Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums I need some help with Math

This makes me think of my DS4, who also does not learn in an orderly fashion. He grasps simple addition and subtraction, but HATES counting (says it's boring) and will still sometimes forget what comes after 9 or 11. He also reads at around a 3rd grade level but still can't say the alphabet all the way through. I'm wondering if there's some connection. I think the problem might be that rote memorization doesn't have any meaning for him.

Try Youtubing one of these people:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathemagician

I've never actually seen these in action, but the idea fasinates me, so let me know if you try it:

http://www.mythmaticalbattles.com/

I've found that DS also is just plain on a different 'developmental path.' Also if an idea get stuck in his head, it can be really difficult to find and build a road around - I'll use an example from my past.

In first grade my writing was really messy. My Math sheet were a particular problem. My mom sat me down with our next-door neighbor who had a backround in teaching. She asked me questions, and drew out that I believed that the larger digits should be written larger, (ex:8 should be twice as big as 4 because it was more grown up- obvious - right?)

She explained that I should make them all the same height. And I was willing.

so my handwriting was still messy, but at least the teacher could read my math sheets.

My idea is that you might have more luck with Division, because the emotional backing is 'sharing equally amoung friends.' Then you can come back for subtraction.

I also loved-loved-loved the number line that the teacher painted on the floor in the front of our 1st grade room, and loved to be chosen as the one who walked back and forth to demonstrate. If i'm doing a simple addition or subtraction problem with negative numbers, I'll draw a crude number line on the top of the page just to check myself.

Smiles,
Grinity

We have found that the movable number line somehow helps "cement" addition and subtraction for my one DD. I just went to the Lakeshore Learning store and bought one with the pointer that you slide back and forth. My other DD just looks at the number line I printed and laminated for her. Once in a while you will see her actually "count on" and "count back". We have also spend time in Singapore Math with number bonds for addition and subtraction and did all the math families hands on for a while with the cubes. That also seemed to help. My one DD seems to be very visual. After that we now just use quicktables in ALEKS to drill for speed. (They love the games in ALEKS so much they forget they are drilling facts at the same time.)

I will take a look at the ALEKS material since speed is such an issue.

thanks again.

Subtraction and division (the negative operations) are very difficult for kids to understand. Multiplication (also called multiple addition) is much easier for them to understand.

We used popsicle sticks in bands of ten so we had tens and ones. This worked very well for subtraction.

Teaching your child the "words" in word problems helps. Two-stage problems are more difficult. They should draw a picture for these. Drawing a simple picture should go all the way through Calculus and above. Math Professors always begin by drawing a picture and I think that is their main trick. In fact, I assign my class to just draw the picture and not bother with working the problem until they get this concept.

For some reason, in our society, this is supposed to end at a young age, but it develops them for the more advanced math. Calculus is full of these and I had to learn quickly how to do it.

Don't have time to read through all the post so dk if the montessori subtraction method has been shown. I love how my DS was taught subtraction. He was borrowing at 4 w/the montessori method.

1-1st started by just subtracting w/fingers, 9-6, so put up 9 fingers and take away 6 etc. Once this was no problem then she started w/step 2.
2-She then gave questions say 11-6 (horizontal on the papter). She said to him "uh oh we don't have 11 fingers so what can we do", she told him " CIRCLE the 2nd 1 in the 11 so now it looks like ten, so then she said "ok so now we can do 10-6 which = 4 now step 3.
3- "What about the 1 inside the CIRCLE what do we do w/this , well we add it to the answer 4, so 4+1=5, that is the answer.

LOVED THIS METHOD, he was soon doing 4 digit subtraction w/borrowing no problem. I never saw this method before, it is great so anyone can subtraction w/borrowing simply by using their fingers.