Boy did I learn a lot in this chapter that I didn't know! It was interesting to read that poor math achievement may acutally increase as the student progresses through school. To be a successful math student, children must be able to apply multiple concepts and skills in all content areas of math. This may be the answer to why I have so many students in third grade that cannot subtract! Did they just not get the concept in the earlier grades and it continued to snowball? What do I do right in teaching math? First, I use manipulatives in almost every math lesson and each time I reteach. We do not just sit and do math on paper. When we reteach, we also use other hands-on activities. I teach rounding by taping index cards with 100, 200, 300, etc. to 1,000 around my room. Then I give each student an index card with a number on it (236, 475, 921) for them to find the 100 their number is closest to. There's lots of movement and action. Last year, I had a student from a self-contained class come to me for math. He was able to do this activity with no help. We also use lots of art when teaching multiplication strategies. First I'll give my students a sheet of white paper and a handful of cereal (Fruit Loops is good.) and ask them to show a multiplication sentence with the cereal. They draw circles and glue the cereal in place to show the correct answer. These types of math lessons are good for even the students that have difficulty learning math. In third grade we also use lots of drill and practice with subtraction and addition reviews and with learning the multiplication facts. There's lots of guided practice before I have students to sit and drill another student on learning their facts.
What do I do wrong? I do not think about my students with behavioral problems, the ones that are easily distracted, the ones that are inattentive and impulsive, and the ones that don't listen and follow directions when I am teaching math. I expect the same from everyone. I also expect that if a student "gets it" in class to "get it" at home and complete their homework. I need to remember that there are students that struggle with all areas of math. I need to be more aware of these students and provide more feedback to their daily math work.
What do I want to do? I want to start meeting with my four low math students in a small group daily. I think this might help them if I explain the math content material in a samller setting. I could take about 10 minutes and go over the day's lesson and clarify any questions they might have. I want to use the Did I? self-monitoring checklist on page 210 for all of my students. I will have to change some of the wording around, but this would be a great tool for each student to have and complete in their math journals.
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