Former high school student needs answers to a math situation

Submitted by an LD OnLine user on

My mom says I am smart in math & can do prealgebra work & some algebra work. If this is so how come my math grade level is barley 5th grade whenn I am out of high school.

Submitted by bgb on Wed, 07/21/2004 - 8:00 PM

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In my case, I can understand the underlying questions and figure out what is needed to solve the problem but I can not remember math facts (mutlication for example). I am a math wiz if I can use a calucator…

I find that in the “real world” my employer couldn’t care less if i use a calucalor. All they want is the right answers. My co-workers often ask me for help.

My son, who has the same issues, is in the gifted math at his school.

Maybe this is your case?

Barb

Submitted by victoria on Wed, 07/21/2004 - 9:36 PM

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I run into a lot of students who have good intelligence and abilities but were very badly taught.

My latest example is age 13, going into Grade 8. He is actually reading at a very inaccurate Grade 2 level. I have pointed out before the strangeness of our local school system, which uses a very weak and disorganized ‘whole-language’ curriculum in *two* languages, doubling the guessing and confusion. They also keep pushing him ahead without helping him and apparently just making up fake grades to push him through. This particular student is actualy talented in math, doing all sorts of number processing in his head, analyzing problems logically, and just to give him a boost I started him on an old algebra book yesterday and he caught on to the idea of letters as number symbols in five minutes, an idea that takes weeks or an eternity with some other students.
Unfortunately, his actual testable math skills probably will fall out in the Grade 4 level. Why? Because he skips reading directions because he can’t really read, he gets things wrong when he does read, he misunderstands the question because he has been treated as dumb and nobody ever tapped his analytical thinking skills, and his writing is so disorganized that he puts things down in the wring place even when he really does know what to do.

I would bet that you are in a similar situation. It is depressingly common. If you really want to do something about it, work with a good tutor who fiocuses on accuracy and thinking skills rather than memorizing and rushing.

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