Steve answers Tracey’s question from the forum
Hi!
My ds (5) is starting the Alpha series and doing quite well with the concepts and catching on quickly. His fine motor skills are NOT quite up to his comprehension level! Should I write the numbers out for him or let him struggle to get them on the paper?
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Thanks for the question AND the answer. This was the decision I’d reached with my 6 year old son, who struggles with fine motor but catches on to concepts quite well. I write for him on our white board and let him use the blocks and think things through, and he does very well. He’s finishing Beta now and we just ordered Gamma!
I have a son in K who’s doing the Primer MUS book. He also has been very slow with his fine motor skills. It took him close to six months to feel comfortable holding a pencil the correct way! We are progressing through Primer and he loves it! He just finished lesson 16 and loves that he is adding like his older sister. All that to say…I let him do some of the problems orally…like counting to 20. He wrote it out a few times and said the numbers aloud while pointing to the lines. In hindsight he could be further along had I followed Steve’s advice earlier!
One more thing. My oldest is in Beta now and we just had her first regrouping lesson last Monday. She struggled, we took breaks, we prayed, we ate a piece of candy, we played with the blocks and used a small white board. Thank you LORD, she got it! I love that through prayer and love, she and I (along with Steve’s wonderful teaching) made it over this hurdle. She’s not as big of a math fan as I am (GO MATH!) but she’s working hard and putting in amazing effort which is better in my mind than the end result. She’s learning all sorts of spiritual lessons through math
I’ve been meaning to write for awhile now and with 4 kids just keep forgetting. So, again, a HUGE THANK YOU to Steve and Ethan and everyone else at Math U See…We (at least I) LOVE YOU GUYS!
~Rose Starr
Oh, that was T I M E L Y. 7YO and I have gone ’round-and-’round for a couple of years now on The Blasted Handwriting. Maybe I’ll ease up a little.