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Angie Mc
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| Posted: July 21 2006 at 8:19pm | IP Logged
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As we begin high school at home, my 14yo dd would like to increase her math computation speed, accuracy, and difficulty level. Her concepts, estimation, problem solving and data interpretation are fine. Her language skills are outstanding. She doesn't want her math scores to "tarnish" her other scores, lol! She is looking ahead to her SATs. How to best harness this motivation?
I'm thinking, correct me if I'm wrong, that she needs to practice the SKILL of doing math computation quickly, daily, with pencil and paper some sort of crash course on speed. Not so much a textbook on how-to but just speed practice. (I know I have calculadders on my shelf somewhere...dd and I failed miserably at implementing this.)
Also, what is a realistic expectation of "time in" = "score increase." Since she has never put the time into developing this skill (speed with math problems) is it realistic to believe that she can increase her skill level significantly? Is there anything else I should be asking?
Thank you number friends 
Love,
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Angie Mc
Maimeo to Henry! Dave's wife, mom to Mrs. Devin+Michael Pope, Aiden 20,Ian 17,John Paul 11,Catherine (heaven 6/07)
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Angie Mc
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| Posted: July 21 2006 at 8:21pm | IP Logged
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Oh, if you don't mind, please let me know if there are topics here that might help. If I admit to you that I don't always follow this forum because I'm not a numbers person myself, will you still call me friend? 
Love,
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Angie Mc
Maimeo to Henry! Dave's wife, mom to Mrs. Devin+Michael Pope, Aiden 20,Ian 17,John Paul 11,Catherine (heaven 6/07)
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Angie Mc
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| Posted: July 21 2006 at 8:33pm | IP Logged
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More...the truth is, our family is "attention to detail" impaired. Seriously. I'm thinking that this is part of the math computation challenge as well. Would there be exercises that increase attention to detail with speed that would compliment pencil and paper work?
Way more questions than answers...
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Angie Mc
Maimeo to Henry! Dave's wife, mom to Mrs. Devin+Michael Pope, Aiden 20,Ian 17,John Paul 11,Catherine (heaven 6/07)
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lapazfarm
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| Posted: July 21 2006 at 10:23pm | IP Logged
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There are alot of online games that work well to increase speed and accuracy. Just do a google search and you will find tons of them. One we like is multiplication.com
and also the Math u see drill page here
and this one has some interesting drills and games:interactivate
Hope this helps.
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Theresa
us-schooling in beautiful Fairbanks, Alaska.
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Leonie
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| Posted: July 21 2006 at 10:24pm | IP Logged
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Angie, I work at Kumon Education. Children consistently improve their math computation skills at Kumon via simple pen and and paper problems - daily and with repetition. By repetition, I mean repeating the same set of problems two or more times - be they composed of any of the four operations or even algebra.
This supposes initial understanding, of course.
And you could make up your own sets of problems and photocopy for mulitple sets or use internet sites and have your dd work on these for 10-20 minutes each day.
At Kumon, I often get the students to choose a particular goal to focus on each week - so a paying attention to details goal could be one, for example. Or writing numbers more legibly. No finger counting. And so on. Your dd can have this detail focus for a time as well - and a weekly review - how are you going with your goal?
Just one suggestion!
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teachingmom
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Hi Angie,
I don't have answers for you, but I wanted to say that I think this is a great idea. I gave my girls their standarized tests last week. We use the simple CAT from Seton. My oldest is a pretty strong math student, but makes careless mistakes too often. My 2nd takes longer to understand math concepts and works very slowly and carefully, but "gets" it just fine in the end.
The math computation section of the CAT test was fairly straightforward and not difficult. There were 20 questions to complete in 18 minutes. Both of my older girls ended the test VERY frustrated. They both felt very rushed and sort of guessed at some of the answers due to lack of time. I truly believe that they would have had a perfect or near perfect score with just a few more minutes to work with. (Both did much better at the other math section of the test, which allowed for 18 minutes also, but was mostly made up of word problems, graph interpretation, etc.)
I started to wonder if I had found a shortcoming of my methods of homeschooling. Since I do not give timed math tests, they are not used to working under the pressure of timing, and they have never felt the need to improve their speed/accuracy combination.
All this is to say, I'm right there with you and look forward to hearing from others!
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~Irene (Mom to 6 girls, ages 7-19)
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marihalojen
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It sounds like your daughter is motivated, once mine was, basic repeatition with flashcards helped. Also simple games like a deck of cards and two people, each throw down a card, multiply (or add), first correct answer wins the cards.
Graph Mad Minutes to see an increase in speed and accuracy.
Try the Trachtenberg System of Speed Mathematics, written by a man in a German concentration camp in WWII. My favorite that I remember is multiplying by 11.
Trachtenberg did this from right to left. It can be done from left to right. This is slightly harder (sometimes), but has the benefit of producing the answer from left to right, just as you would read off the answer. And so, it can be slightly faster, for that reason. Speed arithmetic experts do most of their arithmetic (including multiplying large numbers by large numbers) from left to right.
Here is a simple example (with no carries):
4253 x 11 = 46783
Starting at the right, we write down the first digit (3). Then we add the first to the next digit (5) and write that down (8). Then we add the second digit to the third, etc. Finally we write down the leftmost (last) digit (4).
In most cases, we have to deal with carries:
4683 x 11 = 51513
Starting at the right, we write down the first digit (3). Then we add the first pair of digits (8+3=11) and write down the right digit of this sum (1), and carry the one. We add the next pair of digits to the carry (6+8+1=15) and write down the right digit of this sum (5), and carry the one, etc. Finally, we write down the leftmost digit plus the carry.
Write it out slowly a few times, it's much easier to do than to explain. You are simply adding the active number to the neighbor number. There is a nice chart at the link above with all the rules for 2 through 12.
It is not for everybody, but it might appeal to your daughter. I liked it because I could finally answer Dad's math questions somewhat promptly (the man solves math problems in his sleep  , we don't talk the same language at all  ).
Wikipedia has a nice entry as well.
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Mother to Mariannna, age 13
The Mari Hal-O-Jen
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KellyJ
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There are couple books on speed math available through Dover. I am sure other publishers have similar books too.
KellyJ
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4Real Forums : Living and Loving Numbers
Topic: Increase Math Computation Speed
