OMG help my fifth grade students are SO LOW in math skills!

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OMG help my fifth grade students are SO LOW in math skills!

by Frenzied in Seattle

Mar 24, 2011

HELP! My fifth greade students did not get the skills they needed in fourth grade. So, fraction lessons are painful! I am kind of lost, because the students need to be up to level by...May. They have learned a lot in the past few weeks, but not to mastery. We've worked on equivalent fractions, adding/subtracting fractions, mixed numbers, improper fractions, etc...

So, I just need some advice/ideas on how to go forward. I want to help as many of them as I can, but it is really feeling like we are going nowhere!

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Annie I messed up---see [link removed]

> I feel your pain, too. I also work around many of my students' > gaps by using Internet sites and classroom games- they are much > more motivated. There is a site that lists links and files to > free math resources that have been helpful to me. See > [link removed]

Mar 29, 2011

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Francie Salvage what you can by teaching a few fast tricks.

Which fraction is larger? Teach cross multiplying.

Spend your energy focusing on the fluidity of fractions, decimals and percents.

If you get 100 in the denominator, your life is great! Teach multiplying top and bottom by a number so you get an equivalent fraction tha...See More

Mar 31, 2011

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double OMG I usually try and be supportive when I post on this site, and I'm sure the person who posted this was just busy and typing fast, like we all are... but this response contains a lot of common errors in teaching math, and I'd like to take a little time to acknowledge it. Our U.S. children are failing in mathematics across the nation, and we need to h...See MoreI usually try and be supportive when I post on this site, and I'm sure the person who posted this was just busy and typing fast, like we all are... but this response contains a lot of common errors in teaching math, and I'd like to take a little time to acknowledge it. Our U.S. children are failing in mathematics across the nation, and we need to help them enter a global economy in just a few short years.

Yes, cross multiplication works, but it leaves the students with absolutely no conceptual understanding of what they are doing. Tricks shouldn't be taught until students have an understanding of what they are actually doing, and even then -- think twice before teaching shortcuts. In 5th grade, students should learn and be able to recognize in all forms the benchmarks that are used for estimation (1/4, 1/3, 1/2, 2/3, 3/4, .25, .33 show them how and why it is a repeating decimal and needs to be rounded, .5, .66, etc. ) --

In regards to "the Secret One trick. for example: .257 = 1,000. So you say 257 thousandths." .257 never equals 1,000. It is two hundred and fifty seven thousandths or 257 parts of 1,000 parts of one whole.

Mathematical language should be integrated into everything you do. Never refer to fractions as the top or bottom numbers -- always the numerator and the denominator, and teach that percent means "per" out of "cent" one hundred (as in cents, century, centipede)

I don't agree with this either... > Make sure you have them add and subtract fractions vertically, so it > will prompt them to get common denominators. Solving horizontal calculations require a higher level of thinking.

>Tell them the big number goes on top. PLEASE always refer to numbers and greater and lesser, not bigger and smaller. Bigger and smaller relates to size, greater and lesser describes value.

> Multiplying is not too bad, but they have to learn how to make mixed > numbers improper. That takes awhile

Something you may want to try to have students figure this concept out for themselves with your coaching. Start with manipulatives such as fraction circles or bars, then drawings (bars are easier to partition than circles) and doing a lot of it mentally first -- keep reminding them that fractions are division problems and when you check division problems you use inverse operations and help them see that that's what they are doing, just in a different form.

I hope this didn't come across and b*tchy, it's just a topic that's important to me. Thanks for listening....

Apr 16, 2011

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Amanda It is too late for this to help this year, but I found that if I suggested to the fourth grade that a fraction is actually another way to write a division problem, the kids catch on much faster. They did that last year, and this year the kids got it very quickly. We then looked at how to write a reciprocal, how to calculate a percentage score on a ...See MoreIt is too late for this to help this year, but I found that if I suggested to the fourth grade that a fraction is actually another way to write a division problem, the kids catch on much faster. They did that last year, and this year the kids got it very quickly. We then looked at how to write a reciprocal, how to calculate a percentage score on a test, and how to look at ratios as relationships (part to part, part to whole, whole to part). It also helps to teach properties of addition and multiplication in different ways over and over again all year.

The issues seems to be that sometimes the kids learn a rote way to do something without realizing that math is really about number sense and the relationship of numbers. We use a lot of manipulatives, drawings, graphs, and charts to go over these concepts.

Chants are also useful. For example, we chant this: "never, never, never add fractions unless the denominators match" and "never, never, never subtract fractions unless ____". The kids fill in the blank in the chant while wagging their fingers to the never parts. Even the low kids get into it, and they remember it. We make it a game. The more fun they have with it, the more they remember. The kids often make up chants of their own related to the topic we are covering.

When we do long form multiplication, we pretend we are in the middle ages building a cathedral with no calculator to figure out how many units of something we need to order. I show them long form, as well as lattice and partial product multiplication. Once they see there is more than one way to write the problem and get the answer, they get into it. To learn more about Fibonacci's lattice method, see [link removed]

We also watch math videos. One useful and amusing one was made by a Monty Python actor. It is called _The Story of One_ starring Terry Jones.

The point of all of this is to lighten up math and make it fun. I used to be very serious when teaching math, but I changed my tune when I saw a college professor teaching a remedial Algebra course and making patterns using lightning bolts and hand prints to teach recognizing sequences in a series. Every time he wrote a bolt, he made a sizzling noise. Every time he wrote a hand print, he said, "splat!" The college age students started copying what he did, and it dawned on me that they were having fun while also learning to see patterns. "sizzle, splat; sizzle, sizzle, splat, splat; sizzle, sizzle, sizzle, splat, splat, splat" meant the pattern was nsub1=1 nsub2=2 nsub3=3 or 1,2,3...Nsubn+1 so the idea became nsubn+1= the next number in the series. I figured that if 19 year olds enjoyed it, 10 year olds would love it. He was the one who told me about _The Story of One_.

I hope this kind of approach helps you next year. It has certainly improved my students' performance by leaps and bounds.

Apr 27, 2011

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Pil On 4/16/11, double OMG wrote: > I usually try and be supportive when I post on this site, and I'm sure > the person who posted this was just busy and typing fast, like we all > are... but this response contains a lot of common errors in teaching > math, and I'd like to take a little time to acknowledge it. Our U.S. > children are fai...See MoreOn 4/16/11, double OMG wrote: > I usually try and be supportive when I post on this site, and I'm sure > the person who posted this was just busy and typing fast, like we all > are... but this response contains a lot of common errors in teaching > math, and I'd like to take a little time to acknowledge it. Our U.S. > children are failing in mathematics across the nation, and we need to > help them enter a global economy in just a few short years. > > Yes, cross multiplication works, but it leaves the students with > absolutely no conceptual understanding of what they are doing. Tricks > shouldn't be taught until students have an understanding of what they > are actually doing, and even then -- think twice before teaching > shortcuts. > In 5th grade, students should learn and be able to recognize in all > forms the benchmarks that are used for estimation (1/4, 1/3, 1/2, 2/3, > 3/4, .25, .33 show them how and why it is a repeating decimal and needs > to be rounded, .5, .66, etc. ) -- > > In regards to "the Secret One trick. for example: .257 = 1,000. So you > say 257 thousandths." .257 never equals 1,000. It is two hundred and > fifty seven thousandths or 257 parts of 1,000 parts of one whole. > > Mathematical language should be integrated into everything you do. > Never refer to fractions as the top or bottom numbers -- always the > numerator and the denominator, and teach that percent means "per" out of > "cent" one hundred (as in cents, century, centipede) > > I don't agree with this either... >> Make sure you have them add and subtract fractions vertically, so it >> will prompt them to get common denominators. > Solving horizontal calculations require a higher level of thinking. > >>Tell them the big number goes on top. > PLEASE always refer to numbers and greater and lesser, not bigger and > smaller. Bigger and smaller relates to size, greater and lesser > describes value. > >> Multiplying is not too bad, but they have to learn how to make mixed >> numbers improper. That takes awhile > > Something you may want to try to have students figure this concept out > for themselves with your coaching. Start with manipulatives such as > fraction circles or bars, then drawings (bars are easier to partition > than circles) and doing a lot of it mentally first -- keep reminding > them that fractions are division problems and when you check division > problems you use inverse operations and help them see that that's what > they are doing, just in a different form. > > I hope this didn't come across and b*tchy, it's just a topic that's > important to me. > Thanks for listening....

LOVED your post!

Thank you for taking the time to point out these things. If standards for mathematical learning are not set very early, students will suffer for the rest of their lives. Middle school, high school, college will all be much more challenging for them and, if not successful, will severely limit their opportunities later in life. I know it's difficult when we have to play catch-up from a previous year, but that is because shortcuts were taken in those prior years. Unfortunately, once in a while, someone decides it's "not that important" or feels uncomfortable with the material themselves to teach it properly. The result is a compounding of problems for the next teacher in the next grade.

Aug 9, 2013

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