Math - How to teach problem sums

[angela]

Guan Hui:

My nephew is also like that and that why his mother has given up on him.


sorry i still don't know how to quote.
I hope its just she do not know what to do for him for the mean while. If the mother have given up on him... I don't know who else will be there for him... god bless...

The reason why my nephew's mother (sister-in-law) had given up on him is because besides him, my sister-in-law still has two younger one who aged 4 and 5. She always tells us that she has no patient on the elder one and has no time on him as she prefers to coach the two younger kids. But I told her that she had to put in effort to help him. So sometimes we really dunno how to help the poor kid. But we can see that sometimes the elder one purposely does something to make his mother angry. Maybe the mother spends too much time on the younger one. The mother always says that very hard to coach the elder one with the two younger kids.

[Guan Hui]

[quote]\t

Posted: 14 Oct 2009 22:24 Post subject:
Guan Hui wrote:
My nephew is also like that and that why his mother has given up on him.

sorry i still don't know how to quote.
I hope its just she do not know what to do for him for the mean while. If the mother have given up on him... I don't know who else will be there for him... god bless...


The reason why my nephew's mother (sister-in-law) had given up on him is because besides him, my sister-in-law still has two younger one who aged 4 and 5. She always tells us that she has no patient on the elder one and has no time on him as she prefers to coach the two younger kids. But I told her that she had to put in effort to help him. So sometimes we really dunno how to help the poor kid. But we can see that sometimes the elder one purposely does something to make his mother angry. Maybe the mother spends too much time on the younger one. The mother always says that very hard to coach the elder one with the two younger kids.[/quote]I have no right to comment on this... but taking a student as example. If he is faced with a difficult topic and decide to skip it, he will not be able to do it forever. If your sis-in-law thinks he is hard to teach and decide to give up, she will never be able to communicate well with him again.

The reason why he purposely make her angry may because he wants the attention? I do not know. However I hope your situation will turn better.

I pray for you

[kitty2]

atutor2001:

NIEtrainedTEACHER:

.....

The important thing to take note is that, we should let the child develop their skill step by step. Sad to say the duration may be slower than what we may like but the reward would be greater..... :oops:

Not sure if you have encountered kids who, by nature, just has no \"logic sense\". After spending hours explaining the logic, they finally understood it and we thought hurray, he/she finally understand - only to find that 1 day later, everything is forgotten and we need to explain again and again. When the question is re-phrased, the poor kid will also not be able to apply the same logic.

The cycle goes on and the time needed to get them to understand becomes longer and longer as the problem sum becomes more difficult. Before we realise, the poor kid has already reached P6 and the final result is obivous.

My guess is that about 50% of those kids who do badly for math are in this category. It is a real heartache.

The remaining 50% are either just plain lazy or poor in English. Kids in the lazy group would not be bothered to think when the problem gets too complex and just simply give up. The English Problem group doesn't even understand the question. Teaching in steps cannot help the lazy group to overcome the need to think or the English Problem group to understand the language used when many problem steps are combined into 1 complex question.

Sorry to bring up this topic again .
atutor2001,this's my friend's son problem and they've been wasting money on all the tutors.Most of them have no patient to teach or know how to handle him.My friend is in distress & helpless as he's already P5 and not much time left to brush up for P6.

Anyone can help :? ,thanks

[spunky]

Thing is sometimes, it helps to just give the child the same set of problem sum again. Let him/ her learn the skill of solving a certain type of problem.


Get the child to explain it to you again each time. After a few times with a similar problem, the child will actually improve. Do try it,

I used to do that when I was given the weakest lot of pupils. They always end up doing well by PSLE.

Sometimes new problem compounded with weak English means the child is handling 2 weakness at the same time.

Doing the same questions a few times and explaining to u lets the child at least master the Maths skills required, without the English problem.

When the child improves and gets more confident with repeated success , then you give your child another set of problem sums with different skill requirement.

Patience Pays

kitty2:

atutor2001:

[quote=\"NIEtrainedTEACHER\"] .....
The important thing to take note is that, we should let the child develop their skill step by step. Sad to say the duration may be slower than what we may like but the reward would be greater..... :oops:

Not sure if you have encountered kids who, by nature, just has no \"logic sense\". After spending hours explaining the logic, they finally understood it and we thought hurray, he/she finally understand - only to find that 1 day later, everything is forgotten and we need to explain again and again. When the question is re-phrased, the poor kid will also not be able to apply the same logic.

The cycle goes on and the time needed to get them to understand becomes longer and longer as the problem sum becomes more difficult. Before we realise, the poor kid has already reached P6 and the final result is obivous.

My guess is that about 50% of those kids who do badly for math are in this category. It is a real heartache.

The remaining 50% are either just plain lazy or poor in English. Kids in the lazy group would not be bothered to think when the problem gets too complex and just simply give up. The English Problem group doesn't even understand the question. Teaching in steps cannot help the lazy group to overcome the need to think or the English Problem group to understand the language used when many problem steps are combined into 1 complex question.

Sorry to bring up this topic again .
atutor2001,this's my friend's son problem and they've been wasting money on all the tutors.Most of them have no patient to teach or know how to handle him.My friend is in distress & helpless as he's already P5 and not much time left to brush up for P6.

Anyone can help :? ,thanks[/quote]

[atutor2001]

kitty2:

Sorry to bring up this topic again .
atutor2001,this's my friend's son problem and they've been wasting money on all the tutors.Most of them have no patient to teach or know how to handle him.My friend is in distress & helpless as he's already P5 and not much time left to brush up for P6.

Anyone can help :? ,thanks

Hi Kitty2

I agree with spunky's suggestions. Patience and doing our best to get improvement in his results to boost interest and confidence seems the only solution. Shower praise no matter how little the improvement may be (but not advisable to entice with material incentives).

Tutor will not have the time needed to make such kids remember. Only parents can. So parents need to follow up on what has been thought by the teachers/tutors.

There is also this funny thing, I called \"enlightenment\", which Chinese called \"kai qiao\" whereby the kid suddenly can understand all the concepts and most importantly can also remember them. Some kids found enlightenment pretty late - there is kid I know who \"see light\" in math only after SA1 in P6 - very worrisome for the parents. After that he was even aiming for A* after doing very well in Prelim.

Just to share my experience.

Regards

[kitty2]

:thankyou: atutor2001 & spunky,it sounds like have to teach Kumon Style :lol: Train till he master it.

[spunky]

I failed maths in p6 sa1. By PSLE I also scored an A*.


From then on, maths for o,a level n uni, all A.

So don't give up .

atutor2001:

kitty2:

Sorry to bring up this topic again .
atutor2001,this's my friend's son problem and they've been wasting money on all the tutors.Most of them have no patient to teach or know how to handle him.My friend is in distress & helpless as he's already P5 and not much time left to brush up for P6.

Anyone can help :? ,thanks

Hi Kitty2

I agree with spunky's suggestions. Patience and doing our best to get improvement in his results to boost interest and confidence seems the only solution. Shower praise no matter how little the improvement may be (but not advisable to entice with material incentives).

Tutor will not have the time needed to make such kids remember. Only parents can. So parents need to follow up on what has been thought by the teachers/tutors.

There is also this funny thing, I called \"enlightenment\", which Chinese called \"kai qiao\" whereby the kid suddenly can understand all the concepts and most importantly can also remember them. Some kids found enlightenment pretty late - there is kid I know who \"see light\" in math only after SA1 in P6 - very worrisome for the parents. After that he was even aiming for A* after doing very well in Prelim.

Just to share my experience.

Regards

[kitty2]

spunky:

I failed maths in p6 sa1. By PSLE I also scored an A*.


From then on, maths for o,a level n uni, all A.

So don't give up .

atutor2001:

[quote=\"kitty2\"]Sorry to bring up this topic again .
atutor2001,this's my friend's son problem and they've been wasting money on all the tutors.Most of them have no patient to teach or know how to handle him.My friend is in distress & helpless as he's already P5 and not much time left to brush up for P6.

Anyone can help :? ,thanks

Hi Kitty2

I agree with spunky's suggestions. Patience and doing our best to get improvement in his results to boost interest and confidence seems the only solution. Shower praise no matter how little the improvement may be (but not advisable to entice with material incentives).

Tutor will not have the time needed to make such kids remember. Only parents can. So parents need to follow up on what has been thought by the teachers/tutors.

There is also this funny thing, I called \"enlightenment\", which Chinese called \"kai qiao\" whereby the kid suddenly can understand all the concepts and most importantly can also remember them. Some kids found enlightenment pretty late - there is kid I know who \"see light\" in math only after SA1 in P6 - very worrisome for the parents. After that he was even aiming for A* after doing very well in Prelim.

Just to share my experience.

Regards

[/quote]Spunky,

Can you share how you did it?Thanks for sharing :celebrate:

[tamarind]

atutor2001:

kitty2:

My son's quite weak in section B and C,problem sums.Anyone has any idea to improve his skill?I've let him practice quite alot but at times he doesn't seem to understand the questions.Any good tuition centre can tackle this problem?


Please help,thanks

There are 2 approaches to problem sums :
1) Logical reasoning
2) Mathematical methods

Model drawings, which our schools are using, is actually using the \"logical reasoning\" approach. This method derives answers that require very few steps (shortcuts) provided that one can see the logic. However, drawing model is tedious. Many kids (especially boys) give up problem sums because of \"model\". The irony is that the smart ones can visualise everything mentally and would not need a model. The dull one will not be able to produce the \"model\". My kids draw the models because the teachers demanded so. They hated models.

\"Mathematical methods\" involve memerising rules and applying them to solve problem sum. It is abstract and does not relate to the real thing. However, it is \"dead\" and does not need much thinking. All one has to do is to be systematic.

Be careful when teaching problem sum. It can really kill a kid's interest in math if he/she just can't or dislike models.

I totally agree with you.

Yesterday I was watching my P2 girl do problem sums by drawing models. I really hated it because it was so tedious, but I did not dare say anything. My girl does not mind drawing, though she could have solved all those problems in less than 50% of the time that she needed to draw the models. She does not need models to get the correct answers.

On the other hand, I don't know how I am going to teach my younger boy, who is of average ability, to draw models. His English is very good, so he can understand problem sums and know how to calculate the correct answer. But I can predict that I am going to have a lot of headache teaching him to draw models. He is already quite slow in writing, I don't want him to waste time doing things that are useless to him.

I think I am just going to tell him to forget about drawing models. I will probably talk to his maths teacher about it. If his teacher wants to deduct his marks, then just let him deduct.

I have written to MOE about whether kids will be penalized if they do not use model drawings in PSLE. MOE replied that any mathematically correct answers will be accepted.

[atutor2001]

tamarind:

I totally agree with you.

Yesterday I was watching my P2 girl do problem sums by drawing models. I really hated it because it was so tedious, but I did not dare say anything. My girl does not mind drawing, though she could have solved all those problems in less than 50% of the time that she needed to draw the models. She does not need models to get the correct answers.

On the other hand, I don't know how I am going to teach my younger boy, who is of average ability, to draw models. His English is very good, so he can understand problem sums and know how to calculate the correct answer. But I can predict that I am going to have a lot of headache teaching him to draw models. He is already quite slow in writing, I don't want him to waste time doing things that are useless to him.

I think I am just going to tell him to forget about drawing models. I will probably talk to his maths teacher about it. If his teacher wants to deduct his marks, then just let him deduct.

I have written to MOE about whether kids will be penalized if they do not use model drawings in PSLE. MOE replied that any mathematically correct answers will be accepted.

I am so glad that you shared my view. I feel worried when I see so many new forumers being so impressed by the model method because the models posted here were so well drawn and clear. They didn't realised that these models were produced by math experts who knew the approach / concept i.e. what and most importantly how to draw before they even started drawing them.

Hope your DS pick up \"changing comparison fraction to units\", \"algebra\" and \"solving simultaneous equations\" as early as possible. With these tools/skills, solving problem sum will be a breeze. He will probably need only half the time to complete and can spend the other half drawing models from the equations to please the teachers.

Cheers