You want to prepare you student for high school, and thus college perhaps. You have a goal - a plan laid out for your subjects, and hope to be through at least Algebra 2 by the end of high school - if not Calculus. But your student is in 8th grade and still struggling with basic math. What do you do? What about the plan? What about the goals?
Be patient. Some things you just can't rush. If you worry and rush, you will be rushing your student through math rather than getting that firm foundation that is necessary for the next step. If all is going along as planned, great! But if you have a struggling student, rushing things will only create anxiety.
I have made that mistake with my son. I kept ignoring that we needed to really work on basic facts, and make that foundation sure before building further. Also, his mind just really had trouble wrapping around algebraic equations. My pastor told me once that he could not do math at all until the very end of high school, when it all clicked for him and suddenly he knew what to do. Before that point, he said, it was like reading everything in a different language. And math is its own language.
This year, my son is having success with math, maybe for the first time. Every day I look over what he did, and he is always getting between 95 to 100 percent on his papers. I do believe that something clicked that had not before.
Patience. No, he will not be ahead of the game in math when he starts college. But he is not going into a math career, so it doesn't matter so much. What does matter, is that I fretted and worried, which created worry and math anxiety in him. We don't need to be in a race to make it all happen in a year.
Patience. Aren't you glad that God is patient with you?
Deb Turner - Homeschooling from the Heart
The Old Schoolhouse Magazine
Featured Graduates and Alumni
Deb Turner has been homeschooling for 20 years, and is thrilled to have yet another 10 to go. She and her husband, Craig, have 5 children and 3 grandchildren. Craig works as a mechanical engineer, while Deb enjoys raising her children and loving up her grandchildren. She also enjoys writing and gardening.
