I have never encountered this issue so feel free to disregard my post. However, based on this initial post and your most recent one below, I am not sure that your DS is not justified in being upset. It may not be that his memory is faulty due to his lack of interest. Perhaps the lesson did not provide a strong enough conceptual background for him to understand what 1/10 X 5 1/2 really means? It is very common for children to be able to execute routine algorithms without truly understanding the conceptual background or be able to apply the concepts to real life problems. When DS10 was first accelerated in math, they tested him on real life problems and brain teaser typed questions he had never seen only after he passed above-grade level year-end tests. I was told that some parents enrolled their children in curriculums like Kumon and while they managed to pass basic routine tests, they did not have a strong conceptual background beyond routine execution of numerical operations. Your example of your DS' difficulty is actually with the intermediate step - verbal representation of a mathematical concept. I would step back further and make sure he understood the concepts first, then work on verbal represntations. In other words, show him real life problems requiring you to take 1/10 of 5 1/2 of something. Then verbalize in different ways how to ask that question. Then and only then create the equation. It is also possible that a weak conceptual background makes it easy to forget the routine steps to solving a particular type of equation. Again, I dont' know your DS so only guessing based on the limited information posted.
Last edited by Quantum2003; 02/09/14 10:32 AM.
