I'm scratching my head--French and Math

Is it possible he felt rushed? Could the careless errors have been because the teacher put a time limit on him and the anxiety of having to be done on time caused the errors?

As far as the French, I don’t know. My guess is that they really don’t do a lot in 7th grade French, has he told you what they do? My sister takes French and this is her 4th year, she does very well but the teacher plays a lot of songs in French to help them learn and it has been incredibly successful!!

K.

Attention to detail is what can bring my son’s grade down in math. What I try to do is give him a a few review problems to do the night before and then go over them pointing out the careless mistakes and how he needs to watch out for this and that. I remind him to recheck his work while taking the test. He will tell me the night before that he doesn’t need to study because he knows it all. Doing the few problems humbles him. This week when I gave him a few problems he didn’t protest because I think he realizes he does better on a test after our little session. Also take a look at the layout of the test. Is there enough space for working the problems? If they have an answer column is there enough space for the answer. My son has visual-motor problems and it is in his IEP that there is enough space and that the answer line is spaced to line up with the problems. He also can have extra time if he needs it.

Helen

Helen,

My son also has visual motor problems and can be careless making errors on things I know he knows. He will do the easy addition problems wrong and get the 3 and 4 digit addition problems right.

Do you have any websites that explain this phenomena with visual motor problems so I can present it to the teacher. It has become an issue of placement. They are reteaching him things he knows because he got it wrong on the test. I would like to see accomodations in his IEP to have them do a better job at assessing his actual skill. I have also asked that when he gets something wrong that they ask him to re do it rather than re teach. I think he is developing a certain amount of learned helplessness because of the excessive reteaching when really the problem is attention to detail.

I would also like for them to teach him attention to detail rather than content that he already knows. Have you had any success in teaching this particular skill?

Do you have any suggestions? I know you have been doing this longer than me.

i cant speak for your school but with ours foreign language is a pretty general overview with a semester covering 3 languages-the idea is to encourage them to pursue it in high school and not be afraid of it. Not to eliminate the possibility that he has a gift for foreign languages-heck, these kids sure know how to “WORK AT” acquiring language compared to the kids reading came easy to-you never know!

Mine has had problems with not having enough room to work problems-keeping problems in proper columns, etc(graph paper helps the columns) But I also wonder if the careless errors are related to difficulties with multisteps. when I think of examples it usually is a multistep problem where the adding wrong occured, not a straight one step addition problem

My older two, not LD, had ‘mastery math’ in elementary. Drove me crazy-theyd leave out the commas in all their 2,989 type answers and end up in reteaching!!!!! DUH-wish they had had IEPS to alleviate that mentality-go for it!

Attention-to-detail errors can be a real bugbear. I was queen of them and got straight C’s in HS math with an A the final quarter in 10th and 11th (same teacher) and I realized that no, I hadn’t done that well on the final, he was just giving me the required grade to be placed in the next higher level. (He was also the wrestling coach and about the last person in the world you’d expect to pull a move like that!)

Practice sessions that simulate a test situation help; learning the “Most common mistakes” helps; knowing the signs that you’ve made a careless error (suddenly your answer has a mess of fractions in it) is good; learning how to go back & plug your answer in to make sure it fits is even better. Impulsivity really works against you and I never did quite get how to make the transition from being sure I was done and it was right (which it generally wasn’t) to that “measure twice cut once” mentality that works so much better if you can get there! (Now there’s a biofeedback experiment that would be fun…)

Mary,

Oddly my son does better with the multistep. It seems as though the breakdown is in that he likes to be challenged and will throw his attention full tilt at a challenging situation but “check out” if the work is simple.

He was reading “All Quiet on The Western Front,” this summer. He read the first 20 pages even though it was way above his reading level. He really pushed his little brain to grasp the concepts. We had that Uh Oh moment when he asked about the passing reference to a brothel. (He is 8)

When I try to explain this to his teachers I get blank stares.

Sue,

Thanks for the idea of really pushing this skill through practice and coaching. I have asked his teacher to not reteach concepts but to work on the attention to detail skill by asking him to go back over questions he gets in error to see if he can figure it out for himself. I am noticing (for the first time) a bit of learned helplessness. He will say read these directions and explain them to me. I am trying to convince them to stop doing that at school.

I have to take the step of putting this into the IEP. I wish these people would just get it already. I feel like I am so many miles ahead of them in understanding this child. That would be fine if they would listen to me. I am a little sick of the bland stares.

Linda,

What I would try at your son’s age to make index cards for different types of assignments with a short list of items “Gotcha’s”. For writing assignments you would have: (1) Are all Sentences Capitalized? (2) Do I have a period or question mark at the end of each sentence? (3) Are my paragraphs indented?
(4) Do I have a conclusion?

For math (1)Did I check sign before doing each problem? (2)Are my numbers written neatly? (3) Do my numbers line up? (4) Did I recheck each problem?

We used on of these for handwriting. The resource teacher liked it so much she gave one to the other kids who were pulled out at the same time. The cards were laminated and there was a card for school and home. The items on the card were typed in large typeset. You could use avery labels the size of index cards and print from your computer. This would make it easy to make multiple copies for additional children.

These kids have to learn that they need to double check everything. If I think of an article I’ll let you know.

Helen

Helen,

I knew you would come up with something great. Thanks so much!

Linda

My 12 year old son with dyslexia just started 7th grade, junior high. He’s gifted in math. We just got his first grades. He has a C in math because he failed the first test.

My now 12 year old was like that in math last year. It really was a failure/refusal to review before tests. She knows kids who don’t have to study before tests and figures that in math at least, she ought to be one of them. Well, she isn’t, at least not yet. My rule is that preparation for tests needs to occur on at least three separate days. Thus far she is doing well in sixth grade in math. Math isn’t really an area of strength for her, but it isn’t an area of weakness at this time, and I think it can probably become a true area of strength in time. She is doing Prealgebra this year; the top kids in the class are working on Basic Algebra.

My kid also has a residual language problem, but she too got A’s in Spanish last year (5th) and this year (6th). This is mostly because she is very willing to speak the language, and easily engages in the verbal Spanish work of the class. Thus far the written work has been in English (reports on Hispanic countries etc.) I anticipate that she will do just fine in Spanish until they start requiring serious work in grammar and literary analysis of her, and then this may become an issue. (Catching grammatical errors in English, and literary analysis in English is tough for her, as is “reading between the lines” in Social Studies. Science, which is more straightforward, she can handle on her own. Science texts require no real inferential thinking at this level. ) Actually, I am thinking of sending her to Spain to crunch through the FSI level 1 to1+ curriculum (she’s a 0+; high novice right now) with a tutor next summer, because right now Spanish is a strength, and it wont stay that way without some work.

I work as a private tutor and I talk kids through math problems, step by agonizing step. Having to look me in the eye after they make a sloppy error is a real motivational factor in thinking ahead! This is one of those old tried-and-true, invest the time to get the results approaches.