A Math Problem

The girls brought home their report cards last week.

Olivia, sweet, sweet Olivia is doing okay in most of her classes. I wish I could say she tries but honestly, I’m not sure she does. I mean, I think she gets a lot more of the material than her report card shows but I also think she finds school work boring and she’s the kind of kid who doesn’t do well when she’s bored. She’s just not motivated to do the work if it’s not interesting to her.

Alyssa, on the other hand, is motivated by A’s and the $$ that come from those A’s. And for the record, Tom and I do not pay for good grades but my mom and stepdad do, so…

But O’s math scores surprised me. She is graded in numbers from one to five. A one means she’s working way below grade level and intervention is probably needed. I am happy to say her report card had no ones on it.

A two means she needs to work a little harder. A three means she’s working at grade level. Fours mean she’s above grade level and fives mean she’s excelling.

She always gets fives in art, gym, and computers. The one that amuses me the most is the five she gets for ‘is consistently dressed appropriately for gym class.’ I mean, duh, she’s ten, her parents (mom) still pick out her clothes and tell her which shoes to wear on which day. So yeah, I feel for those kids who aren’t ‘appropriately dressed’ because that’s not their fail at this age, it’s their parent’s fail.

But about those math scores…she got a two in her comprehension of addition and subtraction. Yeah. We’re working on that.

In multiplication, a new subject this year, she got a four. FOUR! She’s mastered the times tables for 0, 1, 2, and 5.

I realize that multiplication is often all about memorization and that addition and subtraction require actually understanding the problems and doing the math.

But this was still an interesting situation. My child who is struggling with adding and subtracting even single digit numbers is excelling in multiplication.

Let’s hope we can bring up those addition and subtraction scores and maintain that multiplication score.

I guess if she continues to find memorizing the times tables interesting she’ll keep doing well. I hope I can figure out how to keep her interest going.