Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion The problem with math.

My dd8 is in third grade at school and has been accelerated one year in math since 1st grade. Her COGAT score in math was 99%.
I think she is bright, lazy, and lacks the organization skills that she needs to do well in math. Plus, I think that her confidence is low, she is in a classroom full of the brightest kids in our city. I know I would lack confidence in that situation too!

DD's math teacher just emailed to ask us for a conference to discuss her progress. Her teacher is lovely and wonderful and wants her to do well.

Any ideas on how to best support a child who feels like she cannot do well in math? I put in an email to the gifted teacher at the high school level here in town to see if he had a student who might like to tutor math to dd. DH thinks that we should just have a family math time at 6pm each evening.

I am at a loss. Bright girl but failing! I don't want to pull her back into 3rd grade math, I worry about her self esteem further plummeting. I just want to help her build confidence.

FTR, her school uses Every Day Math. Dreadful!

You are smart to worry about this early on and trying to find a fix to this problem.
There are 2 paths you can take:
1. If one of the parents has time in their schedule, I would strongly recommend that you buy a great program like Singapore (including intensive Practice, Challenging Word Problems etc) and/or Beast Academy and then highly condense the content for the 8 year old so that you can accomplish a lot of teaching afterschool. And find the areas of weakness and go over more content in those areas. I would also suggest the MEP program but that one requires much more condensing for afterschooling . If you are a mathy person, there is no need for the Singapore Home Instructor Guide, but if you are not, then you might have to read the guide before teaching which might take a bit of your daily time.
2. The second option is to find an afterschool math enrichment center - if you can, stay away from chain businesses and find a tutoring center where your daughter can get a lot of individualized attention as well as instruction instead of worksheets.
I think, from what you describe, all that your daughter might need is constant prodding from you and not too much in the way of "teaching" or "instructions" and this can be achieved at home afterschool. Good luck.

Okay-- see, THIS statement makes me think "Is it really the student who is the problem here??"

This program is so heinously bad, IMO, that it can (truly) make mathy kids feel as though they are losing their minds. It's like enduring a thousand paper cuts in the process of learning to write using a proper pencil grip.

Have YOU examined what it is she's having trouble with in the context of the math instruction and curriculum? It may be that there's nothing wrong with her that a better (more coherent) math curriculum couldn't fix.

Interesting...DD8 lacks confidence in math, too. Her school also uses Everyday Math. She is a high math achiever (MAP 99%, high math grades), but per CogAT, quantitative reasoning is a "relative" weakness" (high verbal and nonverbal, lower Q score). Her school differentiates in math, but does not offer AP Math until 4th grade (she has always been placed in the highest math group, so she seems on track). She has been claiming to hate math since 2nd grade (but seems to actually be somewhat good at it?), but loves science. I have noticed some silly, what appear to be careless, mistakes on math assignments lately. I have been trying to keep her confidence in math up - but it is a struggle. Interested to hear what others have to say...

Oh boy! Her math teacher pulled me aside yesterday and said she recommends moving dd back down to 3rd grade math. Overall, dd had a terrible report card yesterday.
I am thinking that is boils down to a confidence issue. Third grade is harder than second, more is expected and she has not risen to the challenge. I think she was embarrassed that it was harder and didn't say anything out of pride. A couple of people I have mentioned this to asking for help have said that third grade is the great equalizer (as in ha, ha, your child is not gifted!) and that it is likely we are putting too much pressure on dd.
Right now our plan is to find her a teenaged girl to mentor her in math with Singapore Math or another curriculum. It is our hope that an enthusiastic role model will help.
I have also learned that I need to support her more educationally this year. Her homework has been diy up to this point and now I need to step up and sit with her at the table.
I am upset that the school did not alert us before this but all is not lost.
I will definitely look into the ideas mentioned here! Let me know if you run across anything else! We have been doing Rapid Math and we did Xtra Math last year. DD hates being timed and I don't blame her at all!

Have you had a chance to communicate any further with the teacher than email and being pulled aside briefly? I'd ask for an actual conference before I'd agree to pulling her back in math - I think it's really important to have both your dd's and her teachers input on what they each think is happening. It could be any of 1000+ different reasons and it's (imo) more important to try to understand what's up before making a change. Hiring a tutor who can work closely with your dd will help you understand what's going on too, because you'll be able to get direct feedback.

FWIW, one of my dd's is a really creative loves-writing-etc type of personality, and she's gone through huge cycles of being great at math vs completely not understanding what was going on back to being bored because it's too easy - all over the map. Part of what looks like total randomness in where she falls in math really isn't as random as it looks - different types of elementary-level math skills require different types of reasoning, and what the dips and swings for our dd are about is really an unevenness in those abilities - and it took awhile to realize that because of the nature of spiraling math programs like EM. She'd be struggling for awhile, and by the time we'd find out about it and were trying to figure out what was up the class would have moved on to something else then she'd be back on top of things and doing well.

Another thought for you, just something to keep in the back of your head - 2nd/3rd grade is the time at which a lot of us 2e parents saw our kids actually struggle for the first time. This is not the same thing as saying "all kids even out in 3rd grade" - instead what happens with a lot of our kids who have challenges is they can get by in early elementary with compensating, but the change in expectations, type of work, and workload around 3rd grade often tips the coping bucket over just enough that it starts becoming obvious there is a challenge. Please know I'm not saying your dd has a challenge!

Best wishes,

polarbear

I agree with polarbear--different kids are good at different kinds of math, and math comes in all flavors. My DD has high achievement test scores for math but she really struggles with math facts and fluency. I can see how her teacher might think she's "slow". But she has no problem with advanced concepts and reasoning ability. I breezed through geometry, physics, statistics, etc. in school but had a horrible time with arithmetic and alegebra. I really did not start getting good grades in math til middle school after all the drill and repetition with math facts (and I never DID learn the math facts very well--but now finally know them after watching my kids play Big Brainz ad nauseum over the summer).

I think it will help to find out what specifically she is struggling with. Is she a kid who is good at arthmetic but struggles with abstract concepts? Or vice versa? And then decide if she is likely to continue to struggle in higher grades/levels or if this is just a phase.

I have no clear picture of what she needs to learn and what she has mastered. Thank you, EM! /sarcasm
I will certainly ask the teacher for help figuring out what it is she still needs help mastering. I know she is fuzzy on her times tables. She claims they are too much work to memorize and that music won't help her learn them.

I will definitely think about the 2e thing. My ds is 2e and it wouldn't be unreasonable to think that dd is too. I think she tends towards the ADD side but she has coped so well that I never pursued it. I should probably take some time and see if that is compounding her issues now.

I love this little girl so much, I wish I could do more for her, I wish I could make this all go away and have her life be like it was last year.

We are having somewhat similar issues in math this year and her school also uses EveryDay Math. I really think it's an issue with Everyday Math because she does much better with a program like Khan. I don't think she likes all the jumping around and prefers to have a choice with what she learns.

ETA: her teacher lets them do any page out of the EM workbook they want but they continue to take the unit tests in order. So dd could be doing unit 5 workbook pages but taking a unit 3 test.

Why?