Reply to WWYD - kid struggling with Algebra 2

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Of course I have spoken extensively with DD! I know you mean well, and you make many great points, but it seems odd to think I haven't talked to her about it before getting to this point.

She thinks she understands the material, though she admits the class moves fast. The tutor also thinks DD understands. But it doesn't translate to the tests. She says the tests are much harder than the study guides and homework.

She does get the tests and quizzes back and she and the tutor work through the problems she missed. She admits she makes some careless errors [b]but there are also problems that she doesn't feel she was taught how to do.[/b]

I agree with so much of what everyone is saying -- yes, struggling has many benefits, and I have taken that view for the past quarter, but at this point, she is drowning. She does NOT want to move down, but I really need to hear from her teacher so I can understand his perspective. [/quote]

I know you spoke with her, but you still have to assess deeper. To me, the bold above suggests she may not fully understand the material, OR the tests are really hard -- which I hesitate to believe is likely with MCPS curriculum. Here are some more questions I would ask: Does she have an assigned algebra 2 textbook where she can practice extra problems from? Is she regularly reading or trying to read that book, or does she only go by teacher class notes? (Reading a good book is often one of the best ways to self learn in combination with the class notes). How is she studying for a test? Does she carefully review all past problems that she did not get/understand at least two days before? Or does she mostly study for it the night before? How are the homework problems in difficulty compared to the actual exam (if you or your daughter can't really judge this, ask the tutor to take a close look).

A good teacher normally gives kids a lot of homework to help them learn the concepts, with some problems being more difficult than on the test. If this is the case, and she is understanding all the homework, generally the conceptual ideas fall in place from doing all the homework, by the time the test day arrives. Other not as good teachers tend to give light homework which gives students a false sense of security that they get it, but when they take the test they stumble and get bad grades.

Your case is very common, as a tutor and math teacher I've seen it happen many times. You have a typical straight A/good grades student who is doing just fine in all classes except for math, and it's initially unclear what the problem is, because they clearly seem like they want to do well. But when you look beyond the surface, the student has gaps in knowledge (usually which they've accumulated from past years), and they have a pretty poor class curriculum (i.e no textbook and/or a fair to poor teacher). This tends to result in the student thinking they are getting things, i.e they can mimic/copy problem/exercises presented in class, but they cannot do that on the tests.

My recommendation (in addition to the above as well as having a talk with the teacher to get their feedback), would be to get her a good algebra resource/book and work through additional problems; it may take a bit of time, but hopefully she can learn from doing them. By "problems" I mean questions that are meant to be more challenging in terms of applying the concept (similar to the ones that she couldn't do on tests), so that she can practice with them, and hopefully with the help of solutions manual and/or your tutor, can understand how to approach them.[/quote]

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