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I need help figuring out math with this kid


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My dd is in 7th grade.  Math has been horrible.  It was the main reason I sent her to school for 4th grade but I still was teaching her math daily.  She never tested as having learning disabilities.  I could homeschool her successfully if the math thing wasn’t so hard for both of us.
 

We are trying to work through Saxon 7/6.  I’m pretty sure she would fail every test I give her at the end of the section which shows she doesn’t understand the concepts completely.   I would be constantly reviewing prior sections.  I have gone back a few lessons in the book, retaught the material, and tried to move on, but she is not learning it to be point she can do even 50% of a lesson on her own.  She’ll initially completely understand the material, do a bunch of practice problems correctly, but have no recall of it in later lessons.  We did Saxon over the summer and she did great (at least with all the hints I give her).  We took two weeks off and she had forgotten about 50%of what she learned and what I thought she had mastered.   There will be problems that she hasn’t seen for a week and has no idea how to do them again.  I am constantly giving hints for about 75% of the problems.  I thought about starting the whole book over again, but eventually, we would be right back to the same issues.
 

When she was younger, it took years for her to learn her addition/subtraction problems with instant recall.   I tried flash cards, manipulatives, and games.  She just never could remember them.  Even today, she’ll have to skip count on things7x8 but complete 27x38 with no hesitation.  I am at a loss with how her brain thinks.  Some days, she’ll fly through her lesson with ease, but most days she needs constant hints.  
 

She was adopted at 2 1/2.  She was in a Chinese orphanage with poor nutrition.  She can read very well and is at grade level generally.  I don’t know how to help her with math.  New curriculum?  Her math memory is like a sieve.  Somethings stick, but eventually, everything learned gets lost.  She has ADHD that seems pretty mild when being homeschooled.  

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I don't know. Around that age with my dd (also ADHD, not on meds at that time) I finally realized I could keep spinning my wheels in the same computation mess FOREVER. I gave her a calculator and moved on. She didn't stop needing it for basic computation till about 9th, right about the time the puberty fog cleared.

Is she on meds? Honestly, meds made an astonishing difference in this. We didn't start those till 16. But that kind of Mary Poppins, in and out, not retaining, that's probably the ADHD. You could try meds, see what happens. 

Ok, you asked what math. Does she have any math strengths? Like does she visualize well or do well at geometry or time or measurement? There are usually alternating chapters for that if you do say a BJU math. I'm not necessarily saying do BJU math, but I did for a few years with her during that window. And that's what we did, running chapters she was strong in parallel to stuff that was more swampy. 

Is she any good at word problems? Does she half way enjoy them? Evan Moor has workbooks for Daily Math Word Problems that I adore. They're sort of brief but witty. 

Is it an option to freshen evals to see if she qualifies under SLDs? Maybe get some data to guide you.

As far as what program, since it can't get any worse, you might do something drastic like tossing the curriculum, doing a year of Family Math (or something similar hands on) and just use a really straightforward daily math word problems kind of thing to keep her going forward on written math skills. And maybe do some Hands-On Equations, stuff with fractions. HOE has fractions kits that are ok. I LOVE the fraction tiles workbook we used. Maybe less computation for a while and more hands on, more contextualized. Word problems are so good and so real life. Assuming she has been through the multiplication/division facts, maybe just let her use a calculator. Maybe some Tang Math.

My ds has SLD math and I just mix it all together like that. If I put him into a straight curriculum, he would just die a thousand deaths. It's just not his reality to stress so much over computation, but ironically he's considered math gifted. He can do OTHER things. It's just things involving sequencing of steps and number sense that bog down. If you harness his ability to visualize, he's really golden. Maybe look for some strengths. It couldn't get much worse. And you know, the word problems would be your insurance.

There is a book Crossing the River with Dogs that some people use around this stage. I have it, so who knows. I'm still working on getting him through multiplication, mercy. But I know if he can do word problems and operate a calculator, he's probably at least at life skills level.

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She actually does ok with problems that don’t have words in them.  Today, she had a word problem that she had no clue how to do.  She couldn’t even figure out how to draw a picture for it.  However, if I had put down the equation for the problem which was 1-(3/8+3/8), she would have declared it easy.  Her math abilities were tested.  She was below average but not out of range.  He problem solving skills see in the 16th percentile.  Overall, the tester didn’t feel she qualified for a learning disability.

Her math strengths are just straight computation ironically.  Sometimes I start out lessons just doing the straight computation problems so we can get the easy stuff out of the way.  
 

Also, I did try the medication route for ADHD.  It was a complete nightmare.  She was given an antidepressant at the same time because the doctor didn’t want her skin picking habit to intensify.  Between the two prescriptions, she was a zombie during the day and we almost had to bring her to a psychiatric hospital quite a few nights.  Maybe I’ll give her coffee next time she sits down to do math and see what happens.  

Edited by bethben
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How does she respond to caffeine?Have you run genetics on her? Caffeine is a methyl donor, so it can exaccerbate things. 

If you revisted the meds idea, she might have more options. I'm using one that both helps my skn picking and attention. I go zombie only if it's too high. I don't need a lot for attention, so the slight bump of the anxiety med gets me there. You can also research glutathione and NAC to see if they would help the anxiety and skin picking. I had mine so many years, I had no clue anything could help.

Ok, so if word problems are the issue, back up on them, separate resource. https://www.evan-moor.com/daily-word-problems-grade-3-teachers-edition-print  They'll have samples of all the grades at that link.

There are workbooks that do even more to teach hwo to solve word problems. I just don't have the links handy.

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I agree with Elizabeth that using manipulatives to solve word problems might be a good option to try, going way back to very simple lower level word problems and working gradually to harder problems.   Physically represent the information. Then, divide a dry erase boad into columns.  Have a column for what information are you given/see.  A column for what you can do with the information you have.  A column for what you need to find.  (Sometimes thinking through all of the things they can do with the information they have helps them sort through how they actually need to solve the problem they need to solve.) Use the manipulatives to solve for the different things you can do with the information you have. Does she understand the distinctions?

Does she need Saxon's incremental approach to teaching?  Another text that starts at the very beginning and covers all elementary level math skill is Lial's Basic College Math.  (It starts at the very beginning with place value and incorporate words as well as numbers.)  You can look inside via previews to see if its very basic approach and step by step approach to how to interpret words in problems might help.  https://www.amazon.com/Basic-College-Mathematics-Margaret-Lial/dp/0321825535  Since it has the word college on the front but starts at a very low level, if any of it is self-confidence related, it might encourage her.   

I hope you can find something that connects with how she thinks.

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It could be that for the word problems the issue is *language*. So you want a workbook (I've seen one and just don't remember where) that helps her connect the language to the operations and what she needs to do. I particularly like the EM workbooks I linked because they are stories and provide easily visualizable context.

I don't know, I haven't taught every type of dc, only my own. My tip is just think in terms of language, since that seems to be where the breakdown is. With my ds, for instance, "of" meant nothing. Having multiples "of" something made no sense to him. You'd just see the totally blank look in real life, and it carried over to word problems. The language used in word problems to clue kids in to what operations to use is pretty consistent, so you want her to see the direct correlation and you want real life activities to make those words have MEANING to her.

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8 hours ago, PeterPan said:

How does she respond to caffeine?Have you run genetics on her? Caffeine is a methyl donor, so it can exaccerbate things. 

If you revisted the meds idea, she might have more options. I'm using one that both helps my skn picking and attention. I go zombie only if it's too high. I don't need a lot for attention, so the slight bump of the anxiety med gets me there. You can also research glutathione and NAC to see if they would help the anxiety and skin picking. I had mine so many years, I had no clue anything could help.

What is that medication if I may ask?  I do have a nurse practitioner (a name only right now) who will match genetics to medication.  I forgot about caffeine being a methyl donor.  She has MTHFR C677T - homogenous so her ability to detox and methylate is pretty reduced.  

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On 8/19/2020 at 10:59 PM, PeterPan said:

How does she respond to caffeine? Have you run genetics on her? Caffeine is a methyl donor, so it can exacerbate things. 

 

Ok, so if word problems are the issue, back up on them, separate resource. https://www.evan-moor.com/daily-word-problems-grade-3-teachers-edition-print  They'll have samples of all the grades at that link.

There are workbooks that do even more to teach how to solve word problems. I just don't have the links handy.

Hey Peter Pan, do you recall  yet the names of the workbooks that do even more to teach solving word problems? 

I looked at Evan-Moor books you suggested, and they look pretty good.  I would just like to compare them.

 

I have a student  with severe dyslexia that recently went to the ear doctor for occasional problems. He has told me in the past that his ears hurt if something is dropped, it is so loud.   I am not sure what other problems he was experiencing that prompted them to finally go to the doctor.  When I asked what the result was, he told me the doctor wants him to stay off caffeine (he is 10).  So switching to Sprite instead of Coke is an example he gave me.  And they gave him medication, which I do not know what it is yet (I am his tutor).  So when I read this post about caffeine, my interest was peaked.  Do you have any idea how caffeine may be causing his hearing problems?  Are there any links you can share with me?  Thanks!

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7 hours ago, ***** said:

Hey Peter Pan, do you recall  yet the names of the workbooks that do even more to teach solving word problems? 

I looked at Evan-Moor books you suggested, and they look pretty good.  I would just like to compare them.

 

I have a student  with severe dyslexia that recently went to the ear doctor for occasional problems. He has told me in the past that his ears hurt if something is dropped, it is so loud.   I am not sure what other problems he was experiencing that prompted them to finally go to the doctor.  When I asked what the result was, he told me the doctor wants him to stay off caffeine (he is 10).  So switching to Sprite instead of Coke is an example he gave me.  And they gave him medication, which I do not know what it is yet (I am his tutor).  So when I read this post about caffeine, my interest was peaked.  Do you have any idea how caffeine may be causing his hearing problems?  Are there any links you can share with me?  Thanks!

I know it was one of the major publishers (Evan Moor, Carson Dellosa, Spectrum, etc. I don't think it was Teacher Created Materials or Teacher Created Resources, but those are another couple I use. It was word problems and I don't recall whether it was a daily/180 series. It was just unusually thorough at teaching the steps and thought processes of word problems. If I ever go back and find it, I'll let you know, sorry.  

So on the doctor thing, I think you're not getting the whole story if you weren't there. The caffeine, as a stimulant, would aggravate anxiety, and the doctor may have been taking the noise reactions as anxiety. Usually when people try dosing caffeine for ADHD they do WAY TOO MUCH. So by telling the parent to axe the caffeine and go to a stimulant med, the doctor was getting the amount DOWN and getting it controlled.

In reality, that kid possibly has sensory issues and needs an audiology eval and OT eval. The audiology you'd do with someone who specializes in auditory processing, and they could do threshold testing and actually show where the frequencies are that he's sensitive to. They did it on my ds and the results fit what we knew in real life about what was bothering him. 

I will say though that just the starting in general could be more anxiety and retained reflexes. If the dc goes for a psych eval for the ADHD, the psych can also screen for anxiety. Some will also have an auditory processing screening like the TAPS or SCAN, though that's a crapshoot and usually a neuropsych. Easier just to go to an audiologist if there are audiology issues to sort out. An OT sometimes tests for retained reflexes, but it's usually something they're trained on later, not in school, meaning you have to ask. You can also google for the tests and do it yourself. Having a body at 4 alarm bells fire level all the time is a BIG CLUE there are retained reflexes.

So the caffeine, if dosed *very low*, would be sorta like taking a stimulant med. It hits less parts of the brain, but it's why so many ADHD people are self medicating with caffeine. There is info online, but the doses to do that are very low, something like .10mg per kg bodyweight. Basically, you'd be cutting a No Doze in half or less for many kids, depending on size. A meds are still more targeted, more effective, hitting more parts of the brain.

Well it's good the dc is getting on meds, and hopefully the parent can continue sorting things out. If you see signs of continued discomfort (sensory issues, difficulty being comfortable seated, difficulty with self-awareness and realizing how his body is feeling or what it is in space), you could bring it to the parent and suggest she pursue OT or audiology evals. 

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7 hours ago, ***** said:

severe dyslexia

I'll just bring this up for one more point. There's a lot of *overlap* between dyslexia and auditory processing disorder. They'll tease them apart, but there's also a lot of overlap. Given that he's having audiology complaints, it really begs the question of what's going on and whether there are audiology issues feeding into his phonological processing and reading issues. Might be something to tease out. 

So for my ds, he's now been diagnosed with both. And I think what they're doing is teasing it apart, saying the part that was phonology to written was the reading and the part that was working with phonology purely auditorally was auditory processing. Sounds like splitting hairs, ey? 

I'm just suggesting that *severe* might be a time to be thinking *multi faceted*. You could have layers of things working together to make it severe.

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On 8/20/2020 at 8:59 AM, PeterPan said:

It could be that for the word problems the issue is *language*. So you want a workbook (I've seen one and just don't remember where) that helps her connect the language to the operations and what she needs to do. I particularly like the EM workbooks I linked because they are stories and provide easily visualizable context.

I don't know, I haven't taught every type of dc, only my own. My tip is just think in terms of language, since that seems to be where the breakdown is. With my ds, for instance, "of" meant nothing. Having multiples "of" something made no sense to him. You'd just see the totally blank look in real life, and it carried over to word problems. The language used in word problems to clue kids in to what operations to use is pretty consistent, so you want her to see the direct correlation and you want real life activities to make those words have MEANING to her.

I love this advice. What if you took a word problem, and then wrote it down a second time with the same wording but different numbers. You could do one word problem entirely, talking it out and drawing it out, and then do the second one together. With my students who really struggle, the anxiety of being faced with a problem to do all of their own made it impossible for them to actually do the problem. When I say, "I'm doing this problem, you watch me," they can relax. If the expectation for the second problem is to mostly watch but help you solve it a little bit, that might help. Instead of having to solve the whole problem, maybe you get her started to the point where she knows what to do next...

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I spent a lot of time with mine translating from a word problem into standard notation, beginning with working out how to tell which of the operations the problem required. And realising even that was too hard, so going back to whether or not we were supposed to have more or less apples by the end. Synonyms are so useful to know...

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On 11/7/2020 at 5:27 AM, PeterPan said:

I know it was one of the major publishers (Evan Moor, Carson Dellosa, Spectrum, etc. I don't think it was Teacher Created Materials or Teacher Created Resources, but those are another couple I use. It was word problems and I don't recall whether it was a daily/180 series. It was just unusually thorough at teaching the steps and thought processes of word problems. If I ever go back and find it, I'll let you know, sorry.  

Peter Pan, thanks for the Math info.  I looked up this, and this seemed pretty helpful from Teacher Created Resources:  https://cdn.teachercreated.com/samples/2483s.pdf

Also, I see some things on TPT for shopping that could be useful for functional math:  https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Grocery-Store-Flyer-Task-Card-Activity-Functional-Math-for-SpEd-and-Life-Skills-2781064?rt=ChMxMzQxNjczMjY0NDI4ODYwMzQzEA0aI2hvbWUtcGFnZS1fcmVjb21tZW5kZV8xNTk0NTYzMTE5NTU4Ihdob21lLXBhZ2UtcnltbC11c2VyLXJlYygA

 

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Hardware-Shopping-Functional-Literacy-and-Math-Skills-Special-Education-1077818?st=d1ee5048573a540d4628e81340d9e4eb

 

Regarding my other student, thank you, I will absorb what you had to say about auditory processing issues for discussion with his parents.  A lot of helpful information, I appreciate it!

 

 

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9 hours ago, ***** said:

I looked up this, and this seemed pretty helpful from Teacher Created Resources:  https://cdn.teachercreated.com/samples/2483s.pdf

 

Yes, yes, you win the prize!!!! That was it!!!

9 hours ago, ***** said:

Also, I see some things on TPT for shopping that could be useful for functional math:

Yes, TPT is a great place to look for stuff like that. My ds has ASD2, so I usually look at Christine Reeve's Autism Classroom Resources on TPT to get ideas. 

 

9 hours ago, ***** said:

Regarding my other student, thank you, I will absorb what you had to say about auditory processing issues for discussion with his parents.  A lot of helpful information, I appreciate it!

https://www.adhdreading.com/product-page/auditory-processing-exercises  I came across this in my wanderings on amazon. I'm not saying it's better than the $100 a pop therapy materials from ProEdInc or doing Buffalo model with an audiologist, but the price is certainly right. And it's stuff that a tutor could do. This lady is working in schools, I think maybe as an intervention specialist, so that's the situation where you want to go in, do something, have it make a difference. Hits a lot of the major areas. Just doesn't include audio tracks to try to work on the processing in noise piece. But, not to say the obvious, but you can sorta hack that yourself by turning on noise in the background, having them listen with one earbud instead of two (to work on monoaural), etc. I'm not saying it's as good as what an audiologist or therapist would do, but if a little bit makes noticeable progress, it could be worth it.

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All great ideas, thank you!  And we have added  David Kilpatrick's 1 minute exercises to our sessions as well...student is having difficulty with the 'quick' consonant blends, the 2nd sound.     Having a hard time hearing the r or l in words like:  brick, Clint (and the n near the end, which is understandable because it is a nose sound).

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5 minutes ago, ***** said:

All great ideas, thank you!  And we have added  David Kilpatrick's 1 minute exercises to our sessions as well...student is having difficulty with the 'quick' consonant blends, the 2nd sound.     Having a hard time hearing the r or l in words like:  brick, Clint (and the n near the end, which is understandable because it is a nose sound).

Yeah, that's tricky distinguishing hearing loss from APD from dyslexia from a working memory issue. Does he have any trouble articulating those sounds?

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No trouble with articulation.  I believe his ability to remember sight words is better now than over a year ago.  And we have done some crossing the midline exercises as well as eye tracking/perception exercises.  I am seeing him online for tutoring now, and there is some background noise occasionally because of space issues at school, so maybe this will give him some practice with auditory (he uses headphones) until I can order some of the above materials. 

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7 hours ago, ***** said:

at schoo

If you can compel the school to do a basic audiology exam or even go ahead and run something like the TAPS, it might be wise. You wouldn't want to miss actual hearing loss. Just a cover your butt kinda thought. TAPS =test of auditory processing skills. 

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