Dd STILL having difficulty w/ math

Ds10 struggles with some of his multiplication facts. I don’t want to slow down our MUS, so I just quizzed him with flash adds and wrote down the tough ones with answers and attached to his math book. He writes them as copywork every day until he gets them. Math War sounds fun, too….each of you put down 2 cards and add them. Hope you find something that works soon!

My ds10 has difficulty w/ the memorizing of facts, as well.  He can eventually get the answer and can usually tell it’s wrong after he gives his first answer (when we’re doing oral drills), kind of like spelling errors.  But, his spelling and reading skills are off the hook!  He has only done copywork for spelling and has just started SW a few months back and loves it.  He’s a list maker, story-teller, “artist”, musician, you know, the “creative type”.  I have no doubt that if we just keep at, gently, he will have them memorized OR a way to deal w/ the math facts as he gets older.

He is currently using MUS, math games, (online or card), oral drills, and I just try to keep it fun.  I do share w/ him the benefit of having them memorized (it’s just faster, like knowing by sight small words, then work on the new/more difficult words). 

I’m not minimizing the importance of it all (cause it makes me bonkers at times to have my ds know something one day, then the next, like it’s brand new), but my ds is almost 3 years older than your dd and struggling w/ the same thing.

What if you used beans (or small bears or buttons or…) and had her set out the one she knows – your example was 4 + 5, I believe.  Then have her move three from the 5 to the 4 to get 7 plus 2 and move 4 from the 7 side to the 2 to get 3 + 6 and so on.  The request to move from one side to another should be verbal for the first, few, then ask her to say some and come up with the equation.  This just seems to help those kinds of ideas click for some kids. 

BTW, I don’t know what it is about moving from the blocks in MUS to a non-math related manipulative, but that may help.  I think it has to do with the tactile – liking the smooth bean shape over the pointy square-ness.  However, move from beans (or whatever) alone, to arranging the beans and picking the correct MUS cube/rod for each pile (ie- 4 beans + 5 beans should be represented as well in the correct rods below), then move to rods alone.  This, I think, helped with the quicker color recognition in later levels when she was no longer interested in the beans.

Incidentally, I agree with whomever mentioned setting the math book aside for a bit.  Play with your math for a bit before going back to writing it.  See if it helps. 🙂  If she’s a late bloomer in other areas, there’s no need to fuss about this.  If she just learned to tie her shoes, but when she did, she *GOT* it, she was likely very proud of her accomplishment.  If you push the math and she’s not ready to grapple with the symbol on the paper being equivalent to the sets of beans or cubes and then translating that back and forth to get the answer, she’s going to feel frustrated with math which may set up a road block later on – which I’m sure you know.  Better to back off a bit and let her breathe the physical-ness of math then force the sybols equal an amount before she’s ready to deal with it.  You’re a good mom who wants the best for her.  It’s ok to say that the best for her, right now, is to wait.