Understand Math?

Jeremy Bender

Platinum Member
Unfortunately I'm not referring to odd time signatures. My kid came home from school today and is having some difficulty understanding her fourth grade math homework. Does anyone here study/teach math?
I'm looking for any good resources to assist us older folks who haven't been in the classroom for a long time to get a better grip on the basics. Thanks.
 
There's a website called khan academy that is phenomenal, I don't know if it has younger grades though but it's worth a search
 
What type of math is she studying? I am no professional, but I helped tutor for a couple of years, and I might could clarify some things if you'd like. PM me if you're interested.
 
There's a website called khan academy that is phenomenal, I don't know if it has younger grades though but it's worth a search
Awesome. I like the structured approach of advancing from one video lesson to the next. It's really nice that no matter how basic the concept, he's positive and non-condescending in his tone of voice.
Thanks for the info.
 
I am a basic skills program director at a community college; it so happens I direct curriculum in this area.

Yes, I can vouch for the Khan Academy lessons. My Intensive GED Prep students use them and they are a bit more interesting than drill-and-kill. If you need some homework-style drills to practice skills, try aaamath.com. GCFLearnFree is another site we use as well. Both of those sites are free.

For a little bit of money, you could buy a membership to IXL, which is the main math curriculum we use in my program (www.ixl.com). It's $10 a month or $80 a year, but it covers everything from basic number sense to college-level algebra. Our math instructors use it in a module approach, where a student has to work through the modules in a self-paced mode, and score 80% or better in each module to be considered proficient.

The other thing I would stress to anyone struggling with math proficiency is to really hammer down on the basics of the four functions. Single-digit addition and subtraction needs to be automatic and reflexive. Multiplication and division tables up to 12 should also be automatic, as well as a clear understanding of how to shortcut using factors of 10 and "chopping up" multiple-digit multiplication into smaller equations. Once that becomes second nature, the difficulty really falls away from most other mathematical tasks.

PM me with specifics if you like. Best of luck to you!
 
Thanks for all the tips guys, much appreciated!
 
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