math issues 3rd grade

[bethben]

My daughter has serious issues with math.  She is going to go to public school next year because of a lot of reasons so I am trying to get her caught up with things she didn't do with our math sequence (we did MathU See this year - just getting caught up with division and fractions).  Math has ALWAYS been tough for her.  In 3rd grade, I felt like we were making some progress finally after 3 years of frustration. Part of her problem is that she can understand something one week and completely forget how to do it the next.  Completely.  Like she's never seen a problem like that before.  Eventually, she'll get it, but it's a three steps forward, two steps back progression.  For example, she can do multiplication and division facts no problem right now.  But she's completely forgotten all of her subtraction facts as a result.  She had those down two months ago with no issues. 

 

Word problems that are a little more complex confuse her entirely.  I've tried drawing pictures, using manipulatives, making it a little more simple, underlining what they want, circling what they have - everything.  She has no clue how to approach these.  She gets mad at me and I get ready to cry.  She scored in the 4th percentile for math problems on her last standardized test.  I think it's a little on the low side, but I'm not surprised it's on the lower end.  

 

I have no idea what to do.  Part of me wants to give up and just let the public school deal with her.  Homeschooling has affected our relationship negatively overall so I need to just be mom and not teacher for this child.  Homeschooling has always been hard with her.  It's drained me completely.

 

Just standardized test results show her 3 grades ahead in reading and reading comprehension so I know it's not a blanket learning issue.  She's very imaginative and interested in her world.  She likes writing and knows how to spell decently.  She loves art and is a decent drawer.  

 

I feel like I have failed her in math and the public school will think I failed her.  I have done everything I can think of to help her and none of it was good enough.  

[nixpix5]

I have you considered she might have dyscalculia? She sounds similar to children who I have worked with that have this diagnosis.

 

Math u See is mastery but I am wondering if a spiral math would be better for her so she is continually seeing and reviewing things with some time in between. Something that also has manipulatives like MUS maybe?

[PeterPan]

Well if you were doing MUS, were you doing anything for subtraction to keep it fresh while you worked on division? If you totally stopped working on it at that age, yeah the facts might get crunchy. They might come back if you work on them a bit. You might want to look at the free Ronit Bird card games ebook and do some of them (positive/negative turnovers, for instance) to keep subtraction fresh.

 

Could be a math disability, but could also be visual memory, ADHD, or I don't know. My *personal* advice would be to get some evals and do some screening *before* she hits the ps. That way you know what's going on. My ds has an IEP, and I can tell you it can take basically a whole SCHOOL YEAR to get an IEP in place from when you enroll. You have the legal right NOW to go ahead and request evals and force that process. If you wait, they'll watch her for a grading period most likely, then refer for evals, meaning she won't have an IEP till spring. If you want supports or interventions beyond RTI and being put in a lower math group, you'll want some evidence or to go ahead and make a formal written request for evals.

 

If you get evals privately, they can support the ps eval process, coming in as evidence for why the ps needs to go ahead and eval. Federal law requires them to *identify* students with disabilities, irrespective of what school they attend. 

 

She could have a vision issue. Has she been to a developmental optometrist to be screened? Any issues with sensory or attention or anything else?

[PeterPan]

Ronit Bird - Specialist in Dyscalculia and Arithmetic Difficulties

 

Here's a link for some of RB's stuff. The free card games ebook is here. I LOVE Ronit Bird's stuff and use it heavily with my ds with dsycalculia. Love, love, love. 

[mytwomonkeys]

Honestly, when she enters public school she is not going to be alone. Many kids do not review over the summer & will have forgotten very basic things that were cemented in during second grade. So the teacher expects this and will prepare for it. They will spend a lot of time reviewing. You can work alongside the teacher & ask for their feedback about any gaps and how to fill them. Also, you have not failed your child with math. It could be a disability or it could just be math is boring and difficult for her. Most children are not excellent in every single subject. Math may never be your daughter's strong subject & she may always have to work extra hard in this area. I imagine all of us could share a subject area that our child struggles in, (and those that can't are the exception & not the norm).

 

ETA-- And FWIW my 13 year old son was in public school for the past few years. He would come home & look at his math homework (that his teacher reviewed that day) and stare at it like he had never been taught a thing from the lesson. And somehow we figured it out and he passed math just fine.

Edited June 3, 2017 by mytwomonkeys

[OneStepAtATime]

Agree with others you might look into dyscalculia. And you might consider using a spiral approach paired with mastery based lessons. She may need mastery to get it but a very tight spiral review to keep it.

 

I agree with looking at Roni Bird. Possibly also using CLE.

 

Are there any tutor's in your area that specialize in dyscalculia? If so you might see if having someone like that take over helping would improve the relationship. Even if she does not have dyscalculia they might have good suggestions and your daughter and you both might benefit from an outside instructor for the summer.

 

PS might or might not help. If they move quickly and don't review enough for what she needs she may end up falling further behind and getting more demoralized. I would try hard to find the underlying cause of her struggles before she gets in a classroom.

 

Hugs to you both.

Edited June 3, 2017 by OneStepAtATime

[bethben]

Last year we did do mathUsee with 1/2 lesson of Saxon 5/4 for spiral review.  She did well with it.  Then for 3 weeks I switched her over to the math she will be using in public school next year just to make sure that she had all the basics covered.  Within that 3 weeks, she lost all of her subtraction facts that she knew well.  It seems at times that her brain can only store so much math information.  It's to the point that she can do a problem with success one minute and three minutes later have the same problem and have no clue how to do it.  I'm looking into getting her evaluated.  She has a mouth surgery coming up this month and surgeries always set her back a bit for some reason.  

[LinRTX]

I thought my youngest would never learn math -- she is so into writing and literature. The hard part was we are a mathy family with all the older ones in engineering fields (including my husband and I). I just kept plugging away. By the time she got to Algebra something just clicked in her brain and she loves math now.

 

I know that doesn't help now, but maybe it will encourage you. We did Saxon all the way through, every problem (she is in Calculus now) during the school year. In the summer sometimes I did Singapore CWP several years behind, a Rod and Staff book on grade level, or a manipulative book of some sort. The key was I never stopped math for more than a week or we were so far behind -- she would just forget everything. That is not a problem now.

[PeterPan]

Working memory is sort of the scratch memory of the brain, where things reside until they move into long-term memory. You're also correct there are limits on how many "things" someone can memorize till stuff drops. 

 

So it would be nice if she could harness her visual memory, auditory memory, some other path so that whatever path she *is* using right now isn't getting so maxed out. My dd had issues with math facts, and she turned out to have visual memory problems. You can get an eval with a developmental optometrist for that.

 

That's rough with the surgery. If her surgery or reasons for the surgery affect her cognitive, you might want to step up to a neuropsych for the eval.

[lots of little ducklings]

My ds9 has never been tested, but he certainly sounds like a case of dyscalculia.  

 

Number sense is a huge problem for him, but over the last year and a half I've found that lots and lots of daily "labs" with cuisinaire rods (using education unboxed's free videos as my guide) has made a world of difference.   We've also used Miquon books, which utilize the cuisinaire rods a great deal.  

 

"Seeing" numbers through the use of the rods was key for him, I think.  It hasn't eliminated his math struggles, but it has certainly helped tremendously.