I am a senior in high school who has some pretty heavy issues with mathematics. I’m looking to reach out to parents who would be willing to offer me any advice to help me address this problem.
Most of my life I have excelled in all disciplines except mathematics. In the 4th grade, I can recall being introduced to fractions, division, and lattice multiplication (which was a headache to learn) and undergoing great struggles to barely pass math class with a D. This is the farthest I can back trace this problem. My parents then interceded with my teachers on this issue, but my grade school teachers were far from passionate about the topics and didn’t really help much. The best answer they could provide was “It’s a part of the curriculum we have to teach”. I was eventually placed into tutoring for help, but found that I was caught in a never-ending cycle of completing busywork to simply get to the next chapter to repeat more monotonous assignments. This led me to fail to understand class lectures and only serve the purpose of waiting in class to take my assignment to tutors to get it turned in for the next day. Most of my math teachers either had little interest in allotting significant spare time to help, or pointed me to student led after-school math tutoring or virtual tutoring sites like KhanAcademy. This has all been to no avail.
I’m reaching out to parents today because I’m looking to see if anyone of your kids had similar issues. I want to improve myself. In a way I feel intellectually cheated that I wasn’t able to get the necessary assistance to understand the core principles of the subject. I’d would feel a lot better about myself intellectually not only, but emotionally as well since this problem has been severely stressful to cope with.
If you have anything that could be of benefit to my current circumstances, please do share.
My daughter is dyscalculic. What dyslexia is to reading, dyscalculia is to math. Dyscalculics have difficulty with rote memorization, so learning the multiplication tables was a challenge. Remembering the steps in a process, such as long division, is difficult, so that took lots of practice to learn too. Because she had trouble learning her multiplication tables, she couldn’t see the relationships between numbers and that made fractions difficult. You may want to look up the signs of dyscalculia and see if any seem familiar. The key to learning math is to try different approaches until you understand what you’re doing and why, and do enough problem sets to commit the steps to memory.
My daughter’s issues (dyscalculia, dysgraphia, and dyslexia) became apparent around 3rd grade. Her dad’s issues (he’s dyslexic) cropped up in 4th grade. He was shuttled along from grade to grade and never received the help he needed either. We’re homeschoolers and our approach has been specific, guided lessons done to automaticity. You can learn to do math well, but it will take time. Take a look at the Aleks.com program. It’s $20/month but has different levels of math. I like that it has an assessment at the beginning of each module and it adjusts as you go based on how you do. You’re not stuck studying things you already know. You can change modules whenever you want, so if you want to start with an elementary school math to figure out where the holes in your education are, you can, then move to higher levels whenever you want.
You might also want to pick up a math workbook (Amazon sells them) to see which of your basic skills need work. You can’t do higher level math well unless you have topics like multiplication, division, fractions, and decimals down. If one approach doesn’t seem to be working, step back and try another. Good luck. Let me know how it works out.
I was thinking dyscalculia as well. If you think you have the signs, I would suggest you talk with your parents about getting formally tested. This will allow you to find a learning specialist who will know how to tailor tutoring sessions specifically to fit your educational needs. BTW - my best friend’s child has dyscalculia and is majoring in engineering. Don’t give up!
I suggest reaching out to your school’s GC and/or staff. I know that my son was in charge of tutoring at his HS and he helped kids like you learn how to grasp concepts and improve their math abilities. There should be some people in your are that are also willing and able to help!
Agree all the comments above. I want to add that many people good in languages (as you are good in expressing your issue here) seem to have difficulty in math, but good study habits can help overcome that.
My high school senior daughter used to be weak in math. She completely forgot on how to add two single digit numbers after having too much fun during the summer before her 2nd grade. After realizing this, I made sure she did her math homework right each night and bought same math textbook used at school after each school year, so she could redo some of chapter homework (one page a day) during the summer break throughout her elementary and middle schools; this helped her math building blocks intact for the coming year. She gained confidence by not falling behind her peers and eventually even gain some ground ahead by allowing to attend advanced math classes.
Unfortunately, the story did not end here. After the been doing well in math, we stopped checking on her and she stopped reviewing what she learned from previous year in the summer. She started to show bad grade (B, B-, C) in math in her junior year, and the tests showed her committing silly mistakes that were elementary and middle school maths, rather than her current class math material, which is calculus. Two month into the semester, she lost all her confidence in her math skills and just cried many nights that she was just too stupid to be good in calculus. She would often withdrew from her math homework and not doing it until she finished other school assignments. Well, I helped her (harshly, of course, at first) to put the math homework as her priority again. She still got Cs. I encouraged her to review each wrong answers in her quiz, so she would understand where went wrong. She still got Cs. I asked her to do more practices (the homework said only do the odds, and I would ask her to do the evens too if she had time). She still got Cs. Then, I asked her to preview the chapter (just read through without trying to understand too much of the material) before her math class. That winter break was spent like what she had done in her old summer breaks. Well, she still got Cs, and the final semester grade was a C, of course.
The second semester came, and she applied all her practices (regained/new study habits), and she still got B and C in the first few weeks, and she started got As. Her final grade for the second semester was an A. Her experience on this class was so intriguing to her that she put part of it as her college app essay. She decided to take calculus again at a higher level in her senior year.
It probably too wordy to describe my daughter’s experience, but it shows how good study habits (and mental strength — try to convince yourself that math or any subject is your favorite) will help you overcome your weakness or fear in math in a long run.