Math for a kid who likes concepts but hates practice/writing things down?

[Recovering Sociopath]

He really needs the practice.

 

Right now he is using Beast Academy, which he absolutely adores. I have promised him that he does not have to stop using BA, but we need to add something else in to make sure he is getting an appropriate amount of practice. I know some kids do just fine with only BA, but he really needs reinforcement-- for example, on his standardized test his grade level for mathematics problem solving was 10.6, but his grade level for math procedures was 5.2 (he is 11 and about to start 6th grade).

 

Part of the issue is that he hates the physical act of writing, so he really resists doing things like showing his work-- but at some point that's just something you have to do in math whether you like it or not, so anything that adds a fun factor to all the writing would be a plus.

 

I showed him some samples from Saxon and he didn't hate it but he wasn't thrilled, either. He's also done the Prodigy online game a bit, but it didn't really catch his interest.

 

Other suggestions? I guess I'm looking for a rigorous, challenging, complete math curriculum that will give him a strong grounding in mathematics but also be so super fun he won't mind having to use his body and not exclusively his brain. Is that a unicorn?

 

[OneStepAtATime]

Yeah, maybe a unicorn.

 

You might look at CLE math.  Workbook format so a lot less writing than many other systems.  If he is grasping concepts quickly you can cut out some of the review.  Maybe also do some on a dry erase board instead of all in the workbook if he doesn't like the feel of pencil and paper.

 

Is his writing reluctance sensory or issues with motor planning or ...?

[regentrude]

Does he need to write it out in order to solve the problem? My guess would be, no; he can probably do it mentally - so one solution would be harder problems where he must write down steps in order to figure out the answer.

The other suggestion would be to have him explain problems on the whiteboard; that way he writes, but it serves the purpose of telling it to another person, which may be more motivating than just writing down something that is obvious for him on a piece of paper because you make him.

 

I would take a look at the test results and talk with him to pinpoint what exactly happened before concluding that more drill is the answer. Did he run out of time? Encounter unfamiliar procedures? Make careless mistakes? Or did the test require him to follow a specific algorithm and he lost points because he did not solve the problem "the right way"?

 

Edited July 11, 2016 by regentrude

[wapiti]

First off, there may not be any issue at all with the scores.  Procedure grade-level-equivalent (GRE) and problem-solving GRE standardized scores need not be the same.  BA is supposedly grade-level for topics even though the problem solving is deep.  What level of BA is he in?  It isn't reasonable to expect a higher GRE score for procedures than the grade level he is working in, i.e. expect him to compute things he hasn't learned yet.  What standardized test was this?

 

If he actually made errors on procedures he *already knows* what, if anything, you ought to change will depend on the cause of the errors.  Are you guessing that not writing work out was the cause?  Or did he write out the work but make mistakes?  Lots of possibilities (e.g. even a mild vision issue).

 

If he just didn't remember procedures, that would point toward needing a bit more review.  In that case, perhaps what you're looking for is a little procedure practice on the side.  Personally, I would stick with BA and if you really think it's necessary, then add a brief occasional or weekly (at the most) review worksheet with different types of operations.  There is no way I'd switch from BA to something like Saxon in this particular case.

 

ETA, I have a kid who has serious handwriting issues.  He can handwrite work if he absolutely has to, as on a test for school where work must be shown for full credit, but otherwise he avoids handwriting whenever he can get away with it.  He did most of AoPS Prealgebra in his head with random white board scratch work.  It wasn't until the middle of algebra that he reached a point where he could no longer progress without writing out work properly.  More recently, toward the end of geometry at school, I finally bought him the graphing calculator that the school required for reasons unknown, and he essentially types his work into that if he doesn't have to turn the work in.

 

Also note that BA and AoPS problems tend to use less-tedious numbers in the calculations such that using all the concepts a student knows, as well as good number sense or a feel for numbers, is the "easy" or "smart" way to solve the problem.  If the calculations are too complex, there's a good chance the approach to solving the problem is wrong :).  That is in contrast to many other programs.  BA/AoPS is the very first thing I'd recommend looking at for the good-at-math-but-hates-handwriting kid.  It's easy to add a little occasional review than move to a program that will teach to the kid's weaknesses rather than develop the kid's strengths and that the kid will hate in its entirety.

Edited July 11, 2016 by wapiti

[HomeAgain]

What about Life Of Fred?  There's a small number of problems at the end of each chapter, and in the upper levels, a mini-test every 4-6 chapters.

[Recovering Sociopath]

I should clarify that the test scores were just just a convenient example of the gap between his extremely strong cognitive abilities and his willingness to do things which require, you know, work. I watched him take the test (Stanford Online) and he refused to use the allowed scratch paper and pencil to work any of the problems he *knows* how to do. So he tried to do them in his head, lost track, and made multiple calculation errors. It's been an ongoing issue, but not urgent since up to this point he's been doing math that he could get away with doing almost all mentally. But as he does more complex mathematics he's going to need to show his work so that he can see where he made errors along the way. 
 

 

There is no way I'd switch from BA to something like Saxon in this particular case.

 

We are not dropping BA no matter what happens. He loves it and he is learning from it. I'm looking for additional reinforcement to cover BA's lack of practice, and to get him accustomed to showing his work. He's only on BA level 3C right now, so not really on grade level, but I don't mind that as long as he's progressing steadily.

[Recovering Sociopath]

 

Is his writing reluctance sensory or issues with motor planning or ...?

A bit of both, I think. It's not as bad since he learned cursive, but his handwriting is still sloppy and he still avoids it as much as he can. I'm trying to get him up to a decent typing speed this summer with the intention of letting him type everything he possibly can this coming year. When he has to do an essay for science or history that will be a great solution, but it still doesn't help with complex math. :/

[wapiti]

There will be a point where he needs to write out the work; the question, of course, is what is that point?  As I said for my ds, it was mid-algebra, though even in the middle of geometry, he would try to do it in his head if he could, before he got the calculator.  Some thinking out loud:  the problems on the standardized test are probably different from the problems in BA.  You could find or make a little review worksheet with a few different operations, just straightforward stuff for writing-out-work practice.  I'd limit the number of such problems in any one sitting and avoid online programs for this particular bit of review.

 

Somewhere I recall a weekly review worksheet that my dd used in middle school http://www.mathsmate.com/WebPages/usa/blueUSA.htm though there are probably lots of possibilities out there.

 

ETA, If he was in school until recently and has already had 5th grade math, I might also look at the pretest for the Prealgebra text and consider whether going straight to that would be a more efficient possibility for a rising 6th grader than working through all of BA from 3.

Edited July 11, 2016 by wapiti

[OneStepAtATime]

Have you looked into dysgraphia?

[Jackie]

Math Mammoth has workbooks by topic, so you could buy just the specific topics he needs practice on. It's not what I'd call fun, they're still just math workbooks, but you could potentially target it more than working through two full programs.

 

Prodigy Math is online and game-based, but the player has to answer straightforward math questions in order to play. It's useful to us alongside BA because it pops up all sorts of arithmetic, thereby building in something like spiral review.

[Arcadia]

When he has to do an essay for science or history that will be a great solution, but it still doesn't help with complex math. :/

DS11 (Dec 04) types his math using Latex. For when he needs to write, he prefers certain pencils and blank paper. He would use ruled paper but would choose blank printer paper. He prefers pencils to mechanical pencils and ballpoint pens.

 

There are so many reasons for a difference between problem solving scores and procedural scores that it is hard to tell why unless you have a copy of the tests and can see where he went wrong. Your son might be so bored with the procedural questions that he make careless mistakes.

[deerforest]

My DD was very writing averse and also averse to what she considered meaningless work, aka procedural practice. She thrived in BA, but there were times she just needed practice. I have a bazillion math books so I would just go through them and pull out a handful of problems for her to practice. For example, if I wanted her to practice multiplying fractions, I'd find about 4-6 problems (no more than that), and I copied them into a graph paper notebook for her. I found these awesome Waldorf graph paper books https://www.waldorfsupplies.com/product/arithmetic-book/ which are in between the two standard graph paper sizes. It's the size she really needed to be able to work comfortably.

 

So, I lined up all the problem for her, wrote it in pen, and she just had to work the problem. That's how we started out, and I kept the number of them really small at first, and over the year, I started to slowly add more (and these were always just review of something she already knew), and then I slowly transitioned to her writing the problems and doing the work.

We've graduated to her being able to write the problems on her own now--both for the daily work for the lesson and review problems. She still isn't thrilled to write out her problems, but she gets it that I can't tell where she went wrong if she gets an incorrect answer.

[aharrington]

CLE worked for my pencil-phobic son.

[SarahW]

I guess I'm with some of the PP. BA should be giving him the "strong grounding in mathematics." But I agree about not writing things down, my kid has explicitly told me that his main goal right now is to avoid writing as much as possible.  :001_rolleyes:   When we are working through BA and he gets stuck on something I have to repeat over and over "write down what you know, write down what you know, write down what you know!"

 

This is why Khan never worked for him, he refused to write anything out (whether on the screen scratch area or on actual paper) and just guessed at the answer so he could move on. It sounds like your kid has something of the same approach. Frustrating, yes.

 

I'm confused about the scores. So he's doing a CC-aligned 3rd grade math book, but scored 5th grade in computation and 10th in reasoning? I'm not seeing where there's a real issue there. It's possible that the test asked questions on topics BA just haven't gotten to yet, like multiplying or dividing fractions. BA is great and all, but it's a depth curriculum, not an accelerated one. If you want higher grade-level scores in computation I think you would need to just get him into a higher grade level math book.

 

Also, I think the lack of rote procedures in BA is (at the elementary stage) only a problem for pleasing the test-makers-that-be. There are a gazillion grade-level test-prep books on the market now. I sometimes add one in to our day and have found that my kid sort of likes them (if we do only a few questions a day, of course). They give him practice with arriving at the right answer, but also eases him into test-taking skills. They also give me an idea about what is expected at his grade level. And since we go through it together slowly, I can pinpoint anything specific he is weak in or what we haven't covered yet. I think that would be far more efficient than adding on another curriculum and slowing him down even further in math.

[poppy]

I was just reading a review of ShillerMath which says all answers are given verbally.  I haven't used it myself so can't verify that.