Math facts vs. Math concepts

Math facts vs. Math concepts

There are MANY kids like this out there. Dyscalculia is another LD that is little known and commonly misunderstood. Though like most "definitions" - our kids don't fit the cookie cutter stereotype. Symptoms, causality, descriptions will vary.

What seems truly common is the "inability" with Math Facts and the "ability" to practically intuit higher level math concepts. It also seems - to me - to be a tad more common amongst kids who are also dysgraphic. Also amongst "visual spatial" thinkers (which is also seems tied to dysgraphia - hmmmm...... anyways)

For my son - and quite a number of other kids I know - in person or via parent/cyberspace - the "solution" is NOT drill drill drill (an anathema to these kids!), but to just stop worrying about it, let them go on to more challenging math problems. They will have to USE computational skills to solve them but they will also be getting the mental challenge/stimulus they NEED.

For many, letting them use a grid or (in our case) a calculator - to SOLVE the problems is perfectly fine! What happened (s) is: they get the PICTURE they need to retrieve quickly (you know they know and understand the concept - because they constantly refigure - so the PICTURE is ok here). And - over time, you see them access the calculator/chart less and less.

Do NOT "hold them back" for silly things like math facts. (Do you stop your kid from reading more interesting books because they can't spell??) It will make them bored and resentful, and they will come to HATE MATH and question that wonderfully intuitive skill they have.

And for (whatever diety you wish)'s sake - DO NOT GIVE THEM TIMED TESTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This will only increase TEST ANXIETY which can - and does (BTDT) - spill over into every OTHER test they ever take.

FWIW - Timed "math facts" tests were a large part of what drove my son out of PS. The teacher knew he "knew" them, but he absolutely could not - between dyscalculia, dysgraphia, and test anxiety - legibly complete the test in the time alloted!

As my son has advanced to more complex Algebraic problems, he's figured out that he HAS to "show his work" (aaaggh!) in order to work through the problems. He also has to "proof" his work (so he's doing mostly self-checking.) He still wants the calculator there, but he doesn't use it very often for basic calculations.

Although, on his recent yearly test (we do ours in January) - he again - scored about 50% on Math Calculations and 99% on Math Concepts. Even though they were basically the "same problems" - whereas the Math Calc problem was "just numbers" - and the Math Concept problem was buried in a "word problem".

http://www.dyscalculia.org /

http://www.ldonline.org/ld_indepth/math_skills/math-ski ...
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By definition, math must be UNDERSTOOD. It CANNOT be memorized. Memorizing is not math. Memorization is a surface-level, short-term memory task. Math involves deep thinking and understanding - real brain work - and your 7-yo may or may not be ready to do it.

Math is not about memorizing algorithms or facts. It's about understanding the reality that the world is made of numbers.

Really. I am deadly serious about this. My kids are all really, really good at math, at least according to their standardized test scores, and none of them have ever once cracked a math book or a flashcard (and Mr. Unschooler and I both suck at math, so there is no inherited talent at work). And, yes, they can answer quickly if you ask them one of those "math facts" questions such as what is 7 times 8. The great thing is that if they forget what 7 times 8 is, it's not big deal, because they can very quickly and easily figure out a strategy to solve the problem.

100% of our arithmetic consisted either of figuring out "real world" problems (how many giraffes would you have to stack up to reach the top of mommy's office building? how would you go about doubling that recipe?) or in math games we invent. To learn times tables, we did a lot of counting by tens, fives, sevens, eights, elevens and so on. To learn division, we played a game where we imagined there were a set number of cookies to be divided amont a set number of children, with the leftovers (remainder) going to the dog. We also figure out the area of all kinds of things. Another favorite is the "number machine" wherein one person puts a number into the "machine" (the other player), which spits back an answer. The first person continues to "insert" numbers into the "machine" until he can figure out what the machine did to the "input" number in order to generate the "output" (the machine can do something as simple as adding one or two or as complicated as algebra).

Sometimes, I'll throw out a problem for one of the kids and let them think about it for minutes, hours or days. There's no rush. I'd rather they think deeply about it and figure out a way to solve the problem than memorize an algorithm and not understand what they are doing.

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics has embraced a pedgagogical approach based on deep understanding of numbers rather than memorization of facts. I'd encourage you to look at their ideas and also those in John Holt's excellent book "Learning All the Time."