Towards the end of the school year I received a call from a relative on my husbands side asking if I could tutor her second grade daughter in math and that she would pay me. Being that she was a family member of my husbands I couldn't ask for the money and so I said I would do it as a favor. I also felt better not taking money for my service being that I have no experience of tutoring or teaching elementary students since my main focus is on teaching upper level math classes at a high school.
Today was my first day tutoring her and the main purpose for the tutoring is so that she gets caught up with the second grade math curriculum in time for the third grade. Her mother told me that she struggled in math and english all year long and that her test scores were very low. She was concerned that her daughter would fall behind so early on and would then struggle in the many years that follow. I began to think about ways in which I could help. I didn't even know what they taught in the second grade and so I told her mom to bring with her any workbooks, prior worksheets, tests, etc. I then remembered CST standards and released test questions and so I printed those out reviewing the problems. I learned something very fascinating. CST testing for second graders is done a lot differently than in the high school. The teacher reads the problems and directions for each problem out to the students as they work on them. I would really like to sit in on a class one day as students are testing to see how that is done as well as why and how it helps. I also wonder if the students are given the words to follow along.
Anyway, when the girl came over to my house today she brought over a workbook. I looked at the copyright and it was made back in 2007. I wondered how much the curriculum has changed since than and found that multiplication and division has since been pushed back to the second grade...wow...I was shocked. So much has changed since I have been in the elementary school. As I was tutoring I found where the girls strengths and weakness were in math. I found that she did great when it came to inequality symbols and completing statements to make them true. However, she struggled when it came to knowing her addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division for basic 1-10 numbers. I made her flash cards for all four categories and sent them home with her mom to go over them with her.
That really had me thinking about who is responsible for having students memorize their basic math operations for small numbers. Is it the teacher who needs to drill them with it at school and give them minute math tests or is it the parents that need to create flash cards and go through them once a night before bed. That made me think a lot about what I plan to do with my kids when it comes to school and homework. I think it is important for parents to pick up where teachers left off at the end of the day if they have the capability and knowledge to do so. I never realized how becoming a teacher will help me significantly in raising my own kids one day...
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