using a calculator?

no, you are not off base with this idea. it was highly suggessted that my 5th grade, severely dyslexic son, who is 2 years behind in math, be allowed to use a calculator to “keep up” with the math presented in the classroom. my 5th grader sounds very similar to yours in math, however we are still working on single digit multiplication and division.

he seems to understand the concepts and has been taught a number of tricks for the 3’s, 4’s and 9’s x tables byt a private tutor. this has been a very sloooooooow process for him, and he is frustrated by the slowness of it all.

his new iep does allow him to use a calculator, but the problem in he is pulled out during math time to work in the resource room, so when does he get to use this accomodation?

i am not sure how the school coordinates this, but i can see the value of dyslexics being allowed to do this. mine ahs been working on x tables since 3rd grade.

Before going through the hassle of asking for an accomodation (that your ds may not want at his age because it makes him different), first see if this low tech approach works. Have him do his math on graph paper—no more than four squares per inch. It really helps with lining up. With my ds this approach has really to cut down on careless errors and increased speed. If four inches per square is too small, you can order centimeter block graph paper from Learning Resources.

Also this may be a visual problem amenable to remediation —perhaps you could look into that. Such a problem could spill over to written language—problems with word spacing, writing to the edge of paper instead of the left margin, etc.—that can make writing a hard chore.

Calculators as an accommodatoin are a hotly debated topic — like so many of those issues, though, it boils down to individual situations and needs.
If it’s the facts that are the issue, though, I would strongly recommend starting out with the “accommodation” of having a chart with the addition and multiplication facts available. Take the time that may well be necessary to teach the relationship of multiplication and division (so that he knows what to do if he has to figure out what 63/9 is).
Now, the “why should he learn to multiply multi-digit numbers anyway?” — that’s also debated. However, I side with the traditionalists on this one. Yes, I reach for the calculator but I only really understand it because I did it quite a few times the “long way.” My more advanced math experiences were taught htat way as well — we did that calculus stuff with delta plus one a few dozen times before learning the shortcuts to what derivatives were, and it made a lot more sense.
On the wildly waving and gesticulating otehr hand, though — I didn’t get lost in the steps learning it the long way. If doing the long calculations is a handwriting exercise, then another way should be found to really understand place value and that all-important Distributive Property.

my son is in 8th grade and this information has been an eye opener. the problems we have been having in math this year are sometimes enough to get me very depressed. he has a problem with using concepts he has learned and adding to these with more differcult problems. many times i have asked him not to use the calculator because of my beliefs on the use of them. i need to go home and appoligize to him. thanks for the insight

I wouldn’t say you’re off-base but likely many others would. The calculator/no-calculator debate has gone on for a while and present opinion seems to lean toward “no calculators”. Math teachers can really get touchy over this one.

The situation you describe though would be one where I think a calculator would be helpful. The question is - what is the goal? Is the goal to have him learn the operations and be able to arrive at correct answers to problems? Or is the goal to have him be able to do math in his head?

These days it seems to be thought that doing math ‘in the head’ is very important, even crucial, although for a number of years that was not the thinking. The pendulum swings back and forth in clocks and education and pretty much every thing else and it’s swung away from calculators in the instruction of math.

I grew up in the time before calculators were invented and I cannot do math in my head. I simply can’t hold numbers in my head. I must write them down and laboriously calculate and I still often arrive at incorrect answers. Some people, including myself, don’t have any natural relationship with numbers and mental math is very difficult.

It would help your son’s case if somewhere in his testing it said something about issues with visualization or sequencing or almost anything that you could point to as a reason for his struggle to order, hold, and correctly manipulate calculations in his head.

Good luck.

Thanks for the responses. My kid defies any label or category, but the most recent speech and language evaluation put him in the disability range for sequencing. I never would have thought to use that as a reason for his errors with any problems that get very lengthy or involved.

This may also explain his inability to do any math problem without writing out all the steps - including dividing by 2 or 3.

I’m really tempted to ask that he be allowed to do the problems on paper (showing that he knows the steps) but then use a calculator to get the final answer. To me it almost seems the same as using a spellchecker to correct a written essay.

That sounds like a great idea to me. It should satisfy the teachers who want the work to be shown and yet allow him to get to correct answers given his sequencing issue.

As this will take him longer, he should also be given extended time.

Good luck.

At heart I admit that I’m one of those old stick-in-the-mud people who used to believe that everyone should do math in their head. I think I’m actually older than my 52 years.

I also believe that getting the correct answer is important (ducking for cover as the math teachers toss erasers my way.) After 28 years of providing vocational services to persons with disabilities, I can only say that the employers want the work to get done correctly and quickly. If it takes a calculator…heck, they probably insist on the employees using calculator for accuracy.

So if the student can set the problem up, what can the objection be to crunching the numbers with a piece of equipment. You don’t think the rocket scientists are still calculating trajectories by hand with pencil, paper and slide rule, do you? I still have two slide rules…I feel older yet.

In short, if a student is going to be using a calculator later in life on the job, then it appears the student better start practicing and get good at it (ducking again and running for solid cover.)

John
…I’m the one in line at the grocery store dutifully subtracting the check I just wrote from the register balance just to try and shock the people who hate math :) “Oh, look Marge, he’s doing arithmetic in public.”

My child’s teacher put a multiplication table taped to his desk for use when my child is having difficulty. It doesn’t draw attention, and it accomplishes the goal.

Will you tell us how your school teaches multiplication?

Method One. The number one above the number eight is a carry.

1
82
x47
–—
574
328
–—
3854

Method 2 This method has less carrying. A variation of this can eliminate all carrying.

8 | 2
––––—
| 3 / | 0 / | 4
3 | / 2 | / 8 |
––––-
| 5 / | 1 / | 7
8 | / 6 | / 4
–––––-
5 / 4

I’ve seen other methods, but these are the ones that use the multiplication table.

When you multiply with pencil and paper, does it look like this

picture ?

His school uses the first, more traditional method. At this point, using another method would just totally confuse him. He really does have a solid grasp of place value, and knows how to multiply. It seems to be similar to his problems with writing. He can spell a word, unless he’s writing a sentence. He can write a sentence, but forgets all punctuation and capitalization when writing a paragraph. I guess this is a bit off the topic, but it just suddenly all connected for me.

Anyway, the other night he had to multiply out a bunch of exponents. I had him write out all the factors, then gave him a calculator to get the answer. Made us both happy.

My diagram posted in such a scramble, I wonder if you can tell what I meant. I know from experience that when students are having trouble with one method of multiplication, trying to teach them an alternate method may make things worse.

When I taught writing, I told students that words are more important than style or grammar. I tried to get them to get the words written and then rewrite to get the grammar and style correct.

In Victoria’s post, she suggests that one should always try to check if answers are correct. Does you school teach any method for checking the answers of calculations?

Sara McName

no, you are not off base with this idea. it was highly suggessted that my 5th grade, severely dyslexic son, who is 2 years behind in math, be allowed to use a calculator to “keep up” with the math presented in the classroom. my 5th grader sounds very similar to yours in math, however we are still working on single digit multiplication and division.

he seems to understand the concepts and has been taught a number of tricks for the 3’s, 4’s and 9’s x tables byt a private tutor. this has been a very sloooooooow process for him, and he is frustrated by the slowness of it all.

his new iep does allow him to use a calculator, but the problem in he is pulled out during math time to work in the resource room, so when does he get to use this accomodation?

i am not sure how the school coordinates this, but i can see the value of dyslexics being allowed to do this. mine ahs been working on x tables since 3rd grade.

Before going through the hassle of asking for an accomodation (that your ds may not want at his age because it makes him different), first see if this low tech approach works. Have him do his math on graph paper—no more than four squares per inch. It really helps with lining up. With my ds this approach has really to cut down on careless errors and increased speed. If four inches per square is too small, you can order centimeter block graph paper from Learning Resources.

Also this may be a visual problem amenable to remediation —perhaps you could look into that. Such a problem could spill over to written language—problems with word spacing, writing to the edge of paper instead of the left margin, etc.—that can make writing a hard chore.

Calculators as an accommodatoin are a hotly debated topic — like so many of those issues, though, it boils down to individual situations and needs.
If it’s the facts that are the issue, though, I would strongly recommend starting out with the “accommodation” of having a chart with the addition and multiplication facts available. Take the time that may well be necessary to teach the relationship of multiplication and division (so that he knows what to do if he has to figure out what 63/9 is).
Now, the “why should he learn to multiply multi-digit numbers anyway?” — that’s also debated. However, I side with the traditionalists on this one. Yes, I reach for the calculator but I only really understand it because I did it quite a few times the “long way.” My more advanced math experiences were taught htat way as well — we did that calculus stuff with delta plus one a few dozen times before learning the shortcuts to what derivatives were, and it made a lot more sense.
On the wildly waving and gesticulating otehr hand, though — I didn’t get lost in the steps learning it the long way. If doing the long calculations is a handwriting exercise, then another way should be found to really understand place value and that all-important Distributive Property.

my son is in 8th grade and this information has been an eye opener. the problems we have been having in math this year are sometimes enough to get me very depressed. he has a problem with using concepts he has learned and adding to these with more differcult problems. many times i have asked him not to use the calculator because of my beliefs on the use of them. i need to go home and appoligize to him. thanks for the insight

I wouldn’t say you’re off-base but likely many others would. The calculator/no-calculator debate has gone on for a while and present opinion seems to lean toward “no calculators”. Math teachers can really get touchy over this one.

The situation you describe though would be one where I think a calculator would be helpful. The question is - what is the goal? Is the goal to have him learn the operations and be able to arrive at correct answers to problems? Or is the goal to have him be able to do math in his head?

These days it seems to be thought that doing math ‘in the head’ is very important, even crucial, although for a number of years that was not the thinking. The pendulum swings back and forth in clocks and education and pretty much every thing else and it’s swung away from calculators in the instruction of math.

I grew up in the time before calculators were invented and I cannot do math in my head. I simply can’t hold numbers in my head. I must write them down and laboriously calculate and I still often arrive at incorrect answers. Some people, including myself, don’t have any natural relationship with numbers and mental math is very difficult.

It would help your son’s case if somewhere in his testing it said something about issues with visualization or sequencing or almost anything that you could point to as a reason for his struggle to order, hold, and correctly manipulate calculations in his head.

Good luck.

Thanks for the responses. My kid defies any label or category, but the most recent speech and language evaluation put him in the disability range for sequencing. I never would have thought to use that as a reason for his errors with any problems that get very lengthy or involved.

This may also explain his inability to do any math problem without writing out all the steps - including dividing by 2 or 3.

I’m really tempted to ask that he be allowed to do the problems on paper (showing that he knows the steps) but then use a calculator to get the final answer. To me it almost seems the same as using a spellchecker to correct a written essay.

That sounds like a great idea to me. It should satisfy the teachers who want the work to be shown and yet allow him to get to correct answers given his sequencing issue.

As this will take him longer, he should also be given extended time.

Good luck.

At heart I admit that I’m one of those old stick-in-the-mud people who used to believe that everyone should do math in their head. I think I’m actually older than my 52 years.

I also believe that getting the correct answer is important (ducking for cover as the math teachers toss erasers my way.) After 28 years of providing vocational services to persons with disabilities, I can only say that the employers want the work to get done correctly and quickly. If it takes a calculator…heck, they probably insist on the employees using calculator for accuracy.

So if the student can set the problem up, what can the objection be to crunching the numbers with a piece of equipment. You don’t think the rocket scientists are still calculating trajectories by hand with pencil, paper and slide rule, do you? I still have two slide rules…I feel older yet.

In short, if a student is going to be using a calculator later in life on the job, then it appears the student better start practicing and get good at it (ducking again and running for solid cover.)

John
…I’m the one in line at the grocery store dutifully subtracting the check I just wrote from the register balance just to try and shock the people who hate math :) “Oh, look Marge, he’s doing arithmetic in public.”

My child’s teacher put a multiplication table taped to his desk for use when my child is having difficulty. It doesn’t draw attention, and it accomplishes the goal.

Will you tell us how your school teaches multiplication?

Method One. The number one above the number eight is a carry.

1
82
x47
–—
574
328
–—
3854

Method 2 This method has less carrying. A variation of this can eliminate all carrying.

8 | 2
––––—
| 3 / | 0 / | 4
3 | / 2 | / 8 |
––––-
| 5 / | 1 / | 7
8 | / 6 | / 4
–––––-
5 / 4

I’ve seen other methods, but these are the ones that use the multiplication table.

When you multiply with pencil and paper, does it look like this

picture ?

His school uses the first, more traditional method. At this point, using another method would just totally confuse him. He really does have a solid grasp of place value, and knows how to multiply. It seems to be similar to his problems with writing. He can spell a word, unless he’s writing a sentence. He can write a sentence, but forgets all punctuation and capitalization when writing a paragraph. I guess this is a bit off the topic, but it just suddenly all connected for me.

Anyway, the other night he had to multiply out a bunch of exponents. I had him write out all the factors, then gave him a calculator to get the answer. Made us both happy.

My diagram posted in such a scramble, I wonder if you can tell what I meant. I know from experience that when students are having trouble with one method of multiplication, trying to teach them an alternate method may make things worse.

When I taught writing, I told students that words are more important than style or grammar. I tried to get them to get the words written and then rewrite to get the grammar and style correct.

In Victoria’s post, she suggests that one should always try to check if answers are correct. Does you school teach any method for checking the answers of calculations?

Sara McName