Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments How to undo bad habits learned in school?

DS5 has been doing addition and subtraction for a while now 1 1/2+. Before he started K he could tell you what 10-7 was immediately. Lately I've been noticing that he will no longer just give an answer but must count everything on his fingers. I've been becoming increasingly frustrated because I know he knows this. I've recently, can't believe it took me this long, realized why he is doing this. In math class they have them count everything on their fingers! They add with their fingers, they subtract with their fingers, they check their answers on their fingers!

I think the school sees it as going "deeper". This lets the kids see the math and manipulate it, at least this is what I am assuming. I can see where they are coming from with kids just learning the concept of addition and subtraction but DS is way past that. How do I stop this? how do I let him know that it is OK to just know the answer? Explain to him that knowing the answer will actually help him do the type of problems that he wants to do? To me it feels like he is going backwards and this is a very bad habit to get into.

Agree with MoN here. It's good to see the same concept/procedural tool from different angles.

One of the things missing from a lot of math instruction at lower levels is the idea of "checking" using an alternative method. While I realize that with arithmetic, automaticity is the eventual goal, the HABIT of using a secondary method to back up your conclusions is actually a good one. He won't keep using it here, and neither will classmates.

I completely agree with checking your answers! DS and I had a talk about why that was important the other night. He would get a problem wrong and be sooo upset, he couldn't understand how it was possible. I'd ask him if he checked his answer and he would say no. We go back and check the answers and then he could see where missed something, usually because he wouldn't show his work in the first place. Oh well, he'll learn eventually.

The counting on his fingers thing though actually seemed like it was creating a barrier to him answering, and understanding, some problems. He'd want to count on his fingers from 30 to 50 instead of using the skill, idea, that 20 is two 10s.

The school has told me many times that they don't care if a kid knows something, the want them to "understand" it. I'm actually not positive that they wouldn't make him go back and count on his fingers to prove that 12+5=17.

I hope you are right. I'm just finding it very frustrating right now. This might just be that it is coming on top of everything else I'm dealing with school about and I'm making too much of it.

I also agree with master of none and HowlerKarma. Also, speed here is not important in my opinion. Let him take his time to experiment so he can get a better understanding and a better foundation for future learning.

The current educational theory about math is that children have to develop "number sense." (I agree with this in principle, although the way it is applied, they tend to assume that this happens around age 5-6 and they don't account for the kids who have it earlier.) This is regarded as foundational; and they are emphasizing manipulatives as a way of reinforcing "number sense." They don't want kids to have algorithms or memorize math facts before they have an intuition about what those facts mean.

I would like to see more differentiated math starting in K, but I don't have a major problem with this concept as an idea about child development...

DeeDee

For my DD5, I sometimes just let her do it the slow way until she eventually discover the easier ways. I remember she used to count from 1 to 51 for 1+50. But this requires a lot patience and there is also the risk of the child getting frustrated.

I agree with what other posters have said and I get that kids need to learn the reason why, but I also understand Eibbed's frustration.

Our DD7 who has been adding/subtracting in her head for quite some time now just mentioned yesterday to me that she knows she could do more problems on her timed addition/subtraction test, but the teacher wants her to do some sort of dot counting to get the answer. DD showed me how she counts points on the numbers to get the answer. I asked DD if she knows 5+5=10 then why can't she just put down the answer and go on. The response I got was something like "Mommmmmm, that isn't how I'm supposed to do it".

Yes-- I get it too. The dot-counting well into second grade was not a good experience for my DS either.

DeeDee

Agh, my kid is doing that! I've tried to explain about "counting up" from the larger number, and she just looks at me like I'm from Mars. She's got this huge verbal working memory, combined with much less impressive visual-spatial skills. She looks like she's leaping ahead in math, but she's not learning the short-cuts she's going to need. (I asked her how many wheels three cars have, and before I could even start sketching groups of four wheels she popped out with "twelve!" She did it entirely by counting in her head.) Glad to hear your kid got over it, I hope mine will too!

To understand that counting on from the larger number works, you have to be completely sure that addition is commutative (1+50 = 50+1). I think it's not surprising if a young child doesn't get this, or even if they behave as though they get it and later don't - I think this kind of thing can happen as understanding deepens. E.g. if you notice for the first time that 50-1 isn't the same as 1-50, you might also doubt yourself in addition for a while! I wouldn't push this.