Homeschool World Forum

Hi!
My son is add and in 8th grade but at about 4th grade math level. I cannot seem to get him to understand how to find common denominators in fractions and how to do any adding, etc. of unlike fractions. Anyone have any ideas of what I should teach him in Math? I'm going to try to have him cook recipes with fractions.


My 2nd grade girl is very smart but I'm pretty sure has dyslexia. Any special tips on helping her?. I'm having her copy things to write regularly, and we do quite a bit of dictation.

Don't be discouraged. God gave us kids with special needs for a reason. The fact that we're hs them shows we really love them. Have a great day!

I don't know too much about dyslexia but when it come to fractions, does your son have the times table memorized? If he doesn't you have to start there. I know he won't like it, but without it everything else is very difficult, if not impossible.

Thanks-Yes, he does have his times tables memorized. But maybe I need to re-test him to be sure; thought I did. He just seems stumped on equivalent fractions and changing to common denominators.

My experience with math problems is that they are usually caused by trying to have a child learn too big a chunk at once. In other words, everything needs to be broken up into tiny baby steps and each step needs to be drilled until mastered. Adding fractions is one that has a lot of tiny steps, for sure.

My approach to "signs" of dyslexia is have the child write more. Write letters to relatives, write essays, do written "narrations" a la Charlotte Mason after each and every lesson, copy handwriting lessons, etc., etc.

Ramona

Thanks for the advice, Ramona. I'll just have to be patient with my ds. And, it's encouraging that you mentioned about dyslexia and writing because I'd just been reading a Ruth Beechick book about that very thing and have had my kids all writing daily and what a help! Especially my daughter that has dyslexia tendancies-I can tell it is a challenge for her to copy things but she seems to like to do it, most of the time, and it helps her. I also have her follow along with her finger when she reads to me. As for the fractions, I never really thought of it like that-lots of little steps. thanks again and have a great day!

Developmental math has a great way of taking things into small steps and really practiving a lot! I haven't tries the upper levels but this link might help.
http://www.timberdoodle.com Click on the math link on the left, then developmental math, the one with fractions is 14.