TC I pretty much agree with the essence of your post. My intent is not to be perfectionistic and drive the kids crazy. In fact, I often say that 90 is the best grade on a test - if you get 100 you worked too hard. Except in math. I think the difference between 90 and 100 is about carelessness. BTW, my own background is somewhat similar to yours. I wish that some adult had been there to show me a few tricks starting in elementary school so I’d make less careless errors.
But, again I agree with your message. I try to keep things fun and upbeat with an emphasis on rewards rather than punishment.
Definately. Rewards are a huge part of childhood and wanting to do something. Many children at that age want the attention from doing something correctly. Just be careful that your oldest isn’t rewarded *every *single time. Then, down the road, it will b expected and then carelessness will ensue once more.
I suggest, in combination with the rewards program, application to real life. Instead of some other child’s name, put in your child’s name or a relative. " ____ is going to the store. ______ buys 3 apples for $0.30 each. Is the $5 she brought enough?" Then she can imagine herself in the situation.
I was terrible at arithmetic when I was younger, however putting everything in the ‘real world’ helped immensely.
When I was younger I had almost the exact same problem.
I could do all the math no problem. But I would miss signs, or flip words, etc. My teacher at the time had a simple solution:
Instead of going back over what I had done wrong, at each error my paper would be marked “CSE” - what my teacher referred to as “common, stupid, errors.” And I would look and go - OH! Yep - that was dumb, I knew better, I should have realized that pairs were 2, or I should have multiplied.
So what turned it around for me was just having somebody point out the mistake - hey you messed up there - do you know why? Yes I know why. And then gradually, I got better and better. And then for the most part, I just stopped making mistakes.
Well, here’s the follow-up. I tried the $5 reward for 100% and got 27 out of 30 on a practice test. But here’s the interesting thing (interesting to me, at least). All of the errors were reading mistakes, no calculation errors. And all because of hurrying through the test. So before we did we did another one I told her to do as much writing as possible. Underline the key words, do every claculaton on scrap paper, and she got 29 out of 30. Only error was thinking there were 10 cm in a meter (she knew the correct answer).
Next practice test was 30 out of 30.
So all in all, I think it was definitely worth it and expect this weekend’s efforts to pay dividends for years to come.
I’m sure it will. We need more people brought up to understand that the only reason something is worth doing is a tangible bribe. Hell, we use the technique for everything from eating a healthy diet (promise of dessert) to basic human kindness (promise of eternal life in spirit). Why not spread the greed around?
There could be a chance that she has a learning disability in math.
When I was a kid I excelled in school in every subject but math. I had an absolutely horrible time. I could learn something in theory but as soon as I tried to apply it i got lost and mixed up. Even now in my 20’s there’s no way I can remember how to do long division or fractions (coincidentally, 4th grade math was particularly tough for me).
I would suggest looking in the phone book and see if you can find someone who deals with tutoring in math for students who are having difficulty. If she truly is having more trouble than is normal with math, a tutor will do her good, and save her from feeling stupid years down the road.
One I’ve found to be important, also: Make sure you know what the question is asking. I’ve seen many physics problems where, for instance, the question is “how high up is the plane”, where the student answers “200 miles per hour”.
The second thing to add is to check your units. Leave the units in the problem as you’re doing it. Then, at the end of the problem, ask yourself “Are these the units I should have?”. Too often, I see students carelessly amputating units in their calculation, and then just slapping a “kg” at the end of their number because it’s supposed to be a mass. As long as you do so carefully, and make sure to convert to a common system of units before amputating, this is in principle okay, but it takes away one of your safety nets.
Some new thoughts on the subject (that were somewhat confirmed by your last post), she might be rushing through the test. Alright, that may be obvious, but I remember when I was in elementary school, I always took great pride in finishing the test before everyone else. If you’re the first to turn in your test, sometimes the teacher will make it seem like you’re smarter: “Oh, you’re already done? Good job Jason!” The point is, if she’s trying to finish the test as quickly as possible out of pride, you may want to talk to her about slowing down and not worrying about that.
