Need math suggestions

[Holly S/NC]

Hello! I am not on the boards as much anymore. Some of you know about my son. For the newer posters, he had a congenital infection that caused deafness and other learning issues (calcification in the brain).

We have followed a similar learning path as my other children, just slowed *way* down. We fumbled in the beginning with math programs and finally found Rod & Staff and have stuck with it for several years now. He just turned 12, is in 5th grade and just started the 5th grade math book. So generously speaking, he is only one year behind and I am fine with that!

He is doing o.k. with basic math problems. He memorizes easily (his sole strength, so we use it) and learned his facts. He learns the way to approach a problem and masters the mechanics. So, with basic arithmetic, I am pretty happy with his performance.

The problem is that we are now embarking on all the "other" skills: fractions, measurement, etc. He is a mess! I think I let some of this slide when he was younger and now I am regretting it.

So, my question: I am not interested in changing programs. R & S (with is hefty review) is working for us, for the most part. R & S is slower in the younger years with some of this other stuff, so it could just be that we are just now hitting this and seeing the carnage.

I am interested in more ideas/games and supplements to focus on these other skills.

For example, about a year ago, some one mentioned workbooks to address how to solve word problems. He has been slowly working through them and I have seen a *big* improvement in reasoning out the word problems.

Thanks,
Holly S/NC

[Claire]

The "Key To" series of workbooks can be helpful with working through fractions, measurements, decimals, etc. They make a great supplement to any math program.

Specifically for fractions, I recommend the book by Marilyn Burns "Lessons for Introducing Fractions (http://www.amazon.com/Lessons-Introducing-Fractions-Teaching-Arithmetic/dp/0941355330/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1206556087&sr=8-1)". It was written for classroom use but is easy to modify for one-on-one. What I found especially useful was at the beginning she has the teacher and student both make a set of fractions manipulatives. Making our own manipulatives helped dd understand what she was working with. I'm not sure how useful the succeeding lessons will be since the approach is to teach multiple ways of understanding fractions. (You might be better off sticking to a single approach. The idea of teaching multiple approaches is to let the child access one of the many approaches that "clicks" with him/her.) The lessons include games to play with the manipulatives.

Fractions are a critical foundation for working with decimals, percents and ratios later on. The Marilyn Burns book (we used just the first one in the two-book series) and Key To Fractions were both very helpful for us.

[Holly S/NC]

Thanks, Claire. I had forgotten about these and will look into them.
Holly

[walkermamaof4]

my dd is 11 and has similar sounding issues. We did R&S and LOVED it until 3rd gr. All of the sudden she would mix up multiplication and addition and subtraction. It was as if her brain was overloaded with facts and she didn't know how to use them. I switched her to MUS and plugged along. But she just learns the mechanics. She never really catches on to what it all means. What workbooks did you find and like that you were mentioning? Any ideas where I could turn next? thx.

[teachmom3]

When my ds with hfa was in elementary, we used a number of supplemental approaches to help solidify his grasp of math--
Mention has already been made of the "Key to" series.
For fractions, I used Everything's Coming up Fractions (used with Cuisenaire rods)
I had ds on the computer, using software designed specifically to supplement his math program, as well as general market math software like Math Blaster
I also ended up using two math curricula simultaneously, since they had contrasting approaches to teaching math, and I felt that ds needed both.HTH!