This story doesn't seem crazy to me. It is very similar to DD13. She was always very verbal and we thought nothing about her math even though she was doing fine. Her first grade teacher said she was good at math but as she went through the grades DD thought she wasn't as she hated times tables. Eventually she hit algebra in fifth grade and wow, her interest and achievement took off. She suddenly realised she was good at math. Grade 6 they did virtually no math so she did her own program but was losing interest. She wanted to be taught, not just do books or online stuff herself.

High school math was tedious as she had done year 7 and 8 math already. We have been battling three years to get her to the right level. We found a tutor late last year as DD jumped from year 8 to year 9 math and needed to learn one topic that she hadn't already covered. We kept the tutor. She loves what she does with him but hates school math because it still isn't at the right level.

The tutor is a PhD in math and statistics and can argue why formulas are derived and things her teacher either doesn't have the time or knowledge to do. DD currently works at yr11/12 level in math. I don't know if she still loves it because her school math teacher puts her off. The teacher actually complained that she couldn't keep DD engaged because she worked ahead with a tutor. Sigh, this after discussing further math acceleration with the teacher and her agreeing that working at a higher level with the tutor was the best option as they couldn't timetable another skip.

Yes, go with a tutor for interest sake. I don't understand the 84 cut off. Error analysis is more important than the number. Is your DS making errors of knowledge or simply of computation? If there are knowledge errors then they can be remediated.

Holes do show up. DD only really learned long division this year because she thought it was pointless until she got to dividing Polynomials. It's quite odd what little things she doesn't know but it takes minutes to teach her and now she understands why they are important. Holes aren't a reason not to move forward. Isn't learning all about filling in what you don't know, not relearning what you do?

An online course might also work depending on your child but a good tutor will cover more of what DS doesn't know faster I would think and be good at plugging the holes.

Last edited by ndw; 09/30/14 07:02 PM. Reason: Correct word