math

I think your situation is far easier to deal with than an unmotivated child

Two of my three are very bright and ‘neurotypical’ and they both think “why should I do anything when I can get a B or C without lifting a finger?”

The oldest dropped out of college three months in because he had no clue how to work, how to study, and no motivation to do so

My youngest is LD and there is no question he has the best work ethic. He knows he has to work and is willing(well, most of the time)

Honestly, I dont think you have a problem. As long as she is passing standardized testing and getting passing grades, she is fine!!!

If things get difficult in high school, you may have to look to tutoring(you could now as well as sort of an inoculation)

Just assure her of that and give her a hug.

She can not pass the MCAS. This year she has the math part and we are waiting to see what her score is. She is in mcas prep and takes mcas prep in the summer. I have hired tutors for her since she was 6. We concentrated on Wilson and let the math slip. Then we tried every way to help her learn math from Kuman to one on one. We concentrated on fractions first. It is a process of taking each new problem one step at a time. With age and strategies, she is comprehending quicker and pulling information together faster. I watch a child struggle, succeed, and fail all at the same time. Does anyone else have a child like this?

If you want some more math ideas and/or to find other kids for whom math is a weakness, you might want to go to the homeschooling forum for sonlight

I think its just sonlight.com and then you find your way to the forums. The math one is VERY active and theres a poster called ‘Denise in IL” who is very math oriented(I think she is actually writing a math book!!!!)

She is the one who tends to pop up with awesome answers to specific problems. You might want to browse or even search out her posts for ideas of how to get over various “bumps”. Be aware there will be zillions of “what math program should I use” posts to sift through ;)

Fractions, percents, and multiplication tables are VERY common stumbling blocks and there are usually strategy and book recommendations in her posts

Math is like this :(

And… it is very tough on the kiddo to want to do better. If you can, try to impress on her that her math grades would be like her time in running the mile. She is not going to be as fast as many folks — but she should continue to work on improving her skills. Ifshe counters that if she were running track she would be trying to get *faster* but her gradesaren’t going up, tell her that the math is getting harder, so it’s as if the track were being made into a steeper uphill, so keeping the same time/ grade *is* improving.

Also, impress on her that grades are a cheap gimmick and so often don’t have anything to do with how much you’ve learned, especially in math.

My little brother has a degree in Astrophysics. However, he should have failed high school math. He could not keep up with the pace of the class; the teacher agreed to give him D’s if he kept working at his own pace.
There are two AP Calculus tests — the teacher was required to pace the class for the “big” one. My brother got a 5/5 on the “easy” one… so he only got three credits of college math from high school — but, as I said, he learned it thorouighly enough to go on and get his degree in astrophysics (no, I’m not kidding).

So let her take her time and figure this stuff out. Peek over at the “math” bb here, too, for some ideas for fractions. Where does she have difficulty? Is it just too many routines and steps? It utterly galls me the way math instruction is delivered (which is not to be confused with actually teaching it) — oh, the kids are behind, so we need to cover *more* this year, and whe we don’t give them time to learn it so they don’t get it this year either, we’ll go even *Ifaster* next year to cover the stuff they’ve missed. And gosh, now everybody but the four natural learners or the ones with a lot of help at home is convinced they are simply Not Good At Math.

You said:

“She hits many stumbling blocks but stands up and says I am going to do better. Nothing brings her down. The more challenging it gets…the harder she works. What do you do with a child that constantly tries to achieve and sometimes the goals are far beyond her reach? She will not give up.”

You do not know what level she can get to if you do not let her reach for the stars. Last night I was asked to teach math to a child in grade five as he could not add or subtract any numbers. It took me an hour to teach him DotMath to help him understand what a nubmer is. I then tested him on addition and subtraction and he got 100% on both.
You can get the graphics I used for free from the DotMath for kids web site at:

http://dotmath.tripod.com/

Your daughter sounds a lot like me when I was being homeschooled as a teenager. I would study math for three to five hours a day trying to get the information into my mind, and even with a tutor I still could not get it. When I got to college and had to take remedial classes I would study for three hours for a test and sometimes didn’t get it. The only way I could get good grades was having unlimited testing time at the disabled center, going to a tutor almost every day, and taking classes with teachers that allowed you to use notes on your tests. Maybe your daughter can get the same accomodation at her school I can imagine that would sure help her.

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