I love math. A preschool teacher predicted to my mother that I'd be good at math based on how I built with blocks and I actively remember enjoying first grade math. When it came time to choose a math program for my kids, I knew I wanted them to love math and understand math the way I did. I chose RightStart and have enjoyed teaching it. After nearly four years, I still enjoy teaching it, am surprised by how well thought out it is, and recommend it to anyone who will listen.
John loves math. The program is perfect for him.
About two months ago, Anna told Daddy she didn't like math.
Uh-oh. This was not an acceptable turn of events.
I knew the week prior to this statement had been hard, as we'd worked on some mental math concepts she had disliked and I had gotten frustrated with her. It didn't shock me, but I knew it wasn't only from the prior week.
We spent the next week playing math games. We covered no lessons and did no new concepts, but I spent the week playing games I thought she could do easily, to built up her confidence. It was a good week.
After that, I didn't know what to do, but a friend recommended the MEP (Mathematics Enhancement Programme) curriculum from England. It is free, and now that we have a printer, I could print out a bit to "try."
I gave Anna the printouts and she ate it up. She loved it. She grabbed it first thing every morning and raved about it each evening to Daddy. I let her do ony MEP worksheets (which is only part of the program) and RightStart math games for another week.
Finally, the time came when she needed a real lesson, not just worksheets and games (although some people can make those into a full curriculum, I love how RightStart is taught). I couldn't bring myself to abandon RightStart philosophy, so I pulled out RightStart again and gave it a try. I rewrote the problems I knew would vex her and decided to work by the clock instead of by the book.
It has worked. She still doesn't say math is her favorite subject.
But math games and math worksheets are.
And she no longer fights the solid foundation she is getting from the systematic teaching of RightStart.
"Uh-oh. This was not an acceptable turn of events." :)
ReplyDeleteI like this story... partially because it involves dealing one of those ...what are those tricky things called again..? Oh yeah, problems!
-Vikki
I'll be curious to know if you think fear is what leads to the "I don't like" for her. If it is, I think your tactic of pausing for confidence-building makes a lot of sense. I built up a fear of being wrong pretty early with math, which I wish I could have overcome. - Eva
ReplyDeleteFear is such a big issue, which doesn't make sense to me, because John never had fear. Who knows? That's when I get frustrated, but of course that makes things worse. I think the week or two off really took pressure off of both of us. I also need to remember that I've accelerated my kids and that I can let my foot off the gas at times.
DeleteAlso, with John, we took month long breaks every three months or so to do a different math program. I haven't done that with Anna because I decided it wasn't that great or a program, but maybe the time off was crucial to success.
I have been following Singapore but that's not important, because I have customized the whole program. I have mainly used the books as a guide and have been teaching from a small white board.(I have skipped around the material to the sequence that made sense to both of us. Example-clocks don't interest us one bit, might as well not kill time on them, the basis is there so when the interest is there, she will grasp it). Now, what has been my experience? Every once in a while, we reach a point that I think we have mastered only to discover that nothing has stuck. 1) Then I back until I hit solid ground and start again. I used to be frustrated, but I quit. The reason I quit being frustrated is that it's counter productive, much easier and stress-free to go back until the solid ground. And I do non-test kind of concept checks all the time, at least once a week. 2)The other thing I learned is the importance of breaks. We currently do four 15-minute math sessions a week with a full week break every 6-8 weeks or when we feel we need it. It's important to relax your brain and distract it. That part I learned from Tech when working endlessly on a problem proved counter-productive, but taking a little time to get distracted consistently led me to solve the problem. That was not my approach in the beginning. Once I knew she was interested I was covering some examples every day. My goal was 6 problems a day. We did that for 18 months, with one week breaks here and there. Since we have gotten far, I figured its important to slow down and reflect on what we have learned, slowly build up, and keep the interest in. I think the ultimate goal is not so much the love as the interest. Once the healthy interest and curiosity is there she alone may grow into loving math.
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