RE: Elementary School Is Setting Students Up To Fail At Math
This got a little discombobulated. Is it your niece or daughter? I suppose that’s irrelevant.
The bottom line is, unfortunately, public school simmers down to the luck of the ‘draw’. We can all think back to the less-than qualified teacher for the job, either emotionally or academically speaking.
What a child doesn’t learn in school, they have to be taught at ‘home’. That’s it. Time’s ticking. I’d be on Amazon ordering flash cards; or quicker yet, at the local teacher’s supply store to buy a box.
Rote memory is something parents should take the initiative for. Basic math facts, and phonetic skills, aka site words, really need to be a part of the child’s repertoire of learning tools.
I’d tape copies of the site words to the fridge; and, flash the facts for ten minutes til they were learned. I’d print copies of worksheets for time tables, and reward for progress made.
The problem with talking about the extraneous problems, is that it doesn’t serve to help the child. That’s all that really matters at this point. Everything else is just a distraction.
Best regards.
Peace.
We are tutoring my niece but I have a one year old daughter who I want to home school when she is older. I added a sentence to clarify. The thing is our local schools use to have better standards. In terms of state tests and educational success things use to be better. Focus has changed. Curriculum has changed. Less funding so there isn't enough money for supplies to teach.
I don't think it's the parents job to teach kids things you are sending them to school to learn. I mean a whole class of kids never learned how to multiply numbers. They missed a huge chunk of math material and the school didn't supply a proper replacement to teach them what they needed and then started them then next year with material more advanced than they were. Basically with my niece we are starting at scratch trying to teach her 3rd grade math when she is in 4th grade because she never was taught 3rd grade math. Then we have to catch her up on 4th grade math. We are having to teach ourselves common core math which wasn't taught years ago just to help her. How can parents pick up the slack in extremely bad cases?
I also think the extraneous problems do need to be discussed if they are part of the larger problem. Not having enough funding to give kids textbooks and relying on cheap worksheets is a problem. A school being aware a teacher has a substance abuse problem but continuing to let her work even though she shows signs of not doing a good job and then not cleaning up the mess of a bad education is a problem. Little problems add up. Though these little problems are for my community and not applicable to larger statewide or nationwide problems. Little things shouldn't be ignored though.