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Grade 2 Right start math-help required!
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Hello, My dd7 is struggling with math a great deal. She was last year as well, only way more. She actully just finished up grade 2 math “officially” about a month ago. Allthough this year, using CM and Right Start, is working A LOT better than what we were doing last year for gr. 1, it is still often the cause of a lot of stress in her life. This is not what I want for her or for our family. She has already had to much stress this past year with me being very sick for much of the year and uprooting and moving around a lot. I’m not looking for a way to make her into a “math whiz” but rather a way to get her through the respective grades in a timely fashion (as we need to keep up somewhat with our provinces learning outcomes) and have it be a less stressful situation for her. She tries hard most of the time and wants to do it well. A lot of the times she just doesn’t have that “lightbulb” moment during a lesson. I don’t get her to move on until she “gets” it. But she often loses some of what she has learned previously when on a new topic. I have a nagging feeling that I am not the best teacher for her in this subject as I had much of the same struggles in math as she is now having. I know how she feels but I don’t know how to help her.
The worst part of all of this is that I think she is feeling “less than” and not smart enough. She is VERY gifted and interested in the areas of art etc. She does well in narration and picture study and composer study. She is dedicated to her ballet class and practices regularly, she LOVES Monet and studies art on her own often. She is also very compassionate and loving and is already learning and interested in homemaking. It’s mostly just this math issue. She is crying every day but doesn’t want to stop because she wants to get through it. I feel so badly for her and my husband and I are open to suggestions from more experienced homeschool parents.
Well, there’s another long post from yours truly!
-Linabean
I am not an expert in anything homeschooling as we are just about to start in July! However, if she likes to read and learns well that way, check out http://www.livingmath.net I am not saying that I would feel comfortable only using reading books to teach my children math, but maybe some interesting math books could help her grasp some of the concepts in a more interesting way. They have lots for all different stages and math topics that they recommend. I found a great geometry one for my son and my library had it!
Good luck!
Linabean,
My heart goes out to you and your daughter. I have a thought. My eldest is “gifted” as you put it, and she too is talented in many other venues. She taught herself to read by age 4, she is excellent in Art, singing, etc….Math on the other hand, she can do; but it has always been one of her least favorite subjects….
Enter daughter #2. She is a math whiz, it comes easy for her and she enjoys it. However, she could not read until just recently at age 8, and other mental challenges are a struggle for her.
My point is that perhaps those of us who are talented in one area, stuggle in others; and maybe you just need to shake things up a bit for her. I have found that when one of my children are having a hard time, esp. in math; that they just need a vacation from it. You may need to change the curriculum for her also. I had to switch my second daughter from Right Start this year(2nd grade) after months and months of tears daily. We switched to Math Mammoth, and it was like a whole new daughter appeared for Math lessons. She is my Math LOVER, and I knew when the love for math went out of her with Right Start, something had to be done. I am not saying that RS isn’t good either, b/c I love it. My eldest went through to Level E; but for some reason, my 2nd grader was not finding the RS love! The lessons would drag out, she couldn’t do the mental math part, and hated the warm ups.
I would focus on math games maybe? Do you have the RS Math games cards or book? Perhaps you could just do games for awhile. Check out a math games book from the library and do that for awhile. Or, if she is determined to finish the book, maybe just keep lessons a lot shorter. That is hard to do with RS, but possible. Let us know how it goes!
Sorry, correction, I said in the beginning of my post that she just finished up grade 2 math about a month ago. Actually she just finished up grade 1. She is in grade 2 now -Level C in Right Start. She struggled to get through grade 1 last year and it actually took all of last year (though not in RS) and then up to April of this year (using RS). She is doing better this school year, though is still really struggling. She wants to “catch up” and start grade 3 at the beginning of our new school year in Sept. I’m just not sure how that will happen if things keep going the way they have been.
Anyway, sorry for the mistake, don’t know if it even matters. Thank you for the suggestions and advice ladies! I’m talking things over with my hubby and coming up with a “plan of action” this weekend! I really appreciate all the help I can get!
My son had the same problem for a couple of years. Turns out it was the program that we were using. I did most of the teaching and I hate to say it, but i am not real patient when it comes to math. SO we continued looking and stumbled upon Math-U-See. I reluctantly gave it a shot because it comes with a video with someone else “teaching” and a book that helps me to better explain the lessons. Needless to say, we no longer have math issues and my son looks forward to math and watching a “real” teacher (his words, not mine
). Then he sits down with me and we run through his lesson and when we are done, he gets to teach it back to me which he loves. And without realizing it, he is re-inforcing the lessons. Keep in mind though, we have just done the ALPHA version and will be starting BETA this next year, so I only have one year of experience with the product. HTH
Kimberly
). Then he sits down with me and we run through his lesson and when we are done, he gets to teach it back to me which he loves. And without realizing it, he is re-inforcing the lessons. Viewing 5 posts - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
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