Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Minute Math in 7th grade

Since both class tests and standardized tests are timed, speed is important. To do algebra quickly you need to know your math facts cold. If 7th graders don't know their addition and multiplication tables, I think it is appropriate for the teacher to quiz them.

Can you suggest that your son be allowed to establish a "personal best" time for completion?

Honestly-- doing that makes a WORLD of difference with DD and I both on these {muttering curse} things.

It's not that we CANNOT do them in the allotted time-- it's that the pressure is so extreme and our perfectionistic tendencies so profound, that we tend to freeze like deer in headlights, watching the CLOCK as much as using metacognition to monitor our own task-performance.

Neither one of us has a processing speed problem. Only an anxiety one associated with this kind of nonsense.

When I saw that developing in DD, I refused to have her do any more of this "60 seconds to complete this sheet" baloney.

She WAS able to do it as "when you're finished, write down the time on the timer" and we'd compare how much FASTER she was getting with time.

Mentally, that one subtle shift was a complete game changer for her-- it felt less punitive (Oh, look, you FAILED to finish 'in time') and more rewarding (Look-- ten seconds faster than last week!).

Bostonian, I do understand that. However, this is an advanced math group. They know their facts. Ds knows his facts cold. His mind freezes under pressure. I know it's a hard thing to understand unless you've seen it first hand or experience it yourself. My dh has a similar reaction to pressure. He's a brilliant man and a methodical thinker. When we would get together with couples and play password, I could never understand why urging him to hurry up had the opposite effect. Now, seeing it in ds, it's all clicked.

This is a creative idea. I may feel her out and see what she thinks. So far I haven't received a response to my first email.

Whether you should expect DS to be faster depends on how slow he really is. I believe that the facts do not have to be lightning fast but should be automatic (and thus not take up working memory) prior to Algebra. I am not familiar with minute math but my children have had these 80-100 problems in 5 minutes type sheets throughout elementary. My answer may vary as well depending on whether your DS has a true disability as oppose to a relative weakness.

The "Minute Math" or as our local school district labeled it "Math Facts" was for our eldest a high source of frustration, not because of the program but because the teachers kept shoving it down kid's throats for three years even after they'd demonstrated mastery....which is when I informed his teacher he wouldn't be participating in that section of the program any longer, simple as that. I'm simply not wasting his valuable time with it any longer.

As far as the teacher's actions and grade assignment, these are issues that really require you or some other parent(s) meeting with the teacher first and perhaps administration later if the teacher doesn't understand the error of his / her ways. For starters, tearing up papers is a childish reaction and sets a childish and poor example of how to deal with the teacher's inability to maintain order in his/her own classroom. Certainly the teacher wouldn't approve of me tearing up the papers on his/her desk if he/she talked while I wanted his/her attention would they? Of course not, then don't demonstrate that behavior to children, someone has to be the grown up here, I suggest it be the teacher rather than the children.

Second, is the test designed to measure work habit or the mathematical ability of the students? Our local school district has adopted a policy that allows teachers to have work habit / behavior be no more than 10% of a student's grade, in this manner, the grade the student receives reflects their abilities, let discipline be handled by school policy, not by an individual teacher's frustration level with a child's behavior.

100 problems in 5 minutes is 3 seconds per question; The online version I took was 50 problems in 60 seconds, or 1.2 seconds per question. For me, typing was the time constraint. If anyone does the online 50 in 60 and finishes, let us know! Or let us know how many you are able to finish, if you care to.

OP, how many problems is dd challenged to complete in one minute in school?

I got 47 in 60 seconds, mostly because I typoed #47 and tried to go back and fix it. That is pretty hard!

http://www.webmathminute.com/online.asp

I got 20 but I will do it on a computer later - the virtual keyboard on my mobile is a bit limiting.

Well as I did further digging, he didn't have to do that many, but they were negative integer problems with multi-digits. And the fewer problems is probably a disadvantage because, for instance, one test he only had one left to do and he got an 85. So...not quite the minute math that he used to do, not as many, but these required more thinking--particularly because he only learned about negative numbers a couple of months ago. Given this, I'm actually impressed he did as well as he did.

So I guess now I have more of an understanding of why...but I still don't like the message this gives.