Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion How to debug/correct basic math problems

Just bumping this to ask for more help re math facts to 20... I've given up on timez attack as DD is too unfocused to even notice and read the sums reliably before the time is up, let alone answer them. We've been trying this one today:

http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/thats_a_fact/english_K_3.html

I have no memory of mastering these facts myself. Or even of my first child working through this to be honest (we had MUCH bigger problems with literacy than addition/subtraction facts, I guess, so this just happened in the background and was never poor enough to be anyone's primary concern). So for something so basic I feel rather out in the dark. I can tell that addition/subtraction facts (not concepts) within 20 is a problem for my DD but I am not clear what the ideal way to fix it is.

Doing the sums on the link above she is slow but accurate within 12, very slow and less accurate within 20 (but struggling to attend at all). Note that she is in general slow with most things. Slow to talk, slow to respond... Presumably this is ADHD related. My husband is a bit like that, his sister is actively difficult to talk to she is so slow to reply... So slow might not mean too much.

She's using her fingers a lot or just staring into space and I feel like maybe I should be teaching her better methods, but I am not sure what they would be. When I am faced with sums within 20 I either "just know" the relationship, or if I can't remember (my memory is impaired by a health problem), then I will very rapidly break it down using the gaps either side of 10... But I am not sure if this is what I should be teaching her? Or how?

Does that make any sense at all?

Also worth noting that with the timez attack retention she can't get past she'll struggle with different sums each time and get a different set of problems to practice each time. So it's not been a case of she just didn't learn 2 or 3 groupings. One pass through she'll be fast with certain facts and then not get them the next pass...

Quoting you...One of the concerns I was trying to explain to her school was I felt like coming at a vast array of concrete representations of the same idea again and again and again was confusing her (ie "Didn't we just do this? So this must be new... So there must be some trick here... Ummm....")....

When I read this, I just thought that perhaps a video would help if this is her thought process. All kids know a video is the same thing again and again, right?

My son (first grade) has learned a lot over the last two years using the Mathtacular series of videos, and he still has a lot more to learn from them. I like to watch them, too. They do little skits that are silly, but get the word across. (Much less dry than Khan Academy, imo.)

(He's in the 99th percentile for the nation in math according to the MAP testing this fall. I think videos help tremendously. Especially for a visual learner.)

Thanks Anerteine, i will look at that link!

Portia we have different currency to you guys, no 1s or 2s, without small coins I can't see how money would help. She has no trouble using beads to demonstrate. But she just isn't fast or accurate at all with facts that really are needed for double digit subtraction with regrouping. Subtraction wihin 11-20 is fairly fundamental to subtraction like 73-17, which she understands conceptually but makes computational errors in the small steps (ie 13-7).

I have to say I don't get your thing about the names making 11-20 harder at all, I'm assuming a personality thing, for me 25-9 is not easier than 15-9, it's dependent on 15-9... But maybe it will make more sense to DD.

I'm thinking of googling for number bond worksheets. Maybe that's what she needs to memorize...

Have you tried giving her a calculator to just play with math as she sees fit?

Thinking maybe she just needs to absorb in her own way and something freeform like a calculator would let her do that. I'd try to look at where her strengths are and use those as a conduit to the learning. Is there something she learns seemingly effortlessly?

Reading came easily, math concepts came easily. Rote learning does not. I'll think some more about visual representations I think. I feel like she does better with abstract discussion than concrete materials. Like she needs to be told (probably with a visualization) how to think about these problems, not to spend endless time manipulating beads or some such.

Do you guys still have 5 cent pieces - it is amazing how doing money sums is simplified when you only have 10, 20 and 50 cent pieces. Although I did have to explain rounding to to ds6 the other day and the difference between the rounding most of the shops use and what you would use in maths - so it has added to the complications in that way. And I would really like to be able to use coins for place value explanations.

Then I would try the play with numbers approach and pattern concepts. You might like some of the ideas here: http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/Articles/instruction/i90.pdf

My DS just told me today that he realized adding even numbers always gets even numbers, adding odd numbers also get an even number, but adding an even and an odd yields an odd.

He also likes the idea that adding the digits of a number with nine as a factor ends up with nine. And that you can move up the squares by adding the next odd number to the previous square:
1 + 3 = 4
4 + 5 = 9
9 + 7 = 16

I can't even imagine memorizing any addition past 10 when a process works fine.

Puffin she has no trouble at all with things like 10-5, 50-5, 20-10, 50-20, 20+50+5, etc anything I could demonstrate with our coinage I am very confident that even if she was slow she would be accurate (though its hard to say if having the coins in hand would slow her down or speed her up, compared to being asked verbally I could time it, I think she'd be faster verbally). Her problem is NOT with the concept of addition or subtraction.

I am particulalry sure about the coins given her approach to 50-20 would be "thats 5-2, so 30". I think the problem is fundamentally that she's no doing it in her head using memory or patterns like that when regrouping is required, because regrouping requires that you know subtraction for 11-20 or are fast and reliable at working it out. And she's got neither. Like zen scanner said I wouldn't have thought you need to know above 10, but working with her ive realise I do just KNOW the bond between 5, 7 and 12, or 8,8 and 16, etc, I also use tricks around 1s, 5s 9s and 10s. She's not got any of that and I'm not sure why (or why it's hard).

I'm hoping zen scanner has hit on it with the last post. I need to read that link on a real computer.

Maybe I should try teaching times tables and all the patterns and tricks for learning them, Imaybe that's what she needs to get this.

Your DD sounds quite similar to mine. She loves playing with beads but if I try to get her to use them to do tedious calculation, she'd probably run away.

With rote learning, she's very selective. If she isn't interested then she won't remember. It's really extreme.

For her, DreamBox was quite helpful in improving the math fluency. They go over number bonds visually using different tools and things started clicking for her eventually. I use this abacus to help her get unstuck when she gets confused:

http://www.learningresources.com/product/2-color+desktop+abacus.do