Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Faster Isn't Smarter

I didn't want to threadjack Mam's discussion about testing, so I'm starting fresh.

Our son's teacher gives timed math drills each morning -- a sheet of 100 problems that must be completed within 4 minutes @ 90% accuracy in order to pass. Scoring <90 or >4 minutes requires the student to write missed/incomplete problems five times each (or more for repeated failure).

Needless to say, the kids have one heck of an incentive to learn their facts, and to get fast at them, too.

HOWEVER, after reading the above article, I'm wondering if these speed drills aren't having a negative affect on him -- not so much in the way the article describes, but still negative. He's comfortably passed every test since day one, and is getting faster & faster at it, racing not only against the clock, but also against a couple of the other kids in his class.

Could these speed drills be thwarting our efforts in getting him to slow the &*&%@ down on everything else he's doing?

I'm a HUGE fan of the drill in general, believing that developing automaticity is very important and that it contributes to success with mathematics. But I think the daily emphasis on speed, and the fact that the kids treat it as an important competition, is conditioning our son to worry too much about how fast he is.

Without a doubt, his speediness was an asset on the WISC-IV, where he scored 144 for processing, as well as the WJ-III, where he scored between 144 and 194(!) on the fluency (timed) subtests.

But nevertheless, we are constantly pulling our hair out trying to get him to SLOW DOWN, as his speed too often results in careless mistakes.

Now... I come here for everyone's honesty, so if I am over-reaching -- tell me so. I don't want to micromanage the teacher's business. But if getting a "pass" on these daily tests will help relax my son even just a tad, I think it would be a win in my book.

Should I ask the teacher to eliminate these daily speed drills for our son?

I am generally too fast in nature. I walk very fast, I always did tests quickly. Everything is fast and it didn't really show me the issue until -- DD is super fast. She wants to do everything fast and she has the ability to do things easily and quickly but it is very hard for her to be a tortoise and being a tortoise has so many benefits.

She is turning 5 tomorrow, so I hesistate to put DD4. She has been taking piano for nearly a year and when she has learned the pieces -- memorizing, she likes to play them quickly. We are now going through timing, teaching her fractions as she has a piece now with 3/8 timing with 1/32nd notes. And it is such a struggle to get her to slow down and learn to do it correctly. It was a mistake with the last piano teacher who just wanted to see what she could play. So I am struggling with teaching her to be a tortoise and realizing what a valuable lesson it is.

A bit rambling here, but we had her party yesterday - 23 kids and 20 adults and I am tired.

Ren

I don't know about your son in particular... I'll leave that to someone more experienced! But, I did want to comment on math speed drills (but not get off subject on Mam's post).

I give my kids timed math fact drills (we homeschool) because I want them to have the answers automatically. At first, I resisted giving timed math tests because I didn't want my slower-writing kids to become anxious and dread math. So, what I did was give them a page of super-easy drills (for multiplication, the 0s and 1s page), told them to work quickly, and timed how long it took them to complete it. Then, I doubled that time (because future timed tests would have double digit answers rather than single digit). That time was then their "target time" for all future timed tests. For us, having individualized target times was a lot less stressful than saying everyone has to do 100 problems in 5 minutes.

We've had very much the same issue with DS on the piano. But after nearly three years, he's finally learning that practices actually go more quickly when he slows himself down. He still revels in how fast he can play a piece once he's learned it -- but he knows now he can't get to that point without slowing down first.

No kidding. That's just some fast writing no matter how you slice it. He's <2min for +/- and <2:30 for * & /, but I am most impressed by the fact that I can actually read his answers!

I completely agree with the importance of developing instant recall on math facts... but if he's already halved the standard and misses an average of 2 problems per test (or 8 out of 400 per week), I think he's pretty much done. Now the only "challenge" left for him is to see how screaming fast he can do it, which is what I don't like, because of the careless errors it brings to everything else in math that would really benefit from a more tortoise-like approach (thx, Wren!).

My son with motor dyspraxia/dysgraphia would have been much like the boy with the broken pencil. He would have difficulty with writing quickly and he would make careless mistakes just trying to keep up with the writing, so we have to homeschool. I recently met two other homeschooling moms, former teachers, and one is a former teacher of gifted students. They tell me I am doing the right thing by homeschooling.

My son does well on online math drills that he uses to increase his speed. He often figures out the answers to math questions mentally while I need a pencil and paper or a calculator. Just because I can write faster than he can does not make me smarter. I don't know why some teachers have a hard time understanding this.

I like this idea. I'm totally stealing it! I think it would take some of the pressure off my "slow but deep" kid who flips out when he has to work under a time limit, even as it would help him to practice speed.

Why didn't I think of this? It's always the mark of a good idea when you're thinking that!

I read something similar - perhaps in RIghtstart? You change colored pencils when the timer goes off. So each week, if you're starting in blue and then finishing in green, the student tries to get more blue than green.

Thanks. Good tip!