Math remediation

[AmandaVT]

Hello! 

I have a math question that I'm thinking folks here may be able to help with. I have a couple of 8th graders that I'm working with who are currently around a 2nd-3rd grade level in math. I will be able to work with them for 30 min a day, 5 days a week. I may be able to get up to an hour with them, but for right now, it'll just be 30 min. Our school doesn't have math curriculum and I have pretty free range to do what I'd like with them. 

I'd love some recommendations from folks here. These kiddos will be moving on to high school after this year and I'd like to do whatever I can to help them get more math skills before they head there. Does anyone have a favorite math curriculum for a circumstance like this? Only one has an IEP - she's pretty average/solid everywhere else but math. The other did not qualify for an IEP, although I am not sure why, given her math struggles. I'm going to try to look at her prior eval to see what is going on. Their math teacher is great and has given me her full support in whatever I want to do, same with the principal. 

[prairiewindmomma]

What is the plan for them in high school?

Are you dealing with intellectual disabilities or learning disabilities or disrupted education? (IE—how much progress could one hope for?)

I would look at Ronit Bird’s dyscalculia stuff. Also, life is doable with a calculator for long division and multiplication. Think about what you can’t do with a calculator or what is much easier if you have some basic math skills.

[prairiewindmomma]

Fwiw, I also recommend thinking about doing things game based...it’s why I recommend RB. By 8th grade, there’s a lot of anxiety and bad feelings wrapped up in not being on level. 

Also, look at time, money, and calendaring. Those are life functioning things that matter. Public schools here don’t teach coin recognition and the like in remediation and it’s shame. If you don’t have it mastered by the end of second grade, they just assume it won’t matter anyway because they assume all transactions will be card based in life. It is a big deal if you have a retail job.

[PeterPan]

8 hours ago, prairiewindmomma said:

Also, look at time, money, and calendaring. Those are life functioning things that matter. Public schools here don’t teach coin recognition and the like in remediation and it’s shame. If you don’t have it mastered by the end of second grade, they just assume it won’t matter anyway because they assume all transactions will be card based in life. It is a big deal if you have a retail job.

Christine Reeve in her TPT store has some really sharp materials on money. She's the lady behind autismclassroomresources, which is also a terrific site. Anyways, even if you don't think her math materials are quite the right fit (they're targeted at older students with ASD+ID), reality is they're good skills for EVERY age. So she has one where you figure out what bills ($1, 5,10 etc.) you'd hand to pay for things. It's a really important skill and something I wouldn't have thought to work on with my ds. So for life level application, yes there are curricula trying to hit that. I'm pretty sure I've seen store math, math for transition, aimed at teens preparing for the work force. But they're skills our kids can do as soon as they're ready. I take my ds shopping and we do those steps like what bills will you need to give her to pay for this. It's actually really hard for him. Not so hard he can't do it, but it's not a nothing. 

So the side note is our kids are best served by being out in life USING these skills. With autism, math on paper gives them math on paper. We really want them DOING.

So then the other reason I like Prairie's comment here is it's saying what I've found, that working on measuring, time, money, calendars, etc. is how you generalize and apply those computation skills. So I take a skill we've worked on one way (particular fractions) and then we're going to do it more ways. Right now RightStart Fractions has us doing fractions of quantities (12, etc.), which is of course a fresh way of thinking through multiplication and division. However I need him to connect that skill to TIME and MONEY and MEASURING. They ask about that as just drill questions, mental math, assuming the dc will naturally get there. Nope, we're actually going to have to work it in all the applications to get it to generalize.

I'm silly. I thought this was our autism + SLD math thread. Yeah, with autism we need to generalize. With math SLD, doing it lots of ways is still good.

Edited September 29, 2019 by PeterPan

[PeterPan]

On September 24, 2019 at 5:43 PM, AmandaVT said:

Our school doesn't have math curriculum and I have pretty free range to do what I'd like with them. 

 

8 hours ago, prairiewindmomma said:

I also recommend thinking about doing things game based

Yup, we have a montessori, free range kind of school around here that offers math tutoring, and that's what they do, playing games. Ronit Bird's ebooks are inexpensive and something you can start with immediately. Her print books will have a lot of extras the kids will enjoy. I'm also a HUGE fan of the RightStart fractions puzzle, which I think they just brought back, yes? 

With my ds, some things that are easy are hard (computation) and some things that are hard/later are easy (geometry, anything spatial). So you might also consider bringing down some more advanced concepts or things that are more visual/spatial if they have those strengths, just to have some positive time. 

Advanced Pattern Block Book, Gr. 5-8 - Didaxwww.didax.com › advanced-pattern-block-book-gr-5-8 This is one my ds enjoyed. They have a bunch of books marked gr5-8 that might be accessible to your students if used selectively. Dice Activities for Mathematical Thinking - Didaxhttps://www.didax.com › dice-activities-for-mathematical-thinking I've got this and it could be used with a ready student who can do basic addition or multiplication. It's introducing more complex concepts but in a simple, more hands on way. They have some others in the series.

With Ronit Bird's books, I would probably get her Overcoming and Resource books. The 3 main ebooks (Dots, CRods, Multi) would be the equivalent of the content of Toolkit. If you think they need those skills, I'd just get the ebooks to expedite and then buy the print books for the others. She has a free Games ebook, so don't miss that. Her fractions ebook I've played with but we were already kind of happy the way we were doing them ourselves. 

RightStart™ Fraction Puzzle - RightStart™ Mathematics by ...https://store.rightstartmath.com › rightstart-fraction-puzzle  LOVE this. We started off with a simple fractions war (turn over to cards, make a fraction, compare to the opponent's) and used the puzzle as our physical reference. Many kids have memorized and do not REALLY understand fractions. They're so foundational. I'm also using the RS Fractions manual right now for ideas. It kind of gets me going, but it definitely did not have autism in mind, lol. But it gets me somewhere and is fresh, sure. 

With my ds, I usually pick a game and play it every day for a month. That's literally not overkill with my ds. So they have a game with 3 variants, and I'm going to make a lot more variants, and we'll just keep applying that game, making it more and more challenging. So like when we played fraction war, we started simply comparing, but then I would up the ante (how much more to complete the whole, how much is yours larger than mine, could we make equivalent fractions to make them easier to compare, etc.).

Fwiw, word problems are also challenging for my ds. I don't know about your students, just saying for my ds they're always a goal. I do almost ZERO written computation, like to hand him a page of problems. Zero. Well that's not true. We went through multidigit addition with a kit doing 2 a day on the whiteboard so he has some proficiency. But for him, given his mix, word problems are the big goal. 

https://www.evan-moor.com/p/20048/evan-moor-daily-word-problems-grade-3  This is the series I use with him for word problem and it goes through gr6. They updated it to Common Core, and I like it a LOT. He can do a week at a time, which is really just 5 themed chunks. That takes maybe 10 minutes. They bring in graphing, the language of math, multi-step problems, all kinds of things that would be a pain in the butt to make happen on your own. I'm not saying they're age appropriate, just that if they would fit your students they're well done. 

If you need something more stepped up, look for more word problem books. Someone had referred me to Crossing the River with Dogs years ago, and that's an example. The Zaccaro Primary Challenge Math would be another. But really, I like the thought process in the Common Core math word problems and would be looking for something newer. 

[PeterPan]

In her free Card Games ebook, Ronit Bird shows a game using ante poker cards. Changing up he types of cards can keep things fresh too. They're maybe $6 on ebay, and they're long and skinny like popsicle sticks, making it easy to lay out a lot of cards. She uses them for her positive/negative turnovers game. If your kids need to work on +/- numbers, that's a GREAT game. You can play and then, as they become more proficient, begin to write equations for their plays. You can introduce parenthetical notation. You just keep milking it.

Umbra is the brand. You'll have to look around to find a deal. Umbra Ante Slim Playing Cards: Sports ... - Amazon.comhttps://www.amazon.com › Umbra-Ante-Slim-Playing-Cards

Umbra Ante Playing Cards Card Game W/ Case Slim Green ...https://www.ebay.com › ... Here not too bad.

Edited September 29, 2019 by PeterPan

[popmom]

You might consider Math on the Level. Especially with your time constraints. 

[gardenmom5]

my oldest son was motivated, so he worked on his own.  a motivated 8th grader should be able to do this to at least get to their grade level.

Ds got onto khan academy online.  free.  he went back and started at first grade math and realized he never had a good math foundation.  without that, you're not going to progress.  he went from 1st grade math to testing into calculus in five months.  (he started a mech eng  program at the local CC so he could transfer to the state uni.  he's now working on a MS in engineering.)

[AmandaVT]

I don't usually forget when I've posted, but somehow I totally forgot about this one. Thank you for the suggestions. I'm going to check out Ronit Bird and the other suggestions. The Fraction Puzzle looks really neat. 

@prairiewindmomma - one has a SLD in math, with her math scores in the WIAT coming in in the low 60's and an IQ in the Average range. The other has never been formally tested for some reason, so she's not on an IEP, but I can pull her out for services as well as she's in a similar place to the first kiddo. Neither seem to have a grasp on math facts and rely on calculators for everything. I think they've been pulled along over the years. Vermont stopped giving out grades a few years ago and instead use proficiencies, which may be a good idea in theory, but it seem to be implemented as less work, no homework and kids getting passed through grades easier. 😞 The math teacher is lovely, but relies heavily on procedural with little to no concepts being taught. All of the teachers are under a lot of pressure to have kids meet the Core Standards, and aren't really allowed to meet kids where they are in math. 

As a whole, the kids aren't bring taught number sense. They all look at me like I'm nuts when I suggest estimating rather than jump right on a calculator (I do a mix of push in and pull out services). 

I've been trying to play games with the kids when I have them - Yahtzee, Tenzi, Blokus, Zeus on the Loose with some of the 5th graders I work with, Number Knockout, basically any game I can think of that may be helpful. I've been trying to bring concrete and representational materials in using math tiles and number lines and pictures when appropriate.  Math feels like these random disconnected lessons where the kids learn a procedure and are given a handful of problems to practice and then they move on to the next procedure. It's hard to watch.

@square_25 - I don't think they're solid in any of above. If given an equation like 3x + 4 = 19, they'll be able to say something like: "because there is a plus 4 on one side, we need to put a minus 4 on the other" and then follow the steps to solve the problem. But, if they did their calculations wrong, they'd have no issues saying 3x + 4 = 19, so x = 45 and not be able to see why it doesn't make sense. There is no automaticity in even basic math facts like 3 * 3. These girls are struggling more than their peers, but now that I've been there for a few months, I realize it's a district wide issue, not just a few kids. 

I'm bookmarking all of your suggestions - thank you so much!!