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I Hate Grading Math


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I hate grading math. I just find it really boring. My daughter is thriving with Beast Academy, so we aren't going to switch, but she whips through it very quickly. I know I need to suck it up and correct every night, but I procrastinate, which makes it even worse. Am I the only one who feels that way? I love reading her writing. I don't mind checking her geography. Math? It's so, so boring.

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Y'all make me feel better. I hate grading math too (also grammar -- blech). Sometimes dd can complete a whole CLE LightUnit before I get around to looking at it. She rarely scores less than 90% on any of the lessons (and usually higher on quizzes and tests, where she's more likely to take her time) but she will get careless and sloppy if I let her go for too long.

 

The good news is, I will start formally homeschooling ds in the fall, and I know he's going to require much more supervision for years to come than dd ever has, so hopefully I'll be better motivated to stay on top of her work too!

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Yeah its boring.  :)

 

I get slack at times but I know that DD needs immediate feedback or she may get a concept wrong, it doesn't get fixed as she is learning it, she does it wrong several times and then I finally grade her work and it is already ingrained.  Trying to unlearn then relearn something is just terrible.  Makes me have Mommy guilt something fierce.

 

I do frequently let her grade her math work while I sit nearby working on something else.  She sees where she made mistakes, determines if those mistakes were just "careless" errors or she really didn't understand what she was doing, then we look it over together and discuss it.  Works much better for both of us.

 

I scribe for DS a lot (dysgraphia) so I usually have the TM with me and check work as we go.

 

Could you set aside 30 minutes every afternoon to check her math while you drink a soothing drink and listen to music?  Or something else along those lines that you could maybe look forward to for that brief period of time?

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Could you set aside 30 minutes every afternoon to check her math while you drink a soothing drink and listen to music?  Or something else along those lines that you could maybe look forward to for that brief period of time?

 

Yeah, do that while your dd washes the dishes.  :laugh:

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I suppose if you want to make grading it more engaging you could work the problems yourself.  Except for the few sections that are mostly computation problems, I've found BA questions to be fairly interesting.  You gotta give it to the writers, that stuff's creative.

 

But, no, grading math never bothered me.  My DS1 whips through BA pages too.  There are lines to write the answers on and solutions in the back of the book... so I find it pretty straightforward to check.   Now, checking writing, that can be torture.

 

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I grade everything immediately, except for writing assignments which we have a schedule for different stages of their papers.

 

For example, my 4th grader does math while I work with my Ker on her school work. (I grade K problem by problem as she does her work.) The first thing I do when I sit down to work with my 4th grader is grade her math.

 

I grade high school math either immediately or problem by problem. Sometimes I sit and work out the problems at same time as them and grade each one as we go along (I have found this the easiest way to grade geometry since there so many ways to write a proof. If I have just worked the problem, I can quickly determine if the problems are correct. when I haven't worked them, it often takes me longer to grade than just doing the problems myself in the first place.)

 

Fwiw, math is not something I would ever recommend delaying grading bc if they spend a lot of time working problems incorrectly, it is going to be harder on them to unlearn the wrong process. :(

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I hate grading math. I just find it really boring. My daughter is thriving with Beast Academy, so we aren't going to switch, but she whips through it very quickly. I know I need to suck it up and correct every night, but I procrastinate, which makes it even worse. Am I the only one who feels that way? I love reading her writing. I don't mind checking her geography. Math? It's so, so boring.

 

Once they are old enough that the answers to problems aren't immediately obvious to me (that is, I can't immediately say "yes, that's right"), with the exception of tests and quizzes, my kids and my students grade their own math, as they go along.  It gives them immediate feedback as to whether they are on the right track, and allows them to go back and find their errors right away, while their mind is still on the problem at hand.  "Homework" problems become not a test of how well they already know the material, but a work session in which they tackle the material, in gradually increasing complexity, with the answers acting as a gentle way to keep them headed in the right direction.  It's particularly good for kids who tend to drop negatives, etc., as they must wrestle with the problem until they get the right answer, providing a clear incentive to take the care necessary to get the problem right the first time.  In addition, it encourages them to take ownership of their own education (with me as a guide/mentor).

 

As your child goes through her math quickly, it would be easy to ask her to grade her own work as soon as she is finished, and eventually as she goes along, problem-by-problem.  

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I hate it too, passionately.

 

For our grammar, I almost never get more than 3 lessons behind. I try to grade them every day because bad habits form very quickly if I don't. (We use CLE grammar and it's a PAIN to grade--all that circling and using arrows to show what the circled word has modified--oh yuck! Hate all those circles and arrows!). It's so horrible to grade more than 3 lessons at a time that that's the only thing that keeps me on track. I try to grade it every day immediately after they're done school for the day.

 

For math, I check the youngest one's work. I had been doing the work myself to see if it was right or wrong and that's a HUGE pain. Ugh! I use a calculator when I can, but some things don't involve a calculator. I finally broke down and got the answer key and it makes things so much easier!

 

For the oldest, who is in Algebra, he does 5 problems at a time and then checks them for himself. If he does more than 5 in a row and then realizes he is doing them all wrong, it's incredibly demoralizing to have to fix 10 or 15 problems, rather than just 5.

 

I ask him why he got them wrong. If they were careless mistakes, I let it go, but if he didn't really understand why he got what he did, then he has to redo it. Every now and then I check for him and if it's wrong I make him redo it, even if it's a careless mistake. Some careless things are ok and some aren't. Like an addition error is ok, but forgetting to change a sign is not ok. It may be a "careless" mistake...or it may mean that he doesn't really understand when to change the sign. It's tricky.

 

Bottom line: I feel your pain! Don't let it go too long or it's just a horrible slog. I did like a PP said and the kids went through an entire CLE workbook (16 lessons) without me checking them. They did fine on the test at the end, but I marked the book, "Do not include in the portfolio!" (We have to show samples of the kids' work to an evaluator each year.). Who even KNOWS what was going on in that book. I'm just so glad they learned it on their own and did ok on the test, because their teacher (me) was completely useless for that book. (Guilt, guilt, guilt.)

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I correct all my dc's math as soon as possible after they finish, or if they are having some troubles right away while they are still working on it. I want to make sure that they are on the right track at all times. I mark the work myself, as I want to ensure they are showing their work, as well as looking to see how they solve various problems.  A lot of times I'll do math alongside the dc, especially when they are doing math contest preparation. There are numerous methods to solve some problems, and I like to see how they are doing things. I learn new or different ways to tackle things, and the problems are usually really interesting. 

Edited by wintermom
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I hate grading math. I just find it really boring. My daughter is thriving with Beast Academy, so we aren't going to switch, but she whips through it very quickly. I know I need to suck it up and correct every night, but I procrastinate, which makes it even worse. Am I the only one who feels that way? I love reading her writing. I don't mind checking her geography. Math? It's so, so boring.

I'd take objective math questions over grading writing in a heart beat!!

 

We check BA every 2nd or 3rd day (about 6-10 pages worth). Missed problems are marked and reworked.

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I check my youngers' work through about 4th grade. 

 

I give my older children the answers but not the solutions. Thus they get immediate feedback problem by problem, but they still have to figure out the solution on their own.

 

For the transition, I may have them call out their answer and let them know right or wrong, and/or I will "check their checking" until I'm confident they are getting it.

 

This has worked well for us, my children, once in middle school, average 1-2 missed problems per lesson, and those are usually careless errors.

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