I need help - math anxiety

[daisyd]

I'd ask the teacher if there is another option. It's causing anxiety and setting DS up to think he's not good at math. It's repetitive and stress inducing and that's setting up bad habits of bad thinking way more than having you sitting with him for 3 weeks. Teacher may say no, or may say they had no idea and doesn't want this situation for DS and is willing to work with you on another solution. I think the teacher probably has no idea how stressful this is for your son and would rather him have a positive experience to learn from than to check a box saying they did program X. Most of DD's teachers have been extremely generous with how things are done right now and they don't know what they aren't seeing.

DD had a teacher that pitted the kids against each other lord of the flies style for math. These kids were doing long division in kindergarten, so expectations were way off and DD, who is in accelerated math, believed for years she was bad at and hated math because of this one experience. This is a battle I'd fight. Took years of amazing math teachers to undo what this one class did. If teacher isn't able to provide another option, I'd sit with him and get him through it. We're almost to the finish line and I'd rather him feel successful than get a very negative image. Kumon math workbooks or something over the summer to keep his skills up and work at his own pace to show him how successful he really is at it. That's just me, hang in there, I hear your frustration.

I agree with this.

[WatchingThemGrow]

FWIW, we told a our teacher we weren't going to do one of the math courses, it's called xtra math. it was all about test prep and did not work at all for my son who has ADHD. Around here at least teachers seem to be pretty appreciative about feedback on programs and willing to adjust as necessary.

Xtra Math, the fact website? We have found it to have such good success for building math stamina. If you teach them the multiplication facts, it solidifies the correct answers. My own kids have had not too much love for it, but as a teacher working with students who never learned their facts well, it was awesome.

We used these videos to practice skip counting - and we skip counted a LOT walking to/from my classroom, they get familiar with the facts and EVERYTHING about math comes much easier. https://numberock.com/lessons/multiples-of-7

Learning to skip count by 7, 8, and 9 and have correct, quick recall of math facts is SO worth it to relieve math anxiety! The teacher can also go into settings and give students 6 seconds to answer questions rather than 3 seconds. It helps those with processing speed issues.

[echoesofspring]

Xtra Math, the fact website? We have found it to have such good success for building math stamina. If you teach them the multiplication facts, it solidifies the correct answers. My own kids have had not too much love for it, but as a teacher working with students who never learned their facts well, it was awesome.

yes, that's the one. I understood the intent of it but it was a not a good fit for my son for all sorts of reasons. And then b/c he wasn't finishing the facts b/c he was distracted within the app, he was sort of stuck on the same early addition facts everyday, getting frustrated and bored. As you say there are other ways to teach the facts, practicing them walking/jumping on the trampoline, etc.

[Liziz]

My 2nd grade (well, just turned 3rd grader!) uses/used IXL too. The way it adds problems if you get one wrong is cruel and so demotivating!!!!

Like a few others -- when DD is doing a tough assignment on IXL (or is just having a bit of a rough day) then I totally sit with her and check problems before she submits. That program adds *5* more problems every.single.time the child gets one wrong -- so then she gets more frustrated, is less careful, gets more wrong, falls back further....vicious cycle. I will not do the problems for her, but I definitely will help her check them before submitting to avoid that nasty spiral. Sometimes I even have her work the problems out on paper and I type and submit them in IXL for her, as sometimes she just accidentally types something wrong then gets penalized for it. (Fun but not so fun story -- once when I was doing this, *I* accidentally typed the wrong answer to the problem she'd correctly worked out on paper.....twice in a row. So basically my fat fingers added 10 problems to her assignment. Of course, I just did those problems myself (she'd gotten the right answer!) to get her back to where she was.....but I was seriously annoyed at myself and appreciated even more how punitive the program is).

We are lucky in that our school was pretty relaxed with the computer work and was okay if I substituted other things. So I would often find and print paper worksheets for DD to do on the assigned topics -- she handles paper worksheets SO much better than computer work, especially for new concepts. I sometimes just google "<topic I'm looking for><grade level> worksheets" and find free ones that will work for us. I've also started searching for math games (basically like the kind of things she would have done as math centers at school) she can play instead. She enjoys those a lot and is much happier practicing math.

Finally, if you're looking for something else to help him practice math in a fun way this summer (and also get more comfortable about using the computer for math), check out the online game Prodigy. Although there is a premium version, DD just uses the free version and it's absolutely sufficient. The child gets their own avatar that walks around this fantasy land and tries to earn gems, gold, etc. They earn all the prizes through wizard battles and other games -- all the battles are fought by solving math problems, and the games are all math games. It started off CRAZY easy (like, a picture of three dots, and the child was asked how many dots there were), but it is supposedly dynamic in content and pretty quickly I was seeing DD get questions at just the right level for her. She loves it -- and I'm pleased with it, because over the course of a month (when she's only allowed to play 30 minutes a day, tops) she's answered almost 500 math questions (you can link a parent account to your kids' so you can see what they're doing).

[Liziz]

Xtra Math, the fact website? We have found it to have such good success for building math stamina. If you teach them the multiplication facts, it solidifies the correct answers. My own kids have had not too much love for it, but as a teacher working with students who never learned their facts well, it was awesome.

We used these videos to practice skip counting - and we skip counted a LOT walking to/from my classroom, they get familiar with the facts and EVERYTHING about math comes much easier. https://numberock.com/lessons/multiples-of-7

Learning to skip count by 7, 8, and 9 and have correct, quick recall of math facts is SO worth it to relieve math anxiety! The teacher can also go into settings and give students 6 seconds to answer questions rather than 3 seconds. It helps those with processing speed issues.

I already responded, but then was reading this and wanted to comment -- I don't know where your child is on rote memorization of basic math facts, but we realized early this year that DD was struggling with math.....because although she understood the concepts of addition/subtraction perfectly, she couldn't quickly DO basic math facts. She'd just come from a school that did not "believe in" rote memorization -- but it was seriously hurting her ability to be confident in math when she still had to draw dots to add "5+7" instead of just automatically knowing the answer. So, we put A LOT of effort into building up her skills so she just *knows* all her basic math facts, and it's been a huge help in increasing her comfort with math problems. We did some flash cards, but what worked best for her was the Spaceship Math on Dad's Worksheets.
(https://www.dadsworksheets.com/) These go along with Rocket Math, which her new school this year does.

[Galkina]

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