I fresh received an email from a parent of a pupil who I had tutored last year. He asked me where he could find good worksheets on the internet for his son. I thought, “Admirable…a parent who wants to help his child.” But then I asked him why he wanted the worksheets. In his incoming email he wrote, “I want to drill division into my son’s head until he knows it like the backwards of his hand.”
Okay. Great, so he’ll find a slew of worksheets. Then what? Who is going to inform his son how to divide?
You can’t meet get on a bike for the first instance and expect to ride it!!! You requirement someone to guide you!
Worksheets are fine, but, only after proper instruction. There’s no point on doing division (or any other math skill) IF YOU”RE DOING IT WRONG!!! What this father should have been looking for (rather than math worksheets on the web) is some calibre instruction.
He could have looked for an in-home tutor (he moved farther absent in case you were wondering why I still didn’t tutor his son), a tutoring school, or an online tutor (Tutorgiant anyone?).
I kindly suggested to him that he should pay his instance hunt calibre instruction because his son will ‘learn’ how to divide right rather than depending on math worksheets. In his incoming email, he meet thanked me (I’m not sure what he chose to do).
The point here is this: In my opinion, (and hopefully you appreciate it), nothing replaces calibre instruction.
When a kid gets it, the knowledge and skills become his. There is no requirement to work the poor kid to the bone hoping that he learns from meet doing worksheet after worksheet.
Don’t get me wrong, students requirement practice, and lots of it! But focusing on the math worksheets and not the instruction is a mistake.
Finally, if a child is not getting it the first few times, keep giving him the instruction until he is nauseated with it!!
Then, and only then, will you know that he understands it (imagine receiving the same base lesson on division 10-20 times…something has to give in and his boredom will let you know when he has learned it).
So, my answer to this situation is…math worksheets are okay, but focus on the instruction, then vexation about the workshe
