Say Something Random II - Eclectic Depression

[Cerina]

Nice

[Driver]

This is really lame and first word-- but my kid being in fifth grade super stresses me out. He's always had attention span issues and flunks tests because he isn't paying attention (as opposed to not understanding the material). Up until now he's made it work because he isn;t stupid, but this year the are prepping him for middle school next year and they are burying him in work he clearly doesn't get and half of it I don't get. When he has a failed test and I try to talk to him he just yells I TRIED MY BEST and shuts down.

 

I remember 6th grade pretty well, and what I could do then. I feel like his reading and writing is about 2 years behind where I was at that point. But his math is at least 4 years beyond what I can do NOW.

[Darth Ender]

This is really lame and first word-- but my kid being in fifth grade super stresses me out. He's always had attention span issues and flunks tests because he isn't paying attention (as opposed to not understanding the material). Up until now he's made it work because he isn;t stupid, but this year the are prepping him for middle school next year and they are burying him in work he clearly doesn't get and half of it I don't get. When he has a failed test and I try to talk to him he just yells I TRIED MY BEST and shuts down.

 

I remember 6th grade pretty well, and what I could do then. I feel like his reading and writing is about 2 years behind where I was at that point. But his math is at least 4 years beyond what I can do NOW.

He might qualify for SPED. SPED does not mean low intelligence, rather it means he requires certain accommodations and/or modifications to access the curriculum. Clearly he is overwhelmed, so one accommodation would be reduction in work or guided notes. As a parent, it is your right to request SPED testing. They might push as process called RTII. This process they try various interventions to help your kid get back to grade level. This usually lasts 4-6 months. Honestly, whether this works depends on the teachers and the school. If you have an official diagnosis, the school shouldn't push back too much on holding off testing him.

[Driver]

If it were across the board I'd consider it, but it is certain subjects, or sub-subjects.

 

Science he's above grade level, social studies he's at, math he's well ahead in terms of algebra, multiplication, division, etc-- but he's struggling with fractions, primes and common core arrays. Spelling he is past grade standard, reading comprehension just at, but vocabulary and discerning word meaning from sentences he struggles.

 

And he likes to talk. a lot

[Ms. Spam]

Hmmm, Driver. I can give my recommendations a little later based on my experiences with this happening with my own students. The thing that concerns me is the leap in material you mentioned and that might be the disconnect as well as overwhelming homework. I will tell you that when he's ready he will talk to you so keep trying as he may be feeling bad about failing you and himself.

 

in barfing news I was totally surprised as I was just trying to swallow a antihistamines pill it wouldn't go down. No sympathetic barfing happened to my students for which I am grateful for.

[Cerina]

 

This is really lame and first word-- but my kid being in fifth grade super stresses me out. He's always had attention span issues and flunks tests because he isn't paying attention (as opposed to not understanding the material). Up until now he's made it work because he isn;t stupid, but this year the are prepping him for middle school next year and they are burying him in work he clearly doesn't get and half of it I don't get. When he has a failed test and I try to talk to him he just yells I TRIED MY BEST and shuts down.

 

I remember 6th grade pretty well, and what I could do then. I feel like his reading and writing is about 2 years behind where I was at that point. But his math is at least 4 years beyond what I can do NOW.

Pull him out. The stress isn't worth it.

 

Also, it shouldn't matter if he's not the same across the board (who is, really), the school should still have to provide accommodations if he needs it.

[Driver]

Pulling him out is easier said than done. We've talked about home school, but neither The Former Mrs. Driver or I have time, or can afford, to do that. Plus, I KNOW I would suck at it. I don't have the patience.

 

If everyone in the world goes to see Leatherface and I get my box office bonus checks, maybe snooty LA private school is an option.

 

I just keep reminding myself of what I really learned/retained from 5th grade, and what from them effects me today.

 

I know that was the year I wrote my first multi-chapter story. I held a girl's hand AT SCHOOL. And I learned to draw using two-point perspective. That's it!

[Darth Ender]

If it were across the board I'd consider it, but it is certain subjects, or sub-subjects.

 

Science he's above grade level, social studies he's at, math he's well ahead in terms of algebra, multiplication, division, etc-- but he's struggling with fractions, primes and common core arrays. Spelling he is past grade standard, reading comprehension just at, but vocabulary and discerning word meaning from sentences he struggles.

 

And he likes to talk. a lot

That sounds like a specific learning disability. If it was across the board I would say it is cognitive disability. A learning disability is for someone that is generally near to above grade level on most things, but has a few skills that lag behind. For reading, a strategy that might help is to practice using a Cloze Procedure. You can do it with anything. Just Google cloze activities and a lot of resources should come up. However, to be done properly this needs to be done regularly and adjusted based on student improvement. In this activity, the student trains his brain and/or develops strategies to overcome this deficit.

 

For fractions, I would recommend picking this up. Allow him to use it when doing fraction homework. Students learn math like this: concrete (touching the apple)---> representative (this apple on the paper represents an apple) ----> abstract (this 1 refers to the apple). Frequently students struggle with the move from one form to another and require more time at a level. If he were on an IEP, a staff member trained in providing these learning strategies would work regularly with him.

 

He talks a lot...that's great. I am willing to bet if he heard the same sentence he would understand the meaning of a word rather than if he read it. He is just having issues processing between the stages I outlined before. Often times this is overcome as the brain develops. However, what frequently happens is when the brain is finally able to do these tasks, the student is too far behind and is frustrated and such. That is why it is so important to tackle these issues now rather than later.

 

 

 

This is really lame and first word-- but my kid being in fifth grade super stresses me out. He's always had attention span issues and flunks tests because he isn't paying attention (as opposed to not understanding the material). Up until now he's made it work because he isn;t stupid, but this year the are prepping him for middle school next year and they are burying him in work he clearly doesn't get and half of it I don't get. When he has a failed test and I try to talk to him he just yells I TRIED MY BEST and shuts down.

 

I remember 6th grade pretty well, and what I could do then. I feel like his reading and writing is about 2 years behind where I was at that point. But his math is at least 4 years beyond what I can do NOW.

Pull him out. The stress isn't worth it.

 

Also, it shouldn't matter if he's not the same across the board (who is, really), the school should still have to provide accommodations if he needs it.

 

If it is a specific learning disability, it isn't necessarily accommodations he needs to overcome this challenge. Rather, he needs direct instructional time to work with an educator trained in providing interventions and support to address his needs.

 

[Driver]

That's super helpful thank you.

 

In looking over where he's struggling it's really reading comprehension more than anything else. He can read and spell fine-- but following instructions correctly, trick questions, inferring word meanings, story prediction-- this is gets him more than anything.

 

He is in a common core program so a lot of his "math" problems actually come not reading the examples clearly-- or again trick questions.

 

One that always gets him, is when there is a question that involves doing math, but then asks a question about an individual factor. Like: susie has 6 apples to hand out to 4 friends, how many will be left over after she gives each friend the same amount of apples. The multiple choice answers would be:

 

A: 6

B: 1 r2

C: 2

D: 3 r1

 

Every time, my kid will answer B. That is the correct math, but he gets hung up on doing it, finds the answer, knows he's right, sees it listed, and gives that as an answer... not reading clearly to see the question is just asking for the remainder, which is C.

[Ms. Spam]

Working with fifth graders on this is my life right now. The hardest thing to do is to get some kids to slow down and see what the question is asking. My Dad, who helped 8 of his kids learn, used to call these bullshit questions. They are designed for the tricks.

 

Ender gave you some good advice. Does he like riddles? Sometimes asking him riddles will get him to slow down and retread the question for the right answers. Hands on is good but reading out loud or circling the actual question helps. Try and ask him to circle the part of the question he understands to get the answer.

[Ms. Spam]

I am using my phone so my sentences are not quite right. But I think you are in a good space knowing what is happening. Just be patient.

[Cerina]

Hey Ender, my friend's 6th grader has issues with reading comprehension. She just doesn't understand something when she reads it. However, has no issue with comprehension when something is read aloud to her. No vision issues.

[Driver]

Working with fifth graders on this is my life right now. The hardest thing to do is to get some kids to slow down and see what the question is asking. My Dad, who helped 8 of his kids learn, used to call these bull**** questions. They are designed for the tricks.

 

Ender gave you some good advice. Does he like riddles? Sometimes asking him riddles will get him to slow down and retread the question for the right answers. Hands on is good but reading out loud or circling the actual question helps. Try and ask him to circle the part of the question he understands to get the answer.

Well it's good to know he's not the only one.

 

We meet with his teacher on Monday to talk about strategies. I already emailed her about learning disability testing and she doesn't think we are there yet. We're going to start with just more supervision on his homework to make sure he's slowing down to read it through, and I'm getting him a bunch of new books to read on a topic he likes (GOOSEBUMPS) to see if getting sucked into something he likes will help.

 

Riddles he does not like-- but when I was a kid I LOVED those Encyclopedia Brown type stories where you the reader had to solve the case, and to do that you'd have to read and look for details. I actually have some of mine in a box that I just dug out and I'm going to get him some new ones too.

 

It's early enough in the school year that he has plenty of time to improve. And now that his teacher is keeping a closer eye, hopefully all goes well.

 

But yeah-- trick questions are dicks. This is kind of my issue with common core

 

YES, I don't get it all-- but that's okay. The point of teaching a better number sense by over-mathing like this, or to use other skills to properly deconstruct problems is all great. What CC teaches is fine and will likely make them smarter. BUT-- there isn't enough distinction between telling if kids know the material, or if they know common core. Like i showed above-- he gets questions wrong NOT because he couldn't do the math-- he could. He understood the math just fine-- what he didn't understand was how to deconstruct it the way CC wanted him to. So when he gets a bad grade I have to question it-- is he being marked wrong for not knowing the material, or is being marked wrong for not understanding common core? Those are two completely different things. Missing a math question is one thing. Missing it because you don't understand how the question was asked is another.

I get the benefits of CC, but I don't know that they outweigh all the ways kids are set up to fail if at the end of the day you just need to do a math problem.

[Darth Ender]

That's super helpful thank you.

 

In looking over where he's struggling it's really reading comprehension more than anything else. He can read and spell fine-- but following instructions correctly, trick questions, inferring word meanings, story prediction-- this is gets him more than anything.

 

He is in a common core program so a lot of his "math" problems actually come not reading the examples clearly-- or again trick questions.

 

One that always gets him, is when there is a question that involves doing math, but then asks a question about an individual factor. Like: susie has 6 apples to hand out to 4 friends, how many will be left over after she gives each friend the same amount of apples. The multiple choice answers would be:

 

A: 6

B: 1 r2

C: 2

D: 3 r1

 

Every time, my kid will answer B. That is the correct math, but he gets hung up on doing it, finds the answer, knows he's right, sees it listed, and gives that as an answer... not reading clearly to see the question is just asking for the remainder, which is C.

This is a HUGE pet peeve of mine. This is poor test writing. Is the teacher trying the assess math or reading skill? With that said, reading carefully for meaning is an important skill, but it should be separated from the primary learning target for the lesson. I would address this with the teacher.

 

Hey Ender, my friend's 6th grader has issues with reading comprehension. She just doesn't understand something when she reads it. However, has no issue with comprehension when something is read aloud to her. No vision issues.

Hey Cerina, I am guessing the student reads fluently yet has no clue what was just read? That is what I am assuming for my thoughts so correct me if I am wrong. Basically, what is happening is she is putting all of her brain power decoding. A mistake many people (including teachers) is assuming that strong readings skills is the same things as reading speed and accuracy. This is not true. What she might want to try is finding a peer or an adult that she is comfortable reading aloud to and they take turns reading aloud to each other. The student needs to summarize the main idea of every X paragraph read. This can also be done silently. Find the students instructional reading level and an article written at the level. At every paragraph she should stop and summarize the main idea. Slowly build up to a few paragraphs but also ask to provide a sequence of events.

 

 

Working with fifth graders on this is my life right now. The hardest thing to do is to get some kids to slow down and see what the question is asking. My Dad, who helped 8 of his kids learn, used to call these bull**** questions. They are designed for the tricks.

 

Ender gave you some good advice. Does he like riddles? Sometimes asking him riddles will get him to slow down and retread the question for the right answers. Hands on is good but reading out loud or circling the actual question helps. Try and ask him to circle the part of the question he understands to get the answer.

Well it's good to know he's not the only one.

 

We meet with his teacher on Monday to talk about strategies. I already emailed her about learning disability testing and she doesn't think we are there yet. We're going to start with just more supervision on his homework to make sure he's slowing down to read it through, and I'm getting him a bunch of new books to read on a topic he likes (GOOSEBUMPS) to see if getting sucked into something he likes will help.

 

Riddles he does not like-- but when I was a kid I LOVED those Encyclopedia Brown type stories where you the reader had to solve the case, and to do that you'd have to read and look for details. I actually have some of mine in a box that I just dug out and I'm going to get him some new ones too.

 

It's early enough in the school year that he has plenty of time to improve. And now that his teacher is keeping a closer eye, hopefully all goes well.

 

But yeah-- trick questions are dicks. This is kind of my issue with common core

 

YES, I don't get it all-- but that's okay. The point of teaching a better number sense by over-mathing like this, or to use other skills to properly deconstruct problems is all great. What CC teaches is fine and will likely make them smarter. BUT-- there isn't enough distinction between telling if kids know the material, or if they know common core. Like i showed above-- he gets questions wrong NOT because he couldn't do the math-- he could. He understood the math just fine-- what he didn't understand was how to deconstruct it the way CC wanted him to. So when he gets a bad grade I have to question it-- is he being marked wrong for not knowing the material, or is being marked wrong for not understanding common core? Those are two completely different things. Missing a math question is one thing. Missing it because you don't understand how the question was asked is another.

I get the benefits of CC, but I don't know that they outweigh all the ways kids are set up to fail if at the end of the day you just need to do a math problem.

 

This is NOT the CC. The Common Core outlines what skills ought to be mastered by a certain grade level. It does not state how it should be taught. This is an instructional decision by the the school/ teacher/ district.

[Driver]

REALLY!? That's good to hear. Because when I complain that he is getting bad grades in math because the questions are posed in a confusing way, they tell me that common core is about interdisciplinary skills. So his reading comprehension lessons are being tested at the same time as math.

 

Which seems like it is way more complicated than it should be.

 

Most all of my kid'd grades are based on iReady tests, which are online and really horrible flash interactive tests full of poorly written questions like the examples I gave.

 

When I sit with him, he does fine. When he does them on his own, he fails. Because when I am there, I make him read aloud and stay focused. On his own, I know he drifts because they are boring as hell.

[Darth Ender]

REALLY!? That's good to hear. Because when I complain that he is getting bad grades in math because the questions are posed in a confusing way, they tell me that common core is about interdisciplinary skills. So his reading comprehension lessons are being tested at the same time as math.

 

Which seems like it is way more complicated than it should be.

 

Most all of my kid'd grades are based on iReady tests, which are online and really horrible flash interactive tests full of poorly written questions like the examples I gave.

 

When I sit with him, he does fine. When he does them on his own, he fails. Because when I am there, I make him read aloud and stay focused. On his own, I know he drifts because they are boring as hell.

http://www.corestandards.org/wp-content/uploads/Math_Standards.pdf

 

Granted, I get what they are doing. Learning to read a question carefully is a skill that students need to master, but I don't think this is the most appropriate time to assess the mastery of that skill.

[Ms. Spam]

To me it's all just labeling and quantifying something so it Is measurable and can demonstrate a specific thing to a group of people. Common core will simply take on a new name and face when people get tired of it as the fad labeling goes on to a new name.

 

The thing about these questions is that they do have real world meaning and that is what they are generally geared towards. They've been on tests at least from the 50s for standardized testing. When these questions come up everything kind of needs to be figured out but the answer will come from multiple jumps in computation and understanding and this is what they're measuring on these tests. In your example you gave about the apples the test wants to see if you can come up with the right answer following a few jumps in computation. I like to think O. is just trying to be extra helpful and his answer is because he's a good kid wanting to give out the extra information. The test though is a cruel and cold hearted bitch that the world will be. And getting our kids to get to the point and give the basic answer is kind of hard.

 

A lot of my fifth graders have a hard time with these because they want to please and so they give more than the answer required. Right now I find it good for have them circle the actual question in the word problem. So we do some examples together as a class where I read it aloud and then ask the kids to circle what they think the question is. Sometimes I can see the disconnect a little faster this way and can work to help a kid before it becomes too hard and they give up and close down. I always say it is fine to write on the test. Even draw pictures.

 

And yes, these are the worse most crappiest word problems. As a writer I bet you'd rather write soap operas than consider writing out word problems for kids.

 

I think you're a great dad and it sounds like his teacher cares if she is making time to talk to you.

[Driver]

Thank you Spam and Ender-- I don't feel so doomy now

[Burt]

This morning, a woman tailgated me, passed me, cut me off, and squirted me with her windshield wiper fluid. I couldn't even be mad, I just laughed. I really just want to talk to her and get to know her. WHO DOES THAT? What kind of satisfaction did she get from spraying me? Is it fair to call her a squirter?

 

Coming home this afternoon, I get tailgated. I'm in the fast lane but boxed in and behind a slower vehicle, so not sure what he hoped to accomplish by tailgating me. I've seen two wrecks happen because someone was tailgating, so I try to avoid/discourage that. Normally, I just say something to them in the rear view mirror because sometimes people don't realize they're doing it....but today, today was different. Today, I had been educated. I squirted him with windshield wiper fluid. It really was satisfying to see them turn on their windshield wipers.

[Darth Krawlie]

IOS 9 is supposed to help your battery life. Is that why it was at 100%, three hours of non-use later it was at 69, and ten minutes of use after that it was at 20?

 

I've done all the things I can do. Turned off location services, push notifications, background app refresh, closed apps, all of the things. It just gets worse and worse. I need a new goddamn phone.

[Guest]

I don't know that you're going to find a smartphone with good battery life until we get better technology.

On the other hand, I have a flip phone that I charge weekly.

[Darth Ender]

IOS 9 is supposed to help your battery life. Is that why it was at 100%, three hours of non-use later it was at 69, and ten minutes of use after that it was at 20?

 

I've done all the things I can do. Turned off location services, push notifications, background app refresh, closed apps, all of the things. It just gets worse and worse. I need a new goddamn phone.

The percentage is the software estimating time left based off of your usage. It's probably a software issue rather than a battery issue. At least that's what Apple told me when something similar happened to mine.

[Ms. Spam]

Today I went to Lowes. They're getting rid of patio things to put up CHRISTMAS. And they had a Sunbrella deep seat cushion set for $20 bucks. I bought it. Because what the hell I have one patio deep seat chair which already has a cushion set on it and we needed MORE. And the goofy broad charged me twice. So my bargain of a set of cushions marked down from 98 bucks to twenty and I have two sets of cushions for one chair. I am stupid.

[monkeygirl]

DEEP COUCH SITTING

[Cerina]

IT'S A BOY!