All About Getting Help for Students Weak in Math

[SengkangMum]

Hi All,




Oh dear ! My gals seems to be having the same problem in understanding the maths questions. And so far cant find a good home tutor to tackle this. I am starting to get a bit panic as next year she will be in P3.if this year she not going to make it for maths, will be tough for her in P3 :slapshead:

[Maths Olympiad Tutor]

Hi Friends,


I remember during my secondary school days, I used to be like that too! Many tiny errors that caused me to lose many marks. A lot of the time, these errors should have been preventable if I had more focus.

In my opinion, carelessness is caused at least partly by a lack of thought and general proficiency.

An effective remedy I found was to adopt a guided questions-based approach when teaching a student. Instead of giving them the answer directly, you ask questions to lead them there. This encourages them to think, thereby eliminating carelessness. If they can verbally explain why things have to be done a certain way, they have displayed a good understanding of the question. In addition, arriving at the solution themselves also provides them with confidence, a bonus!

[smile]

Hi rafflesiantv,

I just read this topic, would you pm me your tutor hp and address too? Tia

[soorya]

My friend’s kid attends Mdm Ching’s class in Kent Ridge Tutors Novena branch. She has more than 10 years of teaching experience in Lower and Upper Primary Maths. She focuses a lot on problem sums and my friend’s kid Has benefitted a lot from her teaching. Maybe you can try her class in

Square 2 above Novena MRT.(Tel 635 80444). She also got Marker’s training for PSLE Maths so can teach your kid techniques on how to represent solutions in the answer paper to score high.

[catddy2002]

SengkangMum:

Hi All,




Oh dear ! My gals seems to be having the same problem in understanding the maths questions. And so far cant find a good home tutor to tackle this. I am starting to get a bit panic as next year she will be in P3.if this year she not going to make it for maths, will be tough for her in P3 :slapshead:

Hi,

Is your child poor in English?
If yes, you will have to improve her English.
If not, get her to read and understand one sentence at a time.

[Green-apple 0]

Dear All,


My DS is P1 now. He is very forgetful and made careless mistakes on his maths; I did not outsource his math because he is just P1. May i know if i should start finding him a tutor?

[ChiefKiasu]

Green-apple:

Dear All,


My DS is P1 now. He is very forgetful and made careless mistakes on his maths; I did not outsource his math because he is just P1. May i know if i should start finding him a tutor?

Very few kids don't make \"careless mistakes\" at P1

If it is just \"careless\" mistakes and not semantic errors (ie. understanding of concepts), you should not worry too much. Your son understands the material, but may not be able to present the information properly. If you have time to look through his work and explain to him what he did wrong and how he should have done it, it will help. Another way is to send your child for math enrichment classes that focus on drills, eg. Kumon. These classes are particularly useful for kids who may understand the concepts, but take too long to work out the computative elements of the problem. So if you want to improve their speed and efficiency in calculation (and reduce careless mistakes in the process), those will be the right kind of courses to go for at P1-P2 levels.

[JohnYeo]

Green-apple:

Dear All,


My DS is P1 now. He is very forgetful and made careless mistakes on his maths; I did not outsource his math because he is just P1. May i know if i should start finding him a tutor?

Hi Green Apple,

I'm wondering when you say \"careless mistakes\" made by Primary school kids, what do you really mean?

In my opinion, the \"careless mistakes\" that almost everyone is saying can be further broken down into a few types.

1. copy the wrong number
2. calculate wrongly
3. copy the answer wrongly
4. write the wrong units
5. read the questions wrongly

Every of this \"careless mistake\" is caused by different reasons.

1. copy the wrong number - could he be rushing through the paper? and if yes, why? is he worried that he has not enough time? or is he simply told that he has to work on the questions fast (without practicing on checking on the working while solving the problems)

2. calculate wrongly - what kind of calculations? is it plus or minus? which exact step is he unclear about?

3. copy the answer wrongly - reasons can be similar to #1

4. write the wrong units - what kind of units? could he have misread the units? could he have remembered wrongly then (during that moment while sitting for the test? and if yes, what has caused it? anxiety? stress?)

5. read the questions wrongly - could this be linked to his ability to comprehend the words? or could this be related to him not able to understand what kind of answer is required?

My 2 cents.

John

[JohnYeo]

go go learning:

My girl is not doing very well in Math and her grades are slipping. :shock: recommendations? tuition? Assessment books?

Hi Go go learning, tuition and assessment books are simply tools. I'm more concerned about the causes that led to the dropping in grades.

Could it be emotion-related as well? Emotion related meaning that stress and anxiety caused by various reasons.

Various reasons include not being able to catch up as the diffculty level increases. Or the teaching method by teacher or tutor does not fit your child.

We will even want to explore if there is any negative stress caused such as put down from adults. Even words phrase in a negative manner but with good intent give negative stress on the child which will cause the drop in grades.

John

[JohnYeo]

protutor:

If you cannot learn it well, it means that the teaching style of your school teacher is hard for you to absorb. Math talks about practice and application of the right techniques. If you need, you have to find the right tutor to guide you through this process.

I think it takes two hands to clap. While the child may be clueless of how to improve, I feel a good teacher or tutor will be able to use creative ways to connect math to the child.

For instance, I 'm helping a child who is very poor in math. Well, he already has a tutor who is teaching him the math techniques. But at a deeper level, I realise that when he sees Math, he sees himself already failing. It means that he is already seeing himself as a failure even before he attempts to do any question.

I know if I start introducing him my way of learning math, I will be hitting a closed door. So first, connection must be made.

I realised he likes to draw on his plastic file using his black marker. He told me that he was scolded for drawing on his file. However, his drawing was pretty nice and I praised him for his artwork (not drawing on his file) He felt someone finally appreciates his artwork and he started to speak up and shared with me what else he drew.

So I used many color markers to write and draw the concepts out. For every line of workings, I use a different color. Yes, more effort but it is worth it. This arty way of explaining math with different colors bridged that connection between him to math.

Now, he likes math more...and yes, he is slowly improving...and what matter most, math makes sense to him now...

now, when he sees math, he only sees colors and the drawings I did with him...this really changes his perception...

so sometimes, for the benefit of the child, we, at times, will have to let go of what we have prepared and quickly develop (on the spot) what the child really needs...it's all about being child-centric...and isn't education supposed to be child-centric too?

so a good teacher will find all means to connect math to the child using a unique way which makes sense to the child...

My two cents.

John