My ds is in the 2nd grade and has been having issues this year with math. I just got his progress report and his grades all around have declined dramatically- from A's and B's to B's, C's and an F (in math). How does this happen in one grading period? His teacher says that he gets frustrated with math (which is done in the morning) and mentally shuts down for the rest of the day and wont do anything she asks of him because he is upset. I can definitely see my child doing this.
I recently contacted the school to get them to test him for Dysgraphia and am still waiting to hear back from the school psychologist.
Tonight I found a computer program that makes regrouping fun and I let ds play for practice. To my astonishment he was able to do two digit subtraction with regrouping, with horizontal or vertical layout, in his head. He was actually enjoying doing math, for the first time this school year. Bingo. I truly believe that the problem lies with the fact that is most likely has dysgraphia. He gets confused by his own handwriting and gets frustrated, beats himself up, etc.
I contacted his teacher and asked her to let him work the problems in his head and her reluctant response was that's fine but he still needs to learn how to work them out for tcaps. If he can get the answer in his head, then he already knows how to "work" them, no? He can write them out, that's not the issue, but until I get this dysgraphia stuff figured out...what's the big deal in letting the kid learn the way that is best for him?
