Lost 2 years of math

This is more common than many people, especially school people, want to admit.

The basic pattern is that the child is coached forcefully in rote methods without any understanding.
Then either the immense amount of time and effort spent on the rote teaching is dropped, or else there are more and more things added until you reach the last straw that breaks the camel’s back when the memorization capacity is overloaded.
The child never understood the math in the first place. The paper performance was all imitation. Given even a little time to forget, or confusion over an overload of systems and rules to memorize, the child fails miserably.

Sylvan doesn’t have a very positive reputation with people here and I was not impresse either as an applicant. They do lots of paper and pencil drill, and if the basic understanding has fallen down, more drill of the same failed system won’t rebuild it.

What does work takes time and effort, but on the other hand it lasts: first you have to interview the child in depth and find out what really is known about numbers. The results are often surprising and shocking; frequently you find that the only thing the child knows for sure is counting single digits and adding on the fingers. (I got another one of these just this week, can only add 1 or 2 effectively, nothing larger and not good with sums over 7, end of Grade 2 in an exclusive private school). Once you know where you *really* are, then you get a good detailed developmental program and work through it step by step. At first you move very slowly because you are changing attitudes and habits. Hurrying doesn’t work; that is what got you to this point in the first place. But once a real foundation is built, things speed up and you can catch up to grade level — one-to-one tutoring is much more efficient than class work and you can get there.

I’d ask how she’s doing in math in class - how are her grades and what does she say about math class? check her worksheets,tests and papers - see what’s going on there. Some test results can be a fluke.

But what did Sylvan say to you about this? It’s on their watch - not just the school’s - that this happened. I’d think about wanting my money back from them.

Good luck.

PS — just looking over the board, some free time — yes, Sylvan spends a heck of a lot of money advertising a guarantee. Sounds like you have a good case for a big refund — fight for it.
Then spend the money on someone who really knows both math and teaching, one-to-one.

:evil: Well to update Sylvan gave us 12 free hours (big deal!!!) which we have applied to her reading which has gone up! Went to hear a transition speaker the other night (transitioning from middle school to high school) by the name of Ed O’Leary…If anyone has the chance to hear him it will be the best 2 hours spent! He is very funny but VERY business! My dau IEP is this monday and things will go a whole lot different after listening to him!

Sylvan is not designed to remediate learning disabilites. I agree with Victoria, find a qualified tutor who is trained in specific methods to remediate. You’re basically wasting time (and a lot of money) at Sylvan.

Janis

Obviously there is a problem, but you really can’t compare grade equivalent scores. Take a look at the standard scores and the percentile rank they translate to. If she was scoring at the 5oth percentile and now scores at the 25th, you know she has regressed. Grade equivalents are a hypothetical comparison—she did as well as the average 4th grade, 2nd month student would do if given that test, which isn’t given to 4th graders at all but to students who are at the same level as your child is now (not sure what grade she is in?) So if a child scores 3 grade levels above her current grade it does not mean that she is ready for math at that level, just that she did as well as the average child 3 grades above her would do on that test if she took it, which she wouldn’t because it is not at her grade level. Still, Sylvan obviously isn’t doing what they promise!

Grade equivalent scores are relatively meaningless. Your daughter’s test when she was in sixth grade was different than her test now. Even if it’s the same test series, it’s a different test. You want to look at standard deviations, T-scores, z-scores or percentiles. That will tell you how your daughter is doing compared to her age level.

Since Sylvan guarantees and reports scores by grade level, and makes up its own tests, when it fails at its own game there is clearly a problem here.