort used to master long division was unreasonable because of its lack of usefulness. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneStepAtATime Posted June 16, 2015 Author Share Posted June 16, 2015 Hmmm. I guess maybe this is an area I should move on. I do appreciate the feedback regarding that viewpoint. I just feel really weird ditching division. With effort and patience certain things are clicking now (like measuring to the quarter inch/converting mixed numbers to improper fractions, etc.). I keep thinking if I can find the right words and the right demonstration long division will make sense. I know with multi-digit mutliplication what finally worked was the lattice method. I couldn't figure out why that was easier at first until I realized that you only do one operation at a time. First, you do ALL the multiplication. Then you do ALL the addition. She gets it. She whips out multiplication using that method pretty quickly. It makes sense to her. The place value of the numbers makes more sense, too. I wish there were something like that for division. She doesn't really understand what it means. The purpose for it, the concept behind it, just isn't there. My explanations are just getting her frustrated. She hates the Khan Academy videos. Not sure whether to keep trying while we move on to other things or not... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
go_go_gadget Posted June 16, 2015 Share Posted June 16, 2015 I know with multi-digit mutliplication what finally worked was the lattice method. I couldn't figure out why that was easier at first until I realized that you only do one operation at a time. First, you do ALL the multiplication. Then you do ALL the addition. She gets it. She whips out multiplication using that method pretty quickly. It makes sense to her. The place value of the numbers makes more sense, too. I wish there were something like that for division. She doesn't really understand what it means. The purpose for it, the concept behind it, just isn't there. My explanations are just getting her frustrated. She hates the Khan Academy videos. Not sure whether to keep trying while we move on to other things or not... I may well be speaking out of turn because I have no experience with LDs, but have you tried the partial quotients method? It's the one used in Miquon and BA, and makes the what's going on in long division *so* much clearer than the traditional algorithm does. Education Unboxed has videos using c-rods to do it, too. Just some ideas in case you want to give it another shot, but I'm totally unqualified to speculate on whether or not you should just move on. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneStepAtATime Posted June 16, 2015 Author Share Posted June 16, 2015 I may well be speaking out of turn because I have no experience with LDs, but have you tried the partial quotients method? It's the one used in Miquon and BA, and makes the what's going on in long division *so* much clearer than the traditional algorithm does. Education Unboxed has videos using c-rods to do it, too. Just some ideas in case you want to give it another shot, but I'm totally unqualified to speculate on whether or not you should just move on. I have tried it but I did not use a video to help demonstrate. DD and I will run through those videos tomorrow. I also have BA but we had not done the division book yet. DD got frustrated with BA and we dropped it. Maybe pulling that back out again might help, too. Thank you for the suggestions. :) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
laundrycrisis Posted June 16, 2015 Share Posted June 16, 2015 Our son was greatly helped by first learning double division, which is a specific method of partial quotients. The beauty of double division is that you do not have to have multiplication facts memorized in order to do it - you only need to be able to double numbers and subtract. Also there is no trying and erasing, trying again, etc. It is easy and efficient. http://www.doubledivision.org/ After mastering double division, and memorizing multiplication facts, he moved on to partial quotients. http://mattcoaty.com/tag/partial-quotients/ The last technique he learned was old fashioned long division, with all the trying and erasing involved. Back to add: Partial quotients is much easier to learn if the person has previously been taught to multiply by "parts" or "partial products". This is also the way to teach how to do mental multiplication - much easier to keep track of numbers to add in your head this way, than with the traditional way of multi-digit multiplication. http://www.homeschoolmath.net/teaching/md/distributive.php 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneStepAtATime Posted June 16, 2015 Author Share Posted June 16, 2015 Never heard of double division. Thanks! :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted June 16, 2015 Share Posted June 16, 2015 OneStep, call me crazy, but NOBODY here said to ditch division. We said to ditch LONG division. Did you google SHORT division yet? If she can do short division, then she understands division. Everything beyond that is just tedium. RightStart teaches division through repeated subtraction. As in, they have them subtract and subtract till they hit zero, and at some point the kid figures out a shortcut might be obvious. ;) I haven't looked up how RB teaches it, but you could. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heathermomster Posted June 16, 2015 Share Posted June 16, 2015 Double division and/or partial quotients, and then calculator...If the problem involves decimals, go straight to calculator. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted June 16, 2015 Share Posted June 16, 2015 Our son was greatly helped by first learning double division, which is a specific method of partial quotients. The beauty of double division is that you do not have to have multiplication facts memorized in order to do it - you only need to be able to double numbers and subtract. Also there is no trying and erasing, trying again, etc. It is easy and efficient. http://www.doubledivision.org/ After mastering double division, and memorizing multiplication facts, he moved on to partial quotients. http://mattcoaty.com/tag/partial-quotients/ The last technique he learned was old fashioned long division, with all the trying and erasing involved. Back to add: Partial quotients is much easier to learn if the person has previously been taught to multiply by "parts" or "partial products". This is also the way to teach how to do mental multiplication - much easier to keep track of numbers to add in your head this way, than with the traditional way of multi-digit multiplication. http://www.homeschoolmath.net/teaching/md/distributive.php That looks kind of fun! So how did that work out for him? Did it actually make sense to him? And he has a math SLD? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heathermomster Posted June 16, 2015 Share Posted June 16, 2015 That looks kind of fun! So how did that work out for him? Did it actually make sense to him? And he has a math SLD? Speaking for my DS...yes, yes, and yes. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted June 16, 2015 Share Posted June 16, 2015 Double division and/or partial quotients, and then calculator...If the problem involves decimals, go straight to calculator. So if that's what you and laundry did for division, then did you do partial products or something swanky for multiplication? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heathermomster Posted June 16, 2015 Share Posted June 16, 2015 So if that's what you and laundry did for division, then did you do partial products or something swanky for multiplication? Yes,..DS did eventually learn long division the old fashion way,,,but it is a total pain. In 8th grade, DS started using lattice multiplication for the huge 5 by 3 numbers and rarely makes a mistake. As an EE, I am not happy about it, but it works...so there you are. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
laundrycrisis Posted June 16, 2015 Share Posted June 16, 2015 So if that's what you and laundry did for division, then did you do partial products or something swanky for multiplication? I taught him both partial products and traditional multi-digit multiplication. That looks kind of fun! So how did that work out for him? Did it actually make sense to him? And he has a math SLD? His LD issues involved sequential and working memory, as well as serious handwriting issues. Memorizing math facts and the order of multi-step procedures were very hard, although he eventually got all of those down as well. But double division gave him a way to keep progressing in math and not have to get bogged down in division, or go straight to a calculator. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
laundrycrisis Posted June 16, 2015 Share Posted June 16, 2015 I want to also say - I had my own challenges with math. I overcame them in college and ended up in engineering. Having a kid with LD issues, and being the person to teach him math, has been a fantastic growth experience for me. I've learned new tricks and ways to think about things. I could never do mental math before. But through the process of finding methods that will work better for him, and teaching those to him, I am now much better at mental math than I ever was before, and my paper calculations are much faster. I LOVE partial products and partial quotients, even for problems with decimals. I wish those methods had been on the table when I suffered through those years. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneStepAtATime Posted June 16, 2015 Author Share Posted June 16, 2015 Yes,..DS did eventually learn long division the old fashion way,,,but it is a total pain. In 8th grade, DS started using lattice multiplication for the huge 5 by 3 numbers and rarely makes a mistake. As an EE, I am not happy about it, but it works...so there you are. I hate to sound ignorant but what is EE? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneStepAtATime Posted June 16, 2015 Author Share Posted June 16, 2015 I want to also say - I had my own challenges with math. I overcame them in college and ended up in engineering. Having a kid with LD issues, and being the person to teach him math, has been a fantastic growth experience for me. I've learned new tricks and ways to think about things. I could never do mental math before. But through the process of finding methods that will work better for him, and teaching those to him, I am now much better at mental math than I ever was before, and my paper calculations are much faster. I LOVE partial products and partial quotients, even for problems with decimals. I wish those methods had been on the table when I suffered through those years. I always struggled in math. I think part of that is because I moved constantly and each school was at a different place/approached things in a bit different way, etc. Made it hard to keep any sort of consistency in my learning. I hit 8th grade with big gaps. Then in 8th grade my teacher's wife was having a difficult pregnancy and ours was the last class of the day. He would leave us with mimeographed addition and subtraction worksheets while he went to the pay phone to call her and talk to her. I learned nothing. I lost a whole year that way and hit High School even further behind. Teaching the kids math is definitely helping me, too. And I agree, boy I wish half this stuff had been presented to me when I was still in school. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneStepAtATime Posted June 16, 2015 Author Share Posted June 16, 2015 OneStep, call me crazy, but NOBODY here said to ditch division. We said to ditch LONG division. Did you google SHORT division yet? If she can do short division, then she understands division. Everything beyond that is just tedium. RightStart teaches division through repeated subtraction. As in, they have them subtract and subtract till they hit zero, and at some point the kid figures out a shortcut might be obvious. ;) I haven't looked up how RB teaches it, but you could. Is this what you mean by short division? http://www.wikihow.com/Do-Short-Division DD does pretty well if she is doing her multiplication flash cards then we flip them around and do the division side. Doing division on paper, even if the number divides in evenly, is really hit or miss. She is missing a piece of the puzzle and so far I have not found a way to explain it that makes sense to her. This has been true of many things. Measuring to the quarter inch, for instance, took months and months. It didn't make sense to her. The term, the marks on the ruler, etc., just were gobbledygook. Then finally, something clicked and she can usually measure accurately to the quarter inch, and understands what she is doing, although she does not always correctly recall the term "quarter inch". 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scoutingmom Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 Is this what you mean by short division? http://www.wikihow.com/Do-Short-Division DD does pretty well if she is doing her multiplication flash cards then we flip them around and do the division side. Doing division on paper, even if the number divides in evenly, is really hit or miss. She is missing a piece of the puzzle and so far I have not found a way to explain it that makes sense to her. This has been true of many things. Measuring to the quarter inch, for instance, took months and months. It didn't make sense to her. The term, the marks on the ruler, etc., just were gobbledygook. Then finally, something clicked and she can usually measure accurately to the quarter inch, and understands what she is doing, although she does not always correctly recall the term "quarter inch". Boy, that article explains short division by stepping through a long division problem first?? Here is a link to the RightStart Webinars. Partway down the page you will see a spot to click that says 'Short Division' - And then you can watch a video where they explain it... http://rightstartmath.com/resources/pre-recorded-webinars/ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scoutingmom Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 Does she understand basic division if she has manipulatives? ie, If you give her 12 tiles or beads or whatever, and ask her to divide it by 3, does she know how to do that to get 4? And then the whole concept of the different things to do if there is a remainder.... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneStepAtATime Posted June 17, 2015 Author Share Posted June 17, 2015 Does she understand basic division if she has manipulatives? ie, If you give her 12 tiles or beads or whatever, and ask her to divide it by 3, does she know how to do that to get 4? And then the whole concept of the different things to do if there is a remainder.... She can divide physical items into equal groups and understands (usually) that sometimes there is a remainder. Translating that to a math problem on paper is really hit or miss. Some days or maybe it is specific problems, she gets it right away (if it doesn't require long division). Sometimes the understanding just isn't there, or doesn't seem to be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 I want to also say - I had my own challenges with math. I overcame them in college and ended up in engineering. Having a kid with LD issues, and being the person to teach him math, has been a fantastic growth experience for me. I've learned new tricks and ways to think about things. I could never do mental math before. But through the process of finding methods that will work better for him, and teaching those to him, I am now much better at mental math than I ever was before, and my paper calculations are much faster. I LOVE partial products and partial quotients, even for problems with decimals. I wish those methods had been on the table when I suffered through those years. This is something I've been struggling with a bit, probably prematurely, lol. Ds got SLD math from 2 of the 3 psychs. Today, we were doing the doubles pyramid from RB C-Rods, and when he decided to build it from the bottom up we realized he can't even count backward accurately and tell you what number comes before 5 or 4. :svengo: It just never ends, and I'm really starting to wonder if this is not one of those hills that DOES get surmounted with an actual SLD math. My ADHD dd is moderately crunchy at math because of the EF issues, but that's nothing like this. When your gifted almost 7 yo can't tell you what comes before 5 in order to place the rods, that's stinking crunchy. Like mind boggling. I've been telling myself to live in a little bubble and pretend it isn't so and pretend he'll be able to do the math for engineering school, but I'm honestly no longer sure. :crying: And not that engineering school is some litmus test for life satisfaction. It's just his father is and survived (albeit roughly). However I don't think his father was THIS bad. I don't know, but I don't think he was. I just figured it was something we could work through with support, and the more this goes on (and doesn't just disappear) the more whack it gets. I totally don't think certain things matter, because that's why we have calculators. But engineering school IS math, lots of it, tons of it. I've seen dh's textbooks and they curl my hair, sigh. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 Is this what you mean by short division? http://www.wikihow.com/Do-Short-Division DD does pretty well if she is doing her multiplication flash cards then we flip them around and do the division side. Doing division on paper, even if the number divides in evenly, is really hit or miss. She is missing a piece of the puzzle and so far I have not found a way to explain it that makes sense to her. This has been true of many things. Measuring to the quarter inch, for instance, took months and months. It didn't make sense to her. The term, the marks on the ruler, etc., just were gobbledygook. Then finally, something clicked and she can usually measure accurately to the quarter inch, and understands what she is doing, although she does not always correctly recall the term "quarter inch". Oh no I TOTALLY get it. Ds is like that too. I think it's how the brain is processing the language of math. Part of the math is in the part of the brain where the dyslexia is, so they just go together. And I think part (not so languagey, more conceptual) is on the other side too. So they can be math-gifted AND math-disabled, which is even more whack. That's how I TRY to think of ds. To me his attempts at problem-solving and enjoyment of them reflect giftedness, but anything where it connects with language turns into a mess. Someone has been telling me back channel to hang up on texts and workbooks entirely and just USE math and DO math with him, that he has to DO it so the words develop a physical meaning. Lately we've been talking about "about" and estimating and rounding. So we'll say "about" and round time, temperature, quantities, anything. I think if it was all just esoteric, it wouldn't click. I think those words have to connect to something real in his life. And because, of course, gobble gook words aren't going to generalize, we'll have to develop that understanding in lots of scenarios for it to carry through that 1/4 is 1/4 is 1/4 EVERYWHERE, whether it's time, money, measuring, quantities, whatever. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 She can divide physical items into equal groups and understands (usually) that sometimes there is a remainder. Translating that to a math problem on paper is really hit or miss. Some days or maybe it is specific problems, she gets it right away (if it doesn't require long division). Sometimes the understanding just isn't there, or doesn't seem to be. So what would happen if you actually did it with objects? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
laundrycrisis Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 I was a kid who was never supposed to be good at math. I was advised to choose a math lite major to avoid it. I ended up in engineering for the wrong reasons, faced the beast, had an epiphany in a physics class I had absolutely no business being in, and built my own math abilities from there. I ended up with all the hours needed for a minor in math. Something that helped both of our kids...Horizons has a lot of number before/number after problems in the early levels of their extremely spiral workbooks. Those were fantastic practice. This is something I've been struggling with a bit, probably prematurely, lol. Ds got SLD math from 2 of the 3 psychs. Today, we were doing the doubles pyramid from RB C-Rods, and when he decided to build it from the bottom up we realized he can't even count backward accurately and tell you what number comes before 5 or 4. :svengo: It just never ends, and I'm really starting to wonder if this is not one of those hills that DOES get surmounted with an actual SLD math. My ADHD dd is moderately crunchy at math because of the EF issues, but that's nothing like this. When your gifted almost 7 yo can't tell you what comes before 5 in order to place the rods, that's stinking crunchy. Like mind boggling. I've been telling myself to live in a little bubble and pretend it isn't so and pretend he'll be able to do the math for engineering school, but I'm honestly no longer sure. :crying: And not that engineering school is some litmus test for life satisfaction. It's just his father is and survived (albeit roughly). However I don't think his father was THIS bad. I don't know, but I don't think he was. I just figured it was something we could work through with support, and the more this goes on (and doesn't just disappear) the more whack it gets. I totally don't think certain things matter, because that's why we have calculators. But engineering school IS math, lots of it, tons of it. I've seen dh's textbooks and they curl my hair, sigh. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 Laundry--I'm looking at the Horizons now, and I'm seeing what you're saying. Basically they have TONS of sequencing exercises all through their gr 1 and 2 math. Wow. And it's charming, not too tedious maybe? See RB assumes you're doing a more traditional math curriculum in the background, and I haven't really been able to decide on one. You're right, the sequencing alone would be a valid reason to use the Horizons for a while. I had looked at the BJU, because the conceptual angle of it I thought would work for him. However I definitely see what you're meaning, so thanks for the tip. :) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneStepAtATime Posted June 17, 2015 Author Share Posted June 17, 2015 So what would happen if you actually did it with objects? Depends but usually with objects, once we get over the words, she can do it. Like, if I ask her to divide a bag of candy into 4 equal groups, it may take a bit for her brain to translate what I asked into what she is supposed to do, especially if there is not an evenly dividable number. Once that occurs, she can do it. Now if I had her do the same thing with numbers on a piece of paper...maybe. Depends on the day, the numbers, etc. She understands, though, that division means taking something and separating it out into smaller equal groups. She gets that part. Just like she gets that multiplication is a faster way of adding a lot of numbers together. She makes leaps that I don't make. Then she stumbles or hits a wall in areas that I think she is getting. Sometimes it takes a really long time to climb over the wall. And sometimes we climb it, we move past it, she is sailing along and boom, she gets yanked back to the other side of that same wall and we have to start over. Like today, she suddenly could not remember what the words short vowel sound and long vowel sound meant. Once we reviewed it, she remembered but got really defensive. It made her feel bad to forget terms we have been using daily every since we started Barton. She also suddenly got mucked up on how to mark the short and long vowel sounds and forgot that u has two long vowel sounds. We have been on a 2 week hiatus. Just 2 weeks and the connections start to fray. At the same time, she and DS were doing word analogies from the CLE workbooks and she was sailing along, getting answers much faster than I was. The words were mostly very visual, though, so that probably helped. Yeah, like you, OhE, its pretty crunchy around here... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 Oh I totally believe you on the splinter skills! Dd said that happened with her with the working memory testing, where any section where she could use visualization she could do well. So the idea that your dd is using visualization to do analogies makes total sense. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneStepAtATime Posted June 17, 2015 Author Share Posted June 17, 2015 I was a kid who was never supposed to be good at math. I was advised to choose a math lite major to avoid it. I ended up in engineering for the wrong reasons, faced the beast, had an epiphany in a physics class I had absolutely no business being in, and built my own math abilities from there. I ended up with all the hours needed for a minor in math. Something that helped both of our kids...Horizons has a lot of number before/number after problems in the early levels of their extremely spiral workbooks. Those were fantastic practice. I get this. My DH was terrible at math. And reading. But he loved computers (long before kids usually had access to a computer) and he loved electronics and chemistry and a whole host of things that eventually require math. He pushed hard. He made it through Calculus in High School and got an internship in broadcast television in High School, too. He has been very successful and is now a respected engineer in that field. He made it through the math, but he also took a fairly non-traditional path for his career. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heathermomster Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 I hate to sound ignorant but what is EE? DH and I are both electrical engineers. It seems ironic to me that DS has dyscalculia when neither parent has it. Math comes very naturally to me so math solutions like lattice and partial products are bitter pills to swallow. Not so much now, but oy! :eek: The methods work for DS, so I must be content. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneStepAtATime Posted June 17, 2015 Author Share Posted June 17, 2015 DH and I are both electrical engineers. It seems ironic to me that DS has dyscalculia when neither parent has it. Math comes very naturally to me so math solutions like lattice and partial products are bitter pills to swallow. Not so much now, but oy! :eek: The methods work for DS, so I must be content. :) Ah, I get it. TBH, I had the opposite reaction. After DD taught me lattice (which was taught to her by a dyslexia and dyscalculia teacher we were with one summer in another state), multi-digit multiplication became a lot easier for me, too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lovinmomma Posted June 23, 2015 Share Posted June 23, 2015 Short division and a calculator for anything longer. Division by hand is overrated. My non-professional opinion, obviously. :D I'm just saying it was a losing battle for dd and she doesn't have an SLD math. I don't see why in the fool world it's even important for our kids. Short division is the most they'd ever want to do in their heads or by hand, when you get practical about it. Beyond that they'd use a calculator. It is nice to be able to divide by 10, estimate by 25, and roughly estimate for reasonableness of the answer you get (so you know you got something reasonable from the calculator). Beyond that, I'd move on. This. :) That's what I decided for my dd10, too. We are also continuing to use games, etc. to solidify multiplication, addition, and subtraction facts which will ultimately help her division facts. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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