She's struggling incredibly with basic addition and subtraction and watching her I can't quite tell if she's
a) using multiple methods in a conflicting manner
b) suffering from a working memory or processing deficit (ie the method is fine but she keeps losing her place and miscounting). She does have ADHD, this is feasible BUT she is on medication, which does work, and her WMI on the SB5 was 140+ BEFORE medication....
Can anyone suggest the right approach to figuring out if this is a method problem or a maturity of mental math ability problem? I am assuming I would address fixing these causes differently.
Struggling how, exactly?
And in what SORTS of representations?
Standard over-under notation? Side-by-side, equation-style?
Manipulatives or a drawn representation of them?
First thing that I would try is to have her "teach" a stuffed animal or pet-- or you, if she will-- how to do the problems she is working on. Let her do a few of those, maybe even pipe up with questions if a 'gap' isn't being explained-- that will let you know whether or not she's "smushing" methods somehow and adding 2+2=5 as a result.
Then you'll know what you need to remediate, if there's a problem in something she's learned (or erroneously applied/synthesized).
