homework

[rach04]

j is now in yr6 and in sencos class. He came home with maths (his poorest subject) on monday for it to be in yesterday well it was to find 20 things with a bar code -simple enough, write down the last 3 digits- ok we can cope. then..................... x 5 by 100, divided 5 by 10 and 100 and i can remember what the other on was. now to me and you this is about moving the decimal point but could i get him to get the hang of it and 30 mins later he was panicing. He stuggles with adding double figure numbers ie 10+12 so knew he was out of his depth . so i wrote a polite note on the bottom saying j really struggled with this. I am confusing the confused.

Last night j comes out with a help sheet and its the tenths hundreds thousands sheet and the same homework. Did senco not get the hint that j cant cope with yr6 maths ive got a meeting with him and ed physc in october but i see me being up there before them

Edited September 13, 2007 by rach04

[paulathomson]

j is now in yr6 and in sencos class. He came home with maths (his poorest subject) on monday for it to be in yesterday well it was to find 20 things with a bar code -simple enough, write down the last 3 digits- ok we can cope. then..................... x 5 by 100, divided 5 by 10 and 100 and i can remember what the other on was. now to me and you this is about moving the decimal point but could i get him to get the hang of it and 30 mins later he was panicing. He stuggles with adding double figure numbers ie 10+12 so knew he was out of his depth . so i wrote a polite note on the bottom saying j really struggled with this. I am confusing the confused.

Last night j comes out with a help sheet and its the tenths hundreds thousands sheet and the same homework. Did senco not get the hint that j cant cope with yr6 maths ive got a meeting with him and ed physc in october but i see me being up there before them

 

 

 

i have a similar thing with my sons school. he struggles quite badly with writing- particularly if he has to think something up like a story.. but he also has difficulties with reading. he can read the words and can read the whole book but he doesnt understand the story.. he will be able to tell me specific things on last page but not what the story is about. i have put polite notices in his book bag for the teacher.. but will they take any notice.....no. even after speaking to the teacher they still dont get it... sometimes i wonder who exactly cant understand what is being said... my son or the teacher...argghhh

[curra]

It was the same with my DS in Maths, the school always expected him to do work that he didn't know how to do. I struggled like you for years, teaching him the best I could, but he only got more confused. Now he has to prepare for his GCSEs and he still can't add without a calculator. He has special support in Maths because it's in his statement, but they still don't teach him how to improve his maths skills. Perhaps your son has dyscalculia, as I suspect mine has, but it's very hard to get support for it because it's not as recognized as dyslexia. Maths teachers usually think it's just a question of practising until you grasp a concept and learn an operation . For example timetables. Most children do learn them by repetition but my son couldn't. I even chanted them with him everyday when he was in primary school. He said he could "see" the words but not the numbers. He learned to tell the time when he was 12! You need to discuss your son's difficulties with the teacher and the Senco and ask them to use different teaching techniques with him. This is called differentiation and schools have to do it (but usually avoid because it implies more work). You can also ask the school to assess him first and then work out the strategies. There are special tests for this but I don't know what they are called. Perhaps someone who knows more about Maths can tell you. Giving him the same homework again just shows that they are treating his difficulties as lack of studying which is not the case of your son.

 

Good luck!

 

Curra

[paulathomson]

It was the same with my DS in Maths, the school always expected him to do work that he didn't know how to do. I struggled like you for years, teaching him the best I could, but he only got more confused. Now he has to prepare for his GCSEs and he still can't add without a calculator. He has special support in Maths because it's in his statement, but they still don't teach him how to improve his maths skills. Perhaps your son has dyscalculia, as I suspect mine has, but it's very hard to get support for it because it's not as recognized as dyslexia. Maths teachers usually think it's just a question of practising until you grasp a concept and learn an operation . For example timetables. Most children do learn them by repetition but my son couldn't. I even chanted them with him everyday when he was in primary school. He said he could "see" the words but not the numbers. He learned to tell the time when he was 12! You need to discuss your son's difficulties with the teacher and the Senco and ask them to use different teaching techniques with him. This is called differentiation and schools have to do it (but usually avoid because it implies more work). You can also ask the school to assess him first and then work out the strategies. There are special tests for this but I don't know what they are called. Perhaps someone who knows more about Maths can tell you. Giving him the same homework again just shows that they are treating his difficulties as lack of studying which is not the case of your son.

 

Good luck!

 

Curra

 

thanks forthe advice. my son doesnt struggle with maths.. in fact numbers and counting is one of his obsessions, so i dont have to woryy too much. his difficulties lie within literacy.. he can read the words from the book but doesnt understand the underlying theme. consequently, because hes reading the books parrot-fashion and thus keeping up with the reading stages, the school will not give him any support.

 

however, this does impact on other subjects like maths because sometimes he cant understand what the question is asking him to do..once he knows what to do he can get on with it.

 

we are in the military and my son is registered with sce- service childrens education- as having sen..they are going to set up a meeting this week with the school and all relevant people to get it sorted. the headteacher knows i mean business as i spoke with mp and also took the advice from this forum and requested copies of his school records.

[Mumble]

j is now in yr6 and in sencos class. He came home with maths (his poorest subject) on monday for it to be in yesterday well it was to find 20 things with a bar code -simple enough, write down the last 3 digits- ok we can cope. then..................... x 5 by 100, divided 5 by 10 and 100 and i can remember what the other on was. now to me and you this is about moving the decimal point but could i get him to get the hang of it

What's your son/you like on a computer? It sounds to me like he's struggling to see the patterns in this. Once he understands the underlying patterns it will become easier.

 

With this I would set up an Excel spreadsheet with the headings of original number, x10, x100, x1000, divided by 10, divided by 100, divided by 1000 (I'd start with those and introduce 2 then 5 afterwards). You can copy the formulae down the columns. Then it's just a case of allowing your son to put the numbers in and to see what happens. Talking through the patterns he sees rather than generating the patterns himself will be much more valuable at this stage.

 

I would also speak to his teacher and see if you can borrow/make some similar resources to the ones used in class so that the teacher and you are both saying the same things and not confusing him - I say that particuarly as you talk of moving the decimal point which you would have been taught. Your son will be being taught to move the digits around the stationary decimal point.

[Mumble]

Maths teachers usually think it's just a question of practising until you grasp a concept and learn an operation . For example timetables. Most children do learn them by repetition but my son couldn't.

This very much depends on what you mean by 'learn'. Many children learn to repeat the tables very much as you would learn to recite a poem. Some children learn their recitation so well they can pick out individual lines, some have to go though from the beginning to get to 8 x 7. What children are not doing by learning to recite tables is learn anything about what tables mean, how they are consructed, how multiplication fits within the mathematical structures, the connectedness of this to the other work they do. All that is being done by asking pupils to learn a table and then testing it as a table (whether in the order of a table or muddled up) is a test of a)memory and b)how much the child's parents go on at them until they can recite it. Now I'm not saying that children shouldn't know their tables, but they need to know where these come from, their meaning and how they are derived. They should not be learnt out of context. Tests should conect the table with the maths (if it needs to be 'tested' at all) and should ask pupils to apply to demonstrate understanding and sound strategies of recall/computation rather than relying on meaningless memory.

 

Whilst it looks like most children learn by repetion, few of them are actually learning - they are remembering. I would not worry that your son is not getting these - learning tables carries a vast history and is something that many parents expect and it is often parental expectations and teachers usinf what tey were taught in their education that mean such pratices remain.

 

You need to discuss your son's difficulties with the teacher and the Senco and ask them to use different teaching techniques with him. This is called differentiation and schools have to do it (but usually avoid because it implies more work)

Schools do not have to differentiate work. They have to demonstrate that the work they are doing supports the needs of all learners. There are various ways in which schools do this, not all to do with in class differentiation, particularly in maths. Most secondary schools 'set' pupils for maths - they are therefore 'responding' to the requirements to respond to all learners (at least in their view).

 

You can also ask the school to assess him first and then work out the strategies. There are special tests for this but I don't know what they are called. Perhaps someone who knows more about Maths can tell you.

Tests for dyscalculia (indeed all research on dyscalculia) is very much in its infancy. Many individuals will say they have dyscalculia because they are, in their words, 'bad at maths'. If there is such a condition as dyscalculia and it is distinct from dyslexia (which can give difficulties in number work) it will be very important that it is not conceptualised as 'bad at maths'. There are various assessment tests that could be done, but what the school should be focussing on is working out what he can do and building this togther into a coherent picture. Part of the difficulty is that in AS, much learning is unconnected. The best way to understand maths is as a connected subject: hence an inherent contradiction.