DeeDee, suggestions on ways to go broader that run along rather against the grain of the AS? His therapist keeps pushing word problems as the be all and end all of what spectrum kids should work on (rather than zooming ahead on conpects) but he hates them. I would love to find something that moves him up gently to the word problems at his conceptual level.
Hi SiaSL,
(I know I'm not answering what you asked until the end, but some thoughts for context:)
Our DS actually (weirdly) has no trouble with word problems. The only real issue is that showing his work has been a slow skill to come-- and that's only an issue because the answers come to him too quickly, without evident "steps." This is a skill worth mastering, because scientists have to do it, so we forge ahead on it.
For a kid who struggles with word problems, I'd say to work a lot (outside of math) on pragmatic language skills (especially understanding implicit instructions), and to make math as much a part of the household conversation as you can, with an emphasis on what the "need to know" part is in your own thinking. So much of reading a word problem is understanding the nuance of what is being asked for-- is that where your DS has trouble? There are always unwritten assumptions, and those are often hard for AS folks.
But you asked for broad. Right now we are opting to do ALEKS science (chemistry) rather than more math: chem is nice because it has applied algebra in it. Once he runs out of that, I'll be searching for other online self-paced science courses that include some math (earth science would be awesome, as would astronomy), or maybe even topics that are further afield. (I have my eye on NUMATS online Chinese... DS would be great at that.)
Because he likes math, he wants to do more and more. If we can make more of it applied math-- statistics, probability-- that would be another way to go broad. Someone here recommended the AOPS courses, especially number theory-- if next year's teacher insists that his ALEKS/online learning time must be math, I will counterpropose that sort of thing.
I am actually looking to get out of the online learning biz with him, as I find it less meaningful than in-person instruction, but as long as the gifted program requires a few hours a week of it, I'm going to be tailoring it along those lines.
DeeDee
So, just a little bit of reassurance that while it's a worthwhile skill to teach, if a kid isn't getting it when they are young and math is easy, I wouldn't overly stress it. There will come a time when they need to show their work and they'll get the skill then.