meanings of words -vocabulary - 8 years old

The fact that she is asking about the words is a good sign. She’s hearing words and trying to attach meaning to them. “Cheaper than” and “all together” are both abstract — is she a very concrete kiddo who has to see it in front of her to understand it?
An important question would be whether she has the concepts but not the words, or whether she’s working on learning the concepts.

Yes, she is a very concrete kiddo. If I draw pictures to help visualize word problems, she will understand, and answer the question. I didn’t realize that even simple words can trigger confusion, because they are abstract. She is okay with math concepts; it’s just the word problems that give her trouble. We’re using Singapore Math, BTW.

Your dd may have a language problem or may be ADD inattentive type or both. Failure to pick up common words ambiently from the environment can be a sign of an central auditory processing disorder or severe inattentiveness. I would recommend you read up on CAPD and strongly consider getting her tested—what you’re seeing is a red flag, but if she has it I would expect it to spill over into reading comprehension and possibly oral expression.

I used Saxon math for my son (CAPD and ADD), which in the lower grades (not higher grades) I found very helpful on the math language part. The teacher’s manual seemed to anticipate common math language problems and suggested exercises that helped a lot. An example: to solve “name a number between 20 and 30” you must understand the meaning of “between”. I worked several days with my son doing the suggested exercise of having him put a fork between the knife and spoon, the knife between the fork and spoon, etc. Then I gave the problem again—he answered instantly.

Yes, vocabulary for every subject has to be learned. Although there may occasionally be a deeper problem, I often find that for every child and family there are some areas that are discussed more and some less. On the issue of “cheaper than”, do you take her shopping with you? If you do take her shopping, do you look at prices and comparison shop, and do you tell her out loud what you’re doing? If she stays at home while someone else shops, or if she just plays with the cart while you silently make your choices, or while you talk about something else, then she just may not be aware of the issue. On a different subject but the same learning issue, I taught some classes in driving safety. Some sixteen-year-olds are interested in cars and have discussed how they work for years; others have ridden around in cars all their lives but totally ignored them, and have to be told what a brake is and where and which direction on the steering wheel goes which way. You cannot simply assume that a person of any age is absorbing information from the environment; you first have to point out the importance of the information, then verbalize it — the position of the brake and the comparison of two prices is automatic to you as an adult, but unknown to the child until you mention it.

I’m a speech therapist and I highly recommend you have a speech and language evaluation done. Your school district should do one for you, regardless of the fact you are homeschooling. If you have insurance you might want to have it done privately. It sounds like a language issue to me. Dyslexia is multi-factored and doesn’t only involve word subsitutions.

Hi, Kathy, my 8 yr. old son sounds a bit like your daughter. He has troubles with math word problem phrases, hasn’t learned his body parts, doesn’t seem to know basic words that an 8 yr. old should know, etc. Somebody suggested you have them evaluated through the ps system which we did, & his CELF-3 score was 84 (both receptive & expressive language which was 25 points below his IQ), but they said you have to score 80 or below for services.

Last week, I found a word problem series at www.epsbooks.com called “It’s Elementary” which supposedly break down the word problems into understandable chunks & uses pictures. I ordered Book A. We should get it this week, and will be using it right away. Would you like me to post about the series once we use it if it seems any good?

Karen