Originally Posted by Kriston
....I decided I wanted to make math easy for him for a while rather than challenging him. We were trying to go "deeper, not faster," but I think now my philosophy is "neither deeper nor faster"! <sheepish grin>

.... He's significantly slower on subtraction--sometimes has to flip it around to addition to recall it. He knows maybe half the 0-10 multiplication facts, though not usually very fast, and he knows virtually none of the division facts.

So I guess that's a "no, he doesn't really have his math facts down yet."

Should I be drilling him more, do you think? The psych warned that too much focus on memorization--"drill and kill"--would likely quash his interest in learning.

*sigh* Honestly, I have been feeling like I'm walking a tightrope on this whole math issue. Too much drill? Not enough? Mostly I've been following my gut with it--try a little and if he seems tired of it, we move on to something else. But it's hard to know if I'm giving him what he needs. I just keep reminding myself that he's doing 3rd grade math, so if we did no more math for the rest of the year, he's not behind!

Still, I can't help feeling like I'm missing something that I should be doing for him.

Ugh. It's days like this, when I'm monopolizing the forum, that I'm glad I can type fast! smile


Kriston, I would bet that not having his facts down is slowing him enough that he loses his place. He obviously knows the concepts, but when he's in the middle of a problem if he has to stop and calculate, then get back on track to solving the whole problem, then I bet it's frustrating to him.
While too much rote memorization can be frustrating, sometimes it can be just as frustrating if a person doesn't have those addition/multiplication answers immediately.
GS8 complained at first, but we blocked out a week when all we did in the free time was go over his addition facts. When he got them he realized how much it helped. When he needed his subtraction facts, it only took a day, and very little complaining because he knew it would help him. Same thing with multiplication/division.
Maybe it's time to do a little memorization drills. Promise him a reward for sticking to a task that's not as fun as others. I reward myself for finishing mundane tasks, why not do the same for the kids?