math expert advice needed, please!

Submitted by an LD OnLine user on

Here is a hypothetical situation. Child is currently in 4th grade, Spanish speaking home - here 3 years, average intelligence, mild CP effecting legs. Child was in first grade for 2 years, then was skipped to third because of age (please ignore all past errors). Child has IEP due to slight sensory impairment, but really, ESL is the major issue. Child somehow “passed” the third grade end-of-grade tests, which confirms just how meaningless these tests really are, as far as I’m concerned. Last year, child received resource help for reading, writing, and math (plus speech and PT) and was out of class a LOT. Teacher this year wants child in class more and so does mom and child. Okay, guess what? She now is having trouble in math in the regular classroom.( I just say, DUH! What do you expect when you skip a whole grade!!!)

Resource teacher says if she pulls her, she will work on 4th grade level math. I apparently am the only one who gets the idea that if there are fundamental skills missing, she AIN’T GONNA get 4th grade math. I started giving her some Brigance math problems today to assess skills, and she is not even consistent with regrouping, knows no addition facts, much less any (not even the 2’s) multiplication facts. She has some definite gaps back at second grade level. (I normally see this child to work on reading).

Here is my question. Should she stay in the regular class and have exposure to the 4th grade math curriculum while being tutored in missing earlier skills in the afternoon, or should we pull her out of math altogether and take her back where she needs to be, knowing we won’t catch her up before leaving elementary school?

Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 09/14/2002 - 12:44 AM

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I’d see how quickly she masters second and third grade skills before deciding if she should be in the 4th grade room. (Obviously, quick study = greater capacity.)
However, I do think having two levels of math will confuse her. It would have confused me and I’m not ESL or LD.

You seem to have excellent instincts. I hope you are allowed to follow them.

Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 09/14/2002 - 3:53 AM

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Thanks! Sometimes I just wonder where all the common sense goes! I believe this child has normal intelligence, but she could have some mild ADD..not enough to warrant meds, I don’t think. But I don’t think she’d be able to do three years of math in a year. Maybe we could get through the remaining second and third grade skills this year and then aim for fourth grade skills next year in fifth. What makes me sick is that we don’t have summer school for all grades. This is a child who would truly benefit.

I’ll be meeting with the regular and resource teachers this week to give my informal test results and recommendations. I can anticipate that the difficulty will be the need to pull her out during the time her class has math. I go to more than one school and my schedule is very much set at this point. The resource teachers cannot always pull at the same time the regular class has a subject. And she just cannot miss language arts in the regular class. Perhaps we can give her some math work to do during the times she has to remain in the regular class for math since she can hardly be expected to do their math lesson. We’re just going to have to make the best of a less than ideal situation. But I must say, this child is delightful and loves to learn, so it is really imperative that we do the best possible thing so she doesn’t become too discouraged.

J

Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 09/16/2002 - 6:52 PM

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Try to find some more time somewhere! Lunch? After school? Before school? If she gets fifteen minutes a day of one-to-one, or thirty minutes three times a week, and works up *through the curriculum step by step*, it is reasonable that she could catch up with two years of math in one. But it will take steady work from both teacher and child, not a magic wand.

If she is left in Grade 4 without support, she will pick up a lot by imitation and “help” from other kids. This looks good for a year or two or three; then kids like this crash into a brick wall in high school when the gaps start to unravel.

Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 09/16/2002 - 6:59 PM

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Thanks, Victoria. I may offer to tutor her after school for comp time on teacher workdays, or something, if the resource teacher will not do it. I just needed to the confirmation that she needs to go back and do the work on skills she missed. Seems like common sense to me…but I still have others to convince after I finish the Brigance testing.

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