Thanks so much! I wrote that at about 3 in the morning and it is a little long. Thanks for reading through all of it.
Are you sure she knows 23+2=25?
Yes. And I'm sure she knows that 223+239 is 452, though she does not want to write the problem down, just the answer--and that can lead to calculation errors. We just finished playing a card game (Dominion) that involves adding up lots of different point values, so I know she can rearrange numbers in her head (at least to some extent) in order to make calculation easier. She's never been a math fanatic, but last year she liked math and did well in it.
What I don't know is if she can separate the steps out to get to those answers the way the teacher would like her to, and if so, if we should drill her on that at home. (I find that with motor tasks she needs lots of repetition.) To tie my question back to the spelling, one spelling exercise they do is called a sailboat. They write one letter of the word, then two, then three...It is incredibly frustrating for her and she does not need to do it to learn spelling. As a mom, I don't want to make her do it because it is counterproductive. Nothing about "sailboating" is useful to her in spelling or in life. Is the math issue like that? Meaning if I don't encourage her to go through the frustration of sitting down and using this written system to decompose numbers and write so many equations, will she be missing something?
I'm not worried about dyslexia. She's been reading since she was 4. She reads about a minimum of two hours a day and way above grade level. Vision has been checked. Working memory isn't bad but it isn't unusually high. However, she just panics SO MUCH when it comes to writing things down. I think it limits her working memory and that could be a problem as well.
