I have a child in elementary school who's starting to learn math, and he's having some difficulty with addition. Would love to hear some advice from parents who've already been down this road with their kids, and possibly some teaching methods or tools that helped their kids grasp it? He's in first grade and we're talking basics. He's extremely smart and doing great in every other subject. He's just having some difficulty with this, and he's starting to get frustrated. Any help/ideas would be appreciated. Thanks
Make it fun and not a chore. Use rewards for completing a task, and bonus for getting the answers correct...candy or chocolate always works. I have a maths tutor program that I purchased from late night TV, it is good, but a little advanced for my girls. There is also some good apps for the IPad and iPhone. Hope this helps.
Try the khan academy. They have videos that you can watch to help you tutor your kid. The fact that you even care will be enough to overcome this. You can also use an abacus or counting blocks so your child can actually see what is happening during addition. You can also use money to help them learn to add. Use pennies and nickles and dimes.
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When I was that young, my mom used to sit down with me and do flash cards. That helped quite a bit. IzakDavid suggested using rewards, and that's probably a good suggestion. But for me it was a deal I made with my parents for getting a video game system: for every hour I played a video game, I would have to do flash cards for an hour. I doubt I ever really did flash cards for an hour straight, but still, it was very helpful. I also ended up playing baseball and basketball outside more as a result of all this and before long nearly gave up video games altogether. But still... flash cards helped.
Relax. Do a little extra work with your son but don't stress out if his math does not improve. Developmentally, your son may not be ready to do math. My son struggled to read, but over a month period he went from being way behind in his class to being average (without any major change in our approach).
All the stuff people said here like flash cards and making it a game sounds cool. Lastly, I would suggest using something he likes, etc., to relate things to him. Basketball? The Rockets have 5 points. They just scored a 3-pointer. How many total do they have now? <- not exactly in that manner, but write it down, show the operation, etc. What exactly is he having trouble with? PRACTICE A LOT. PROPS for admitting there's an issue and asking for help. I wished more parents did that.
thanks so much for all of the great ideas. I'm not stressing out about it but he is as he's doing great in everything else. I've been trying the method of putting blocks in front of him and it helps to some degree but he needs to be able to do this in his head. Will try some of these suggested ideas and please if you have other ideas I'd certainly welcome them. Thanks so much.
They can make accommodations for him at school so that he can do better, like taping a number line on his desk.
Your son might be a kinesthetic learner - someone that learns better through objects rather than problems on paper. See if he takes to math better if he is given problems through tangible objects. That could help him learn basic math facts, and once he has them mastered, the problems on paper will be easier.
Pffft, addition. I have an extremely bright 9 year old boy who has a creative mind but like most smart creative types is EXTREMELY stubborn in the sense that he cannot pay attention in school. Call it ADD or whatever, but he just can't focus on something he's not interested in. He had trouble in 3rd grade last year with multiplication, and carrying and borrowing. So I used visual cues, or examples that paint a picture in his head. Also, relate it to something he's interested in. If you kid is into baseball, use baseball themed examples, if he's into Barney, use Barney, you want something that will keep his focus on what you're saying. We're onto long division this week, and his grammar teacher just called and said he's having a real difficult time paying attention and his work is suffering for it. It is going to be a long school year.
