Why does math cause so much strife?
I certainly recall from my own days of youth, those fist forming, mouth pinching and head hurting moments. Thank goodness we had telephones, I would usually call up a friend (of course the ones much smarter than I was).
Jonah actually does great in math, he grasps concepts quickly and works on his own. There's the good news. The bad news is: he continually rushes through his work, doesn't "show" his work, and makes many sloppy mistakes. Often he fails to read the problem entirely before trying to reach a solution (word problems, oh the glory!).
All of you out there who have been the "math helper" parent can probably relate to this frustration!! What are your approaches to math woes? Doesn't it seem like it is math that causes the most headaches for parents and students? And yet we can all agree, you gotta learn math! No getting around it! The challenges build character! They push you to expand your brain cells! Students who are strong in math will have success in university academics! (I just made that last one up).
The program we use is called Singapore Math. I can credit my sister for the fact that we use this math program. After my son's 3rd grade year, I was informed that he should work on math over the summer (read: get some tutoring!). I decided to try to tackle the situation myself, begged for my sister's help (she had already been homeschooling for years and has a son one grade ahead of mine), and finally ended up trying out the math books that she had been using successfully at home.
The progress we made that summer was what sparked my keen interest in homeschooling. Jonah cruised through a lot of material in what was about 15 minutes, three or four times a week! He entered 4th grade with a solid foundation of the concepts he should know.
Working with him now, we are at a different level - one which I have a hard time grasping as the teacher sometimes! Thank the Lord that I have Answer Keys. I love those Answer Keys. I don't know what I'd do without them! But they don't help me in teaching the benefits of slowing down, reading a problem several times, doing the bar models (a method highly used in Singapore Math), using all the information given to you in the problem. And when your student is STUCK, and you absolutely positively cannot get him to budge towards the very simple next step of a problem (because of course you don't want to just give him the answer), and it feels like a tug of war, well now that is usually when the point comes to near-tears.
I admit it does not happen often, but it does happen. Typically I call for a 5-10 minute break, and when we return things usually go more smoothly.
Homeschooling the subject of math certainly has proven to be my greatest challenge and fear. Math wizard, I am not! But to be fair, I'll say that having a quiet home, the Answer Keys for Mom, time to take breaks, and a great Teacher's Manual have given me the tools to provide Homeschool Math. As we go forward and things become more complicated, I'm not sure what we'll do. But for now, we are just trying to avoid the Tears of Arithmetic.
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