I welcome suggestions regarding how to help a child develop a strong concept of number. My first grade dd has been struggling with basic addition and subtraction facts. She can get the correct answer on a worksheet +/- to 10, and is shakier for addition/subtraction to 20. However, they have been doing timed drills on which she has done very poorly. In helping her practice, I notice that she does not use known facts to help her derive the answers for unknown facts. For instance, if asked 4 plus 4 (she knows this fact) she will answer correctly. If this is followed by 5 plus 4, she will count up 4 to nine and so forth. I can give her a series of fact questions (e.g., 3+3,3+4,3+5, 3+6) and she will count up each time. Similarly, if she knows an addition fact she will not use that to derive its subtraction “cousin”, despite lots of worksheets at school on fact families. This has caused me to go back to manipulatives with her and to work on the facts this way. I also will be working with her over the summer. Any suggestions as to games/techniques I should use? I will be getting quartermile math for drill, but am actually more concerned that she have sturdy concepts on which to build. Have contemplated getting MathUSee or Singapore. I also have a fourth grader who is fairly strong conceptually, but could use review of this year’s material over the summer. Thanks in advance!
Re: p.s. I should mention....
that we did MUS Foundations before switching over to Singapore Math. SM works much better for us — easier to use, plus dd is learning much more.
Mary
Re: help on math concepts and drill
I don’t know if your child has been diagnosed with a learning disability in math, but many children who have learning disabilities have processing difficulties. Is it really important that your child be able to add and subtract numbers in a specific amount of time, or is it more important that dd understand the concept of addition and subtraction. Schools focus so much these days on solving math problems in a given amount of time. I think it is more important for children to understand the concept. Many children with learning disabilities have to find ways other than the norm to solve problems. It may take them a little (or a lot) longer, but that is not the point. The point is, they can do it. Also, there has been a lot of research about children being expected to learn things before their brains are developed to the point that they are ready. It is possible that dd is just not ready yet to memorize all those facts. Either way, just keep working with dd. You may want to take away the timed drills for now though. They could be adding stress.
You can get Addition and Subraction BINGO by School Zone. One side of the cards is for facts up to 10 and the other side is facts to 20. It has been useful to me in teaching students with disabilities because it is fun and they are encouraged to get the right answer. The more they match the problems to the answers, the more they memorize. I have seen them play the game by counting on their fingers at the beginning of the year to automatically knowing the answers and playing a lot faster by the end of the year. They are not being timed, but it makes them feel good (especially in front of the students they are playing with) to be able to go faster. I hope everything works out.
kellieJulie wrote:
>
> I welcome suggestions regarding how to help a child develop a
> strong concept of number. My first grade dd has been
> struggling with basic addition and subtraction facts. She
> can get the correct answer on a worksheet +/- to 10, and is
> shakier for addition/subtraction to 20. However, they have
> been doing timed drills on which she has done very poorly.
> In helping her practice, I notice that she does not use
> known facts to help her derive the answers for unknown
> facts. For instance, if asked 4 plus 4 (she knows this fact)
> she will answer correctly. If this is followed by 5 plus 4,
> she will count up 4 to nine and so forth. I can give her a
> series of fact questions (e.g., 3+3,3+4,3+5, 3+6) and she
> will count up each time. Similarly, if she knows an addition
> fact she will not use that to derive its subtraction
> “cousin”, despite lots of worksheets at school on fact
> families. This has caused me to go back to manipulatives
> with her and to work on the facts this way. I also will be
> working with her over the summer. Any suggestions as to
> games/techniques I should use? I will be getting quartermile
> math for drill, but am actually more concerned that she have
> sturdy concepts on which to build. Have contemplated getting
> MathUSee or Singapore. I also have a fourth grader who is
> fairly strong conceptually, but could use review of this
> year’s material over the summer. Thanks in advance!
Re: help on math concepts and drill
You may want to try using items in your home to begin with. Allow your daughter to assist you in the kitchen. For example, if you need eggs to cook with have her count out the eggs, and then as you use one ask her how many are left..You may also use this same concept when you are shopping. Ask her to get a particular number of items and bring them to you and ask her how many did she bring and then ask her to carry one or two back and ask her how many are left…This is to name a few. You many also want to log onto Lessonplans.com in the math section and you will find many more ideas of how to teach your child the basic concepts of math. Also, try using flash cards and gradually wean your child away from manipulatives. Remember each child learn differently, you may want to find out how your life learn best (which modality).
There is a very good article on developing fluency with math facts on the “LD in Depth” portion of this website. I think you just click on “mathematics” to get to it. What your daughter is doing is fine. According to the article, counting-on is one of the intermediate steps to developing math fluency. Sounds to me as if she hasn’t done enough skip-counting by 4’s to be able to do it differently. We used MUS Foundations, and that program emphasizes skip-counting practice a lot as a preparation for multiplication. There are a number of different skip-counting audio tapes available, sometimes in a song format.
I wouldn’t do Quarter Mile for more than 5 or 10 minutes a day max with a 1st grader, unless she happens to really like the program and wants to do it more than that.
We really like Singapore Math, but I have heard that Level 1 is more like 2nd grade U.S. math. You may want to use their K level for review. I actually think SM is easier to do than MUS, and has a better balance between development of concepts and development of computation skill.
I have heard that Miquon is ***excellent*** for development of early concepts. My dd is a little old for Miquon, but I think we will combine Miquon level 3 with Singapore level 3 this summer. You might want to consider a combination of Miquon starting at the beginning level, and Singapore Math K or Level 1.
Singapore has online placement tests that can help with starting at the correct level. I’d probably start with SM level 3A for your 4th grader. This would provide sound concept review and solid computation practice.
Mary