Hi, thanks for all the responses! I definitely see the value of the speed on one hand, however the stress and discouragement is results in for my ds is just too much.
He ALWAYS gets these facts under his belt in fairly short order once he is back in school, so I am not worried about that but how it is perceived by the teacher and by him. He never fails to get regular math work done (homework or regular tests, etc.)
(In addition to being out of practice, the stopwatch of 1 minute really tends to just distract him rather than focus him. )
I do feel the school should be able to see the difference between overall math ability and the contrived speed tests. Doing things orally instead of written does tend to speed him up, or alternating the types of problems, instead of all multiplication of positive numbers, throwing in a few odd things...he will engage more and do better, and that is the whole point, imo.
I am not aware of the skill of intuition being increased by drilling on facts...?
We are going to move on in math at home whether or not they can do anything about this for ds at the school, that is for sure.
