Free shipping on USA orders over $129!
I need help teaching my daughter math!
- This topic has 12 replies, 10 voices, and was last updated 10 years, 1 month ago by
.
Viewing 13 posts - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)
- Posts
I am desperate. My 12 year old has so much trouble with math that we can’t even get started any more without getting upset at each other. She has convinced herself there is no way to understand anything, so she shuts her mind down and really doesn’t allow herself to understand. I’m not very good at keeping frustration down, and that doesn’t help at all.
I really want to remove myself from math for her so it will be less emotional. I’m working on my emotions about this, but for right now we need something. So I was thinking about getting something for math that will help her succeed right away.
She is not very good at thinking about word problems and she prefers procedures to having to figure any of it out (Life of Fred is killing her). As much as I don’t want procedures to be the focus, I think she needs to feel better about herself.
I was thinking about Teaching Textbooks or Math Mammoth. I don’t actually like TT for a number of reasons–my older daughter did it last year. But I’m willing to realize that every child is different with different needs.
I have no idea about Math Mammoth. Can somone give me an opinion as it relates to a child who has a hard time putting ideas together with math? I do realize MM wouldn’t remove me as much as TT, but I’m betting it’s a better program.
She also has a hard time listening and understanding what’s going on. She can read things to herself and see, but listening is hard. She is a terrific writer and speller and gets grammar before I even teach it. She is extremely visual, but I don’t want math that is too busy looking on the page. She doesn’t want to use manipulatives which would help. I think she thinks it means she’s immature.
I just really want her to feel better about it so she can relax and learn. She can’t learn while she’s crying, sulking or grumbling!
Thanks
Our youngest son switched to TT for similar reasons. A caution. No matter what program you use, you will have to interact with her when roadblocks occur no matter the curriculum. I know. We’ve used all sorts of math programs with our five DC over the years.
You might have her try oral teaching. This is where she has to “teach” you, or herself in another room. She’d read the problems out loud and talk as if she were teaching it to someone else. This has helped some of my children. Seems to cause them to focus more on the steps and catch the “glitch” in their thinking. It may take a bit of practice, just like narration. (
As far as the interaction with your daughter, I HAVE TO RECOMMEND a book called Unglued: Making Wise Decisions in the Midst of Raw Emotions, by Lysa TerKeurst! I’ve started it in a small group setting recently and it is such a blessing! It’s truly helping me slowing myself down, and helps me to encourage my children (and, others) to slow down in the middle of an upsetting situation. It also helps change what you’re thinking…..you CAN help her…..she CAN learn math.
Here’s a key verse that has helped me:
“May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.” Psalm 19:14
hth
MM is a strong mental math program. It is wrote directly to the student, and there aren’t any real teaching helps if you need them. Have you tried the free samples?
What exactly did you dislike about TT?
For a child who’s struggling, I would suggest TT over MM, but that depends on what you disliked about it.
I was going to suggest R+S, but there isn’t a lot of white space on the pages. There is some, and you could do just half, spreading it out or not doing the other half, but it still might be too much.
MUS might be good. The video can be used, it would take some of the initial pressure off the teaching and she can look at the lesson in the book, which just goes over what was shared in the video, for the most part. The book would help give her another visual. The only manipulatives are the blocks and fraction overlays, which you could let her not use (until she gets that she can
). So, those aren’t “babyish” at all. She might feel better about them if she’s not feeling pressured to “have” to. The biggest plus in this situation is that she can take as long as she needs to get a lesson and there is plenty of “white space” on the workpages.And, just to reassure you … (you can share this w/ your dd, too)
My dd 12 is basically doing 4th gr math. (Gr 1-3 are learning add/sub facts and concepts then mult/div facts.) She knows her facts well but has been struggling w/ longer mult/div problems and fractions. We’ve switched to MUS and tested through Gamma. About 2/3 in they start covering longer multiplication and she’s feeling good about her math. We will test through Delta, too, because it’ll go over the facts at the beginning like Gamma, so we can pick up where she needs. (That’s the only drawback to switching to MUS later.) She uses a white board while watching the lessons and writes out what the teacher does. She’ll even pause the video at times to try it herself. (That would give another visual for your dd, possibly.)MCP math might be another one to check. The review is in the TM instead of the student book like R+S but it has more “white space.”
Does she know her facts? That will help. If she doesn’t. How about just finding and playing games that will help w/ numbers? (Yahtzee, for an example to start) But, there are also more specific math games that work on other skills and concepts, too. The games will alleviate stress for both of you and maybe start moving beyond the pressure you’re both feeling. Also, it’ll give you a bit of time to really look for what might be a good fit.
To answer your question we switched to Math Mammoth with my ds11. He was having a very difficult listenting to and following instructions with math and it was becoming a real problem. He is many years behind in math. We find MM to work well for us because it is great for visual learners and there is lots of white space on the page. He does well with writing, history and evertything else, but math is a struggle. He is progressing by leaps and bounds withh MM and I highly recommend it. You will still have to sit with her, but she will probably do much better with this. There are samples to look at on her website.
I buy the downloads and make cover pages similar to the ones that come with the book. On my covers I write Math Mammoth Book 3 instead of Grade 3 so he doesn’t know the difference. You can personalize the tests too so I changed the final tests to read “Final Test 2” instead of grade 2 for the same reason.
we use http://www.xtramath.com for math facts practice.
I was going to suggest MUS because she and you watch the video, and the video teaches the next skill.
My kids like it and I like that I stay consistant since I do not know how to “teach” math. Before MUS I would confuse the kids with trying to help
We use Math-U-See for our youngest, and it works for her. However, she’s never really struggled much with math & is good at mental math. If you are considering MUS, you ought to see if anyone you know has it & would be willing to let you borrow it (dvd & student workbook) for a day or two so you both could watch a couple of videos to see if it appeals to your daughter. If you can manage to borrow a level lower than where she’s at, that would allow her to see how Mr. Demme presents things without being challenged by it too much at this point.
My daughter(10) was doing MUS upon the recommendation of an educational consultant. She struggles very much with math. MUS was good for learning place value, but after that, she just did not take to it. She really didn’t care for using the rods. She would rather just use generic object to count or she uses a number line. She is still working in addition and subtraction. She does not have facts memorized. She has dyslexia, so she does not pay attention to detail…..like directions
So, if she has a page where there are addition and subtraction problems mixed, she sometimes uses the wrong operation. So, it has been a tough road in math. Becasue the MUS was not working, I ended up putting her in MCP workbooks. So, far that is working, and most of the time she uses a number line to do her adding adn subtracting. But, she will use her fingers too:) A mom on another board told me about Jump Math. I am doing that along with the MCP. You can use it alone, at least in the early grades, but I am using both right now. I like how Jump Math teaches certain concepts, but MCP gives a lot of practice problems. I just found this website with a lot of math activities/games. I think we will be doing some of these. HTHhttp://www.learn-with-math-games.com
Psreitmom, my son struggled with MUS blocks too. He could use the AL abacus in RightStart though. I wonder if their abacus could help your daughter too. You should be able to use it with MCP.
Art – Are there some math games you two could play together? This may not seem so much like a lesson and can take some pressure off while still practicing skills. This can be any games with numbered cards or dice. We use the RightStart math games, but it goes to about 4th grade with fractions. So it may not be the right level. Still you could look into math games to help gain some confidence.
I agree with Tailor Made, it seems any math program will not remove the need for me to help my son who struggles.
I didn’t want to give the impression that I couldn’t help her. I was just really frustrated when I posted. We tried MUS a couple years ago with her and it was too much for her to listen to the DVD. So if I did that, she wouldn’t be watching it much. I asked her about TT, because she had seen her sister use it. She said it was irritating. I think anything about math irritates her though. I think it doesn’t matter what we use. We have a lot of things already because her older sister and younger brother (they do the same math together) are math strugglers too. In fact, my 15 yr old daughter used to act the same way, so I asked her to tell her sis how she overcame it. She told her that she prayed a lot (which we’ve been doing) and even worked through math problems in prayer. She also told her that she had to decide to calm down. So I guess we’ll just keep on with what we’re doing and more praying.
TailorMade: I will have to look into the book you suggested. It’s a lot of work for me to not get my emotions involved.
Thanks everyone!
Great suggestions from big sis 🙂
Math mammoth is so inexpensive, you could try a section and see how it went with very little investment. You really don’t need manipulatives with MM because she gives illustrations to go along with the problems that sort of take the place of manipulatives. And it has all the explanations on the students sheets so they can read it to themselves.
Sounds like it might be just what you need.
What about Christian Light? http://www.clp.org/store/by_subject/4
There are some posts on this forum about it and it sounds very independent. I looked at some samples and I like the looks of it. Here is a post:
http://simplycharlottemason.com/scmforum/topic/questions-about-cle-sunrise
And here:
http://simplycharlottemason.com/scmforum/topic/cant-decide-on-math-please-help
It is inexpensive to try.
). So, those aren’t “babyish” at all. She might feel better about them if she’s not feeling pressured to “have” to. The biggest plus in this situation is that she can take as long as she needs to get a lesson and there is plenty of “white space” on the workpages.
So, if she has a page where there are addition and subtraction problems mixed, she sometimes uses the wrong operation. So, it has been a tough road in math. Becasue the MUS was not working, I ended up putting her in MCP workbooks. So, far that is working, and most of the time she uses a number line to do her adding adn subtracting. But, she will use her fingers too:) A mom on another board told me about Jump Math. I am doing that along with the MCP. You can use it alone, at least in the early grades, but I am using both right now. I like how Jump Math teaches certain concepts, but MCP gives a lot of practice problems. I just found this website with a lot of math activities/games. I think we will be doing some of these. HTH
Viewing 13 posts - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)
- The topic ‘I need help teaching my daughter math!’ is closed to new replies.