Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion names used in math problems

DS5 just started EPGY math through open enrollment on Thursday. I didn't adjust the grade level and just started from the beginning of K. He is almost done with what I suppose is a year of kindergarten math. I think he has one or two lessons left.

There are some beginning logic questions and I noticed he was really getting tripped up. Sadly his little brother was loud during this section and since he can't read well enough to read the word problems, he has to hear them. I ended up reading some of them for him if he didn't catch it all the first time.

If the problem had names with which he was not familiar, he couldn't do it. If I read the problem but changed the name to someone he knew, it was easy.

Any ideas on what is going on here?

Just distraction, being more interested in the new name than in the problem, maybe?

This is normal and one of the reasons why in international math tests the names get adapted to local, familiar names. I do not have any references on hand, but there has been some research done on this and younger students are more impacted by this. I would not worry about at this point, and do what you are doing now, just change the names when reading.

I'd just tell your son to focus on the math problems, and that people can have many different names. I bet you'll notice the issue is resolved fairly quickly, especially as his reading picks up. No big deal.

Any textbook sold at a national level is going to contain names that most children are unfamiliar with anyway, because:

1) Melting pot
2) Parental preference for unusual names

So, short of having teachers rewrite the textbook each year for whatever vogue names showed up in that particular age range (since about half the parents who go looking for unusual names in any given year end up picking the same one), it's something you'll just have to deal with.

This explains what my son's math teacher makes the class do! Before they start the test or assignment, they need to go through each problem and cross out names and pronouns. They then insert their own names and appropriate pronouns. I thought it was a waste of time, but I didn't realize that the unusual names could be distractions for kids! Interesting.

Although I favor using short, commonplace names in textbooks to maximize the number of students who have heard the names or seen them in print, if the textbook does not follow this practice, I think crossing out names is a waste of time.

I think, at that age, it is a question of ability to take on others' perspectives. When being asked a math word problem, if it is reasonably easy to insert yourself or someone you know into the problem, then it is easier to "see" the problem and figure out the solution. However, if a child has to imagine some child who they do not know (an unfamiliar name), then that is an extra step to working the problem and this can make it harder for them to "see" the problem and figure out the solution. Ability to see from others' perspectives improves with age, in general. Maybe this would be more true of visual-spatial learners, though.

I've taught my students (English language learners) to just mentally insert a name they like for an unknown name. Doesn't take the time of going through and crossing them out, but drives home the point that "it's just a name... you don't NEED to know how to pronounce it to figure out how many gallons of juice he can make with so many cans of concentrate."

It's also a good skill to have when reading literature. I use the example of me reading Harry Potter (as an adult, reading children's literature at that) with my students: I had read the first TWO books before I thought to Google how to pronounce the name Hermione. I had been saying it wrong in my head all along, but because I could just sort of skip over it, it didn't affect my enjoyment or comprehension of the story.

Side note: And then there's my one seventh grader who keeps changing the names to Booger. I giggle in my head every time.

This has happened to us as well, but for reading. Both my kids would do this but more so my daughter: they'd scan the first section of text they were about to read and if there was a name included that they'd never seen before they'd refuse to read. "I can't do it" or "it's too hard." I just figured it was perfectionism. It confused the heck out of me at first (as in, I knew they could read it) but once I figured out that the name was the issue I'd simply read it out loud myself first.