thinking outside the box with math

If you've followed my blog for a while, you know that I have a child with special learning needs.  Missa struggles with all her basic math facts, she can't get them memorized totally.  She has some of them all in her long term memory, but it is a work in progress.  I've slowed down her lessons in math for a few years now because of this fact, and have watched her get frustrated and want to give up over it many times.  So I'm considering a new approach with her on this.

I'm thinking that this summer I'm going to take the remaining levels of Math-U-See that she has prior to algebra and teach her the concepts and practice her facts daily.  I am going to start back at Beta with multi-digit addition and subtraction, despite her already doing that level, just as a refresher for her and move forward from there.  She's really good at understanding concepts and how to do problems, the only thing that holds her back usually is the fact that she can't seem to get those facts memorized.  I'm going to teach her to do the work on paper AND on a calculator both, using the manipulative blocks and any other materials (including flash cards for fact practice!) to reinforce the concepts.  Then around September or October, depending on when we get finished with this step, I'm going to start pre-algebra with her.

I can already hear you asking why I would do such a thing.  Well, there are many reasons for this.  First off, Missa likes puzzles and is quite good at problems that involve solving for the unknown and other abstract concepts.  She is really quick to pick up and solve problems like what you would find in algebra.  Second, there is this awesome little device called a calculator that most people use (including professionals!) for basic math, even I use one quite frequently.  They really do make it pointless to memorize the math facts if one's brain just isn't hardwired for that kind of stuff to happen easily.  Third, I plan to continue working with her daily on basic math facts even as we move forward, in hopes that she will memorize all those facts eventually.

I've watched Missa grow a lot this last 5 years of learning, and she really is capable of higher math than we do because of her inability to memorize her facts.  This is the best part of homeschooling her.  I can take the time to work with her where she struggles but still not hold her back in the process.  I've noticed that when we spend an extended period of time just working on basic math facts, she starts to get discouraged and shut down on me, calling herself stupid and insisting she'll never get it and then she starts throwing things and getting angry about it.  However, if I work with her where she's struggling and add in new concepts at the same time, she seems to do much better and master both at a faster rate.  I don't know why, but it is how she does things so I'm going to go with it.

The other kids will continue to move forward as they have been doing, as they are progressing nicely and don't need the additional help.