More maths help, now year 10
Posted: Thu Nov 21, 2019 10:34 am
I posted previously about my ds and the fact that, having always being great at maths, he had started to struggle a bit (this was in year .
I was wondering if anyone had any specific suggestions to help him (and me!) with his issues.
He's very bright and at the moment his target grade for maths is an 8 (this is mainly based on CAT scores though at this stage, not on current performance). Currently though I don't think he has any chance of getting an 8 even though he is able. I don't mind what he gets but I want to help him as best I can.
He seems to just freeze when he sees a question that is worded differently from previous questions. He says he doesn't know where to start. He does his homework in the kitchen and if I'm there I ask him basic starter questions and he (mostly) soon gets it and is fine. But I'm not going to be there all the time or in an exam situation. I assumed my asking him these questions would naturally lead to his doing it himself but it doesn't seem to.
Part of me thinks it might be laziness but he does want to do well so I'm not sure.
Example recently: they were calculating the length of an arc based on the angle or calculating the angle based on the length of the arc. He was "I don't know what to do" so I tried to get him to understand the principles. The sum was with a circumference of 10cm and an angle of 12 degrees. I asked what the answer would be if the circumference was 10cm and the angle was 90 degrees. He said 2.5 cm. So I told him to write that sum out and work out the stages. But he was just "well it's obviously a quarter". When I asked why he couldn't really tell me in enough detail to work out that he was dividing 90 by 360 therefore had to divide 12 by 360.
Sorry, long post.
He only has this problem in maths (and a bit in science) where he seems to struggle to extrapolate.
Does anyone have any experience/suggestions to help?
I was wondering if anyone had any specific suggestions to help him (and me!) with his issues.
He's very bright and at the moment his target grade for maths is an 8 (this is mainly based on CAT scores though at this stage, not on current performance). Currently though I don't think he has any chance of getting an 8 even though he is able. I don't mind what he gets but I want to help him as best I can.
He seems to just freeze when he sees a question that is worded differently from previous questions. He says he doesn't know where to start. He does his homework in the kitchen and if I'm there I ask him basic starter questions and he (mostly) soon gets it and is fine. But I'm not going to be there all the time or in an exam situation. I assumed my asking him these questions would naturally lead to his doing it himself but it doesn't seem to.
Part of me thinks it might be laziness but he does want to do well so I'm not sure.
Example recently: they were calculating the length of an arc based on the angle or calculating the angle based on the length of the arc. He was "I don't know what to do" so I tried to get him to understand the principles. The sum was with a circumference of 10cm and an angle of 12 degrees. I asked what the answer would be if the circumference was 10cm and the angle was 90 degrees. He said 2.5 cm. So I told him to write that sum out and work out the stages. But he was just "well it's obviously a quarter". When I asked why he couldn't really tell me in enough detail to work out that he was dividing 90 by 360 therefore had to divide 12 by 360.
Sorry, long post.
He only has this problem in maths (and a bit in science) where he seems to struggle to extrapolate.
Does anyone have any experience/suggestions to help?