Gretchen Roe: 00:00:05.065
[music] Welcome to the Demme Learning Show. Our mission here is to help families stay in the learning journey wherever it takes them. This bonus episode was previously recorded as a webinar, and was not created with the audio listener in mind. We hope you will find value in today’s episode. Hello, everyone. Welcome to this presentation of Math-U-See is tailor-made for your ADHD students success. We are delighted to have a conversation with you today about this subject. It’s near and dear to both my heart and Michael’s heart. I’m going to let Michael introduce himself in just a moment, but by way of introduction, my name is Gretchen Roe. I am the homeschooling mom of six. Five are grown and flown, and the last one is a senior in high school. He graduates in a short 11 weeks. And I’m excited for him. And life will take a turn for us. And I’m excited for that turn. Michael, tell us about you.

Michael Sas: 00:01:07.026
Yeah, thank you, Gretchen. I’ve worked alongside home educators for the last 18 years. So I guess it’s my year to graduate. I don’t know how that works, but I’ve loved every minute of it. I love talking to homeschool parents, hearing their stories. My role with Demme Learning is to really help families find the proper level to start their students at. And so I have a lot of fun helping them be able to find success within math and other subjects as well. I do have two students, two or two kids. My oldest is almost 10, he would like to say, even though it’s in May. And he is my perfectionist. He is my rule follower. He’s my Lego builder, follows everything to the T. And then I have my youngest, who is seven, who does have ADHD, who has a little ODD and some sensory issues. And so I’m excited to be here with you today and kind of talk about this important topic.

Gretchen Roe: 00:02:02.872
Absolutely. And I will tell you, Michael is a fantastic dad. And what he brings to the table is a huge perspective of being able to see the world through his children’s eyes. And that, to me, is invaluable. I am here today because I am the parent of six children who have ADD. My husband has ADD. I was diagnosed with ADD at the age of 55. And as adults, we learn compensatory strategies. As parents, it’s up to us to offer those compensatory strategies to our children, and help them guide their way. Today, we have lots of things to talk about, and we know that we really touched a third rail, if you will. We got the hot wire when we ask you all to register for this, because we know that there’s a lot of parents who are struggling with this. And I just actually finished a terrific book by a man named Gabor Mate talking about attention deficit disorder. And I will give you the link to that in the show notes. It’s a very helpful resource.

Gretchen Roe: 00:03:13.406
I think for you to understand the source of materials, the other resources that we’re going to provide to you is something that Michael’s going to talk about in a moment, which is a blog that he recently read. And then we also have the source of Dr. Russell Barkley, who is really the preeminent physician for ADHD. And if you’re not familiar with Dr. Barkley, I would recommend that you find him on YouTube and listen to some of his teachings. He’s a very practical and pragmatic man, and I think you’ll find his information very, very helpful. Michael, can you tell us a little bit about the article that I’ve already referenced about ADHD? and the current thinking as far as kids, and particularly with regard to mathematics?

Michael Sas: 00:04:06.499
Yeah, absolutely. To give a little summary on that, it starts off by talking about that we all have a working memory. And what a working memory is, we’re holding snippets of information for about 15 to 30 seconds. ADHD can make it kind of hard to do math problems with multiple steps because what is happening is that, as we’re going through the process, we may be forgetting some of those details because math is very detail oriented. And so if we forget anything within that process, we’re going to make a mistake. And so that can be very difficult for students. So a lot of times it may be hard for students with ADHD because they may be starting off doing multiplication problems. And as they get down to division problems, they may be still thinking about how multiplication works, and it may be hard to shift from one to the next. Students may also find it hard to parse out phrases with multiple meanings. So for instance, if you gave a problem like this as, “How many times will 8 go into 48?” we may be thinking about a division problem right there, right? Do we got 48 divided by 8? Students may be hearing the word times, though, and they may be thinking it’s a multiplication problem. So how many times does 8 go into 48? So the way that they hear the problem makes a difference on how they’re going to solve it.

Michael Sas: 00:05:26.306
And so things like that will start to happen with students with ADHD where math becomes very difficult. And so it was very good. It gave out some solutions at the end of how to help students with ADHD through math. Some of them included doing an oral test with them where you’re reading the problems to them. It may be that they’re in a space where there’s no distraction, which may be hard at home. There may have to be no siblings running around, no pets going near the student, that they’re in a place where they can do their best work on their own. Maybe they get more time to do it. Maybe you have to give reminders of when their homework has to be done if they have homework. Doing things like that that you can kind of give gentle reminders. And so this article is very good, I felt, as to why students struggle with ADHD– I’m sorry, why students with ADHD struggle with math, as well as providing solutions on how to help them.

Gretchen Roe: 00:06:22.453
Right. And one of the things that I think is a tangential problem with those of us with ADD is we’re not patient. We have very short attention spans, particularly for the things that we don’t like. So as parents, it’s up to us to figure out how to be able to structure math in a way that allows our students to engage. Toward that end, Math-U-See’s lessons are tailor-made for that because when I first looked at Math-U-See, I looked at it and said, it’s not enough math. And the truth of the matter is, I had the misapprehension that more math would be a better experience. And that really isn’t the truth. So Michael, can you talk a little bit about attention span and why Math-U-See is structured the way it is to help kids remain engaged?

Michael Sas: 00:07:17.180
Yeah. I had the same [inaudible] growing up. I felt if you weren’t doing an hour to an hour and a half of math, you were doing something wrong. And in fact, it’s the opposite. I think a lot about how when we do things in short amount of times, our brain continues to work on that thing. If we do it for a long period of time, what tends to happen is our brain forgets some of the things we initially started working on and may get overwhelmed. I think of a lot of times I’d like to do puzzles with my kids. And so if we do a puzzle, there’s always a point when we’re sitting there that we cannot find any pieces to work, right? It just hits a point. And we have to leave the table and come back to it later. And pretty soon, pieces are jumping off the table at us knowing from one place to the next. And so math is very we recognize that whatever the age of your student, you can add about three to four minutes to and that’s about the amount of focus a student has to do something well. And so we look at about 15 minutes for those young students about 5 to 10 years of age. It’s about the right amount of time to do something.

Michael Sas: 00:08:20.619
That doesn’t mean you can’t come back to it later, but we recommend taking at least a two to three-hour break between those times you work on that concept for that activity. And so Math-U-See is very much structured that way that we’re asking you to only do one page of practice a day. And the end result is that they’re able to teach the concept back to you. So whenever that happens, that shows that they understand it well enough to move on. So if it takes just one day, you’re done after one day. If it takes a week, we take a week with it. We want the student to decide when they’ve had enough practice and not let it be the curriculum’s decision because a lot of curriculums will give you just a small amount of problems and move on whether you’re ready or not. This allows you as a parent to know they’re getting it and the student to feel confident before moving to the next thing.

Gretchen Roe: 00:09:08.952
Michael, can you talk a little bit about the teach-back and what we’re looking for from a student? Because I know this is an area that even parents without kids who struggle are not always clear on what we’re looking for as far as feedback from your children. And I know your two children give you feedback in very different ways. So can you talk a little bit about that?

Michael Sas: 00:09:32.064
Definitely. I think parents get really concerned or nervous about the teach-back because they want to make sure they’re not letting them move on too quickly or they’re not making them stay on something too long. And I get that, but we trust you as a parent to know your kids and the language that they use to explain the concept. And what we’re really trying to make sure happens is that they’re not just getting right answers because a lot of kids can do well on their daily work, but when it comes to reviewing and testing, they struggle because they forget the steps or they don’t know the trick or they’ll remember the trick. And so what we want to make sure is happening is that they are using the manipulatives to help them understand why they’re doing each of the steps. And so you’re right, Gretchen. And I have two kids I teach things very differently. My oldest will do it until he can explain it perfectly to me. And he’ll explain every step in as much detail as he can. My youngest, however, he plays pretend. He is very creative. He’s very artistic. He loves to play pretend and dress up. And so he gets on his big white shirt– and I have about 30 ties that he can choose from. And he will get on all dressed up and have a marker board. And he will try to explain it to me as I’m the student.

Michael Sas: 00:10:48.976
And his vocabulary is not great. The way that he describes it is sometimes hard to understand. But as a parent, I know he’s getting it. And so the interesting thing about Math-U-See is your role is not necessarily to grade their daily work. Your goal is to help them understand that concept. And so the practice pages are just there for practice. They’re not graded necessarily. They’re really there to make sure that the student is every day understanding it more and more. So after the first day, they have to teach it to me whether they’re ready or not. And if they can’t, I help them with some of the things they’re struggling with. And we talk about it. And we work on a few problems together to talk about those things they’re not understanding so that hopefully the next day they can be ready to move on to the review pages and the test page.

Gretchen Roe: 00:11:37.268
And Michael, you make an important point there. We shouldn’t just be going through the materials a page a day without checking for understanding. And I know in a busy homeschool mom’s world, it’s very easy to just say, “Oh, just go do your math.” And at some later point in time, we check in with them. And there’s nothing more frustrating to a student to have worked on what they thought was a clear understanding and not have understood that. So we as parents need to be intentional to make sure that our children understand what they’re doing so that there are no mistakes in the process. And then they can feel like they’re successful. So I think that makes a tremendous amount of difference as well. And I know Michael, you talked about that as well when we talked in our planning session. So can you talk about not only the value of reward for investiture of time, but talk a little bit about when you’re working with your students, you don’t just leave them to their own devices. Can you talk about how you help them measure time?

Michael Sas: 00:12:47.969
Yeah, I think in that I can find a lot of parents who call me and they thought the last few years they were getting it and they weren’t. And so it’s equally frustrating for a parent to know I thought they were getting it and they’re not. Hence, no, we have to do this over again. And so being able to make sure you’re– because what you’re really doing for your students is you’re training them how to learn and how to study and how to know they’re getting something. And because it’s not, I know as a student myself, my main focus was, I just want to get this done. I want to get to playing. But really what you’re trying to teach them is there’s an end result. It’s more than just getting done. It’s understanding what you’re doing and being able to think about why is this being solved this way. And so you’re really creating that lifelong learner, which I think is Demme Learning’s ultimate goal is to continue to learn, continue to grow. And so yes, when it comes to rewards and times, one other thing you find with ADD students is that rewards are big in their world. Also, time doesn’t mean anything to a lot of them. And so what we’ve done in a lot of cases was we’ve developed a reward system that we put on popsicle sticks, some rewards that we’ve all agreed on as a family. That would be something exciting to gain. So some of those popsicle sticks will include trampoline time. Some of them will include an extra 10 minutes of iPad time. Some will be no math on Friday. One will be go to the park.

Gretchen Roe: 00:14:21.792
For clarification, you have written this on a popsicle stick.

Michael Sas: 00:14:26.948
Correct, and we’re putting them into a cup. So when something is achieved, he gets to pick that reward out, that popsicle stick. And whatever that reward is, that is what he will get. And so that’s been working really well because this is agreed upon reward that he was included in on. When it comes to time, a lot of times we tell him it’s going to be just 15 minutes, we’re going to work on something. And what I’ll do is I’ll take out Duplos and I’ll put five Duplos in front of him. And this is actually, a lot of these ideas are not my ideas. They’re from his occupational therapist. So don’t think, “Wow, you have a lot of ideas.” They’re from somebody else. But he told me to put out five Duplos and we take one away every three minutes. And so he knows when all the Duplos are gone, he’s done. And so I pointed out to him. The occupational therapist told me, make sure you’re pointing it out to them. So I say, “Buddy, you now are taking one away. You have four left. You now have three left. You’re doing great. Two left.” And when he’s done, no matter if he’s in the middle of a problem or not, we’re done. You’re done. We’re moving on. We can do something else. And so that is one way we’ve helped keep him on course. It’s not perfect every day, but it’s helped. It’s definitely helped.

Gretchen Roe: 00:15:45.796
And I think one of the things that’s valuable about that particular methodology of timekeeping, if you will, it’s visual for him, but there’s no negative impact about that. As a parent of ADD students, I have seen flocks that give you a red zone where the clock ticks off time. And the challenge with that is that can inadvertently create anxiety with a student. And what we know about the neurology of learning is once anxiety enters the equation, learning ceases anyway. So it’s up to us as parents to keep anxiety out of that equation in as much as possible. Michael, can we talk about the current research that says that it’s best to obtain cooperation as opposed to us deciding how they’ll spend their time. This is something from Dr. Barkley, and he says allowing a student to choose how they will begin their time is much more profitable than telling them. So I know that you implement this in your household. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Michael Sas: 00:17:02.814
Yeah, schedules were nightmares for us. Still are to a degree. Even if we take him to a Walmart or Target or something like that, it’s overwhelming for him. And if we don’t have a plan, things can go south very quickly where he wants this, that, and the other. And he has all of these things that he needs at that moment. And shopping can be a very frustrating experience. And the same goes for school. And so what we talk about in the beginning of every day is we just find about two to three hours worth of time, and we create a schedule together. I tell him the non-negotiables, which are usually the different things he has to do. It’s the different subjects. But we also have things that he can pick and fill in his time with. And so that can be playtime. That can be creative time. Like I said, he loves art. He loves to be able to imagine. And so we give him time for that and he can kind of pick out his day. And sometimes we get to a point. And what we do is we put this onto a schedule with pictures and the wording by it. And so we’ll say 8 o’clock is breakfast, for instance. And 8:30, we are going to start with math. And then at 8:45, we are going to give him a break where he can spend 15 minutes doing reading time with us.

Michael Sas: 00:18:31.549
And then at 9 o’clock, we can get back– and we’re just going to go through the schedule that way. And he can pick and choose when he wants to put things in that spot. One of the things that we are trying to teach him is that it’s okay for your schedule to change because as adults, our schedule changes all the time, and it’s okay, we adjust. And so if he doesn’t feel like doing a specific activity at that time, we’ll say, okay, that’s fine, but we have to do it. Do you want to do that before lunch or do you want to do that right after lunch? When would you like to put that? And then he will tell us. And sometimes he’ll throw a fit that I don’t want to do it at all, but we have to, okay? Because that’s part of growing up is we have to do things we don’t always want to do. And so we do have him kind of plan his day with us. And that schedule, he gets to keep it because the great thing about the schedule is it’s not mom or dad telling him what he needs to do. The schedule is telling him what he needs to do. And he’s keeping track of the schedule and he’s checking off the schedule. And so it’s now he’s owning it. And so we allow things to take place where we can take time off or adjust the schedule as need be, but he’s owning it.

Gretchen Roe: 00:19:40.517
So how does that translate for you as homeschool parents? What we’re telling you is to engage your students ahead of time in the process of scheduling. Now, I think it’s been pretty obvious if you’ve ever joined us for a webinar that I was not a confident mathematician in my head and the ADD research at the time said you take the hardest thing and you do it first to get it out of the way. But the truth of the matter is, according to Dr. Barkley, you get much more return for your investment of time if you allow your student to choose when they’re going to begin that process. Michael, can you talk about identifying children by their strengths instead of their weaknesses?

Michael Sas: 00:20:28.661
Yeah. A lot of times, when we introduce our kids, we’ll say, “Here is my son. He has ADHD and ODD and sensory issues.” And what that can do is it labels your child as that, or they hear that many times, and they’re saying, “Okay, this is what I am.” Instead of saying, “This is my son. He is very creative. He will make you anything you want with construction paper or painting or markers. He is very imaginative. If you want to play Marvel superheroes with him, he would love to do that. If you want to be able to learn about the Queen of England, he knows everything about the Queen of England. You can ask him anything.” And if we introduce them in that way, it brings them up and says, “This is what they do well,” versus, “This is his limitations.” And I think that’s a huge way that we can uplift our kids, is by talking about their strengths, because we all have things that we struggle with. We all have things that we need to work on in our lives and improve upon. We wouldn’t like other people to point those out and make that who we are on a day-to-day basis, and so it’s doing the same thing with our kids.

Gretchen Roe: 00:21:42.585
Absolutely. So I want to bring this back around now to talk about Math-U-See and particularly to talk about parents who may be new to the program and discount the virtue of using the manipulatives. And particularly for a student with attention deficit, the manipulatives allow us to bring more than one sense to the table. So can you talk a little bit in depth about that for us, Michael?

Michael Sas: 00:22:11.188
Yeah, absolutely. One of the things that separates Math-U-See, I believe, is that it’s not just pencil and paper, “I’m doing the same thing over and over.” We use manipulatives to help students be able to understand why they’re solving it that way and to be able to create more of an understanding. And so our philosophy is to build it with the blocks, to write it down, and to say it back. And so we’re using all the senses to help build that understanding. And so the great thing is the blocks are used consistently from kindergarten or primer level all the way through Algebra 1. And, like I said, they’re all different colors. They represent different numbers. So the first thing I did with my kids when they were in the primer level is we got to know the colors of the blocks and what numbers they correlated to. And so they have a nickname for all of them. And so if we had got to three plus four, they would take out the three pink block, and they nicknamed that the three pink little pigs, and then they would take out the four yellow block, and we push them together, and that’s our four yellow pineapple block. We find they’re the same length as our seven white vanilla ice cream block. And so we do that because we want them to start to picture those blocks in their mind and come to know them. Then we’re going to write it down because that builds muscle memory, and we’re going to encourage them to say it because what happens when you say it is it sticks with you and they remember 40% more than if you just look at it.

Michael Sas: 00:23:30.081
So if you think about when you go on a walk and you see something that sticks out with you, maybe it’s some flowers or the way some animals are interacting on the walk, and you point that out and you say, “Hey, do you look at those flowers? Look at the red and the different hue of pink that is in there,” whatever it is. And you talk about that, you’re going to remember that more than if you just casually walk by it, right? And so we’re going to build it, we’re going to write it, we’re going to say it. I think that’s important also, the saying part four kids with ADD because it allows them to be able to tell you what they’re trying to do. And a lot of times, like I said, it’s very detail oriented. So if they’re missing a step, you can say, “Oh, you got that first step perfect. I think there’s something you might have missed.” Let’s take a step back and let’s look for it. Do you know what it is?” “Oh, I forgot to add the carry. When I carry 10, I forgot to add that in onto that problem.” “Oh, I started the second row and multiplication in the units column when there’s supposed to be a zero there.” Things like that, well, they can start to remember because you’re helping them and guiding them when they’re telling you what they’re doing. And so putting those three things together where you’re building it and writing it at the same time and saying those steps really helps students be able to learn those concepts, so.

Gretchen Roe: 00:24:51.546
And one of the things I think that’s very important for our parents to understand is as your children get older, they’re going to be more reluctant to talk out loud unless they happen to be an external processor and then maybe you can’t get them to be quiet. I have both kinds in my household. I have internal processors and I have external processors. And a couple of years ago, we did a webinar and learned a very valuable idea here about if you are an internal processor as a parent, you’re going to have to step outside your comfort zone. And as you’re working through the initial part of the lesson, you’re going to have to verbalize the lesson so your student will be comfortable with that process. Michael, can you talk a little bit more about why that’s important?

Michael Sas: 00:25:39.886
Yeah, that’s still hard for me to this day. I’m not one that likes to talk a whole lot. And that’s something that obviously we didn’t grow up doing in our math class is verbalizing how to say it. So it does take a little practice that I will even do a problem on the side just to do it by myself so that I can be able to know that I’m speaking it well. But it’s important because we model for the kids what we want them to do, right? And so they’re going to model our good behaviors, and unfortunately they’re going to model our bad behaviors. And so if they see us doing the right things each time. “This is how we want you to do it. This is how dad’s going to do it.” It helps a lot in that growing process. So we do ask that you as a parent, show them a few problems before they jump in and do it so that you know that they’re comfortable with the process.

Gretchen Roe: 00:26:28.638
Absolutely. Let me tell you why this is valuable, because as a parent, I can help my kids just about to algebra two. And then they are definitely very much on their own. But if you can teach them this process of speaking through and verbalizing the steps, you would be amazed at how that will come back to be a blessing at a later point in time. And my brief story is my son Owen was doing pre-calc last year. And y’all, there’s no way I could help that child with pre-calc. But he came marching in, holding a fistful of papers into my office. And he said, “Oh, this problem’s driving me nuts. I can’t do it.” He smacks the papers down on my desk and he says, “This is what I did first.” And he talks for about five minutes. Ladies and gentlemen, I said not a single word. I was just sitting there watching what he was doing. And all of a sudden, he goes, “Oh, I know. I forgot to do.” And off he goes, y’all, I didn’t help him at all. I did nothing. But at dinner that night, he said, “Thanks for your help with that problem.” And I was like, “Great, this is awesome.”

Gretchen Roe: 00:27:37.692
So the reason we tell you this is if you’ll model this for your children when they’re young and keep after them to do this, to be able to verbalize what they’re doing, it will come back to be a blessing for them when they become older and the math becomes exceedingly complex. And that makes all the difference in the world. Michael, we had such terrific questions today. I have several of them and that I would like to be able to address with you. So I’m going to begin turning my attentions to those. So I have them here. Hold on. The first one is, how does Math-U-See help a child who is particularly a struggling learner? So we’re not just talking about ADD, but we’re talking about a student who struggles to learn as well.

Michael Sas: 00:28:25.790
One of the things that we do– first of all, my teammates and I– I have two other teammates with me that when you call into for help about where do I place my student, we’re going to ask questions to find out what your student knows, and what they may need a little bit more practice with. And so that’s going to be our first step because a lot of times it’s not that they’re struggling– it just came up out of the blue. There’s a lot of times that’s something in the past we didn’t quite understand well enough, and that’s causing problems today. And so a lot of times when we find out that they’re struggling, it comes back to the fact that they don’t have their math facts memorized. And so we do ask the first question being, do they have their addition subtraction facts committed to memory? Do they know how to borrow and carry proficiently? Do they have their multiplication facts memorized? And we kind of walk through the process to find out where that initial struggle may have come from. Because believe it or not, the math facts are one of the more important pieces because if I have to count for most of the different steps, I’m going to be taking my focus away from the problem. And when I look back, it’s going to be so easy for me to get lost or forget steps. I possibly could even overcount or undercount.

Michael Sas: 00:29:34.656
And so when we look at facts, if we pass first grade and don’t have them memorized, typically they never become memorized once we stop to work on them. We’ll develop a habit in its place. We’ll use a number chart where we’ll use our fingers. We use tally marks, whatever it may be, that’s going to take its spot. And so what we want to do is be able to make sure that they do have them memorized. And if they do, we’ll look at where the other gaps may be coming from. And so what we want to do is identify where’s the first gap, fill that gap, reevaluate, and continue to fill those in until we get back to where we left off. And so my teammates and I have a great way of being able to customize the curriculum or individualize it for the students, so you’re not spending time doing it all over again. We don’t want that to happen. We want to work on the things we need and then move on.

Gretchen Roe: 00:30:24.503
And it does make a tremendous amount of difference for you as a parent to know what your child does not know. So when we have kids who struggle – every child is different – we tailor make the curricula to meet that child’s needs where they are. And you as the parent are empowered to be able to help them achieve success in the materials. Like the parent I spoke to this morning via social media, she has a child who is in pre-algebra and has struggled. And now they’ve come over to Math-U-See, because pre-algebra in another curriculum was not doing well for them. If they follow the methodologies that Michael and I have set forth, they will have success. And if you as a parent follow those methodologies, you too will have success. And I think that’s an important thing for us to memorize. Michael, the one that we talked about as far as the parent who said that they’re struggling with the teach back, and their child feels that it’s a waste of time, how does that parent help that student recognize that this is not a waste of time? And we talked about this a little bit last week, so I’d love you to share your insights that you had from that conversation.

Michael Sas: 00:31:43.989
Yeah, I think it’s going to look different from the parent’s perspective versus the student’s perspective because the student’s main goal is to get done for the day. And so I think we have to have a longer view of what’s happening is that I see a lot of parents call me back and said, “I feel like I wasted a year because my students are not getting anything that they did last year. A lot of times I hear that, especially with fractions. Fractions happen, and we go to the next level, and they don’t remember anything that they did with it. And so the goal, ultimately, and I think it’s very motivating, is that whenever they can teach it back to you, they’re done. So if they get it done after one day, they can go to the review pages right after that. And so for me, it’s a very motivating piece of it because they spent 20 to 30 minutes maybe as an older student doing math, they teach it to you the next morning. They can skip two worksheets, which means 42 minutes to an hour or two days worth of math are completed because they learned it well. And so giving that extra time and giving that extra understanding is going to be extremely important for them as they progress through math. Because once we get to algebra one, algebra one is going to say, “You just did six years of math or seven, and we’re going to ask you to apply it now to this.”

Michael Sas: 00:33:01.863
And then the upper levels are going to say, “You’ve learned algebra one well. We’re going to take something from algebra one and apply it to what we’re doing here.” And so everything we do with math, it builds upon itself. And so if we start to struggle or have it down good enough, I hear a lot, it’s going to catch up with us where we’re going to start to make mistakes. And so I think having that conversation about the long-term success that they can have– if they can be able to continue to do this, math is going to become easier and easier for them because you know they’re getting it. The last thing we want them to do is struggle. We believe that students may not like math, but every student can be proficient with math because they’re taking the time needed to learn why they’re solving it that way and can teach it back appropriately.

Gretchen Roe: 00:33:47.917
I think one of the things that is in conjunction with this that we can say, if you’re a parent who is math hesitant, you have the opportunity to learn right alongside your child. And Math-U-See was a huge game changer for me personally. I avoided math. In fact, I thought that I had the solution as far as math was concerned for my family because my kids were going into a co-op situation when they reached pre-algebra. The challenge with that was when my third daughter hit pre-algebra, she was out of sequence for the co-op and that academic year. And so that meant we had to figure out how to muddle through together. And it was actually at that point in time that I found my way to Math-U-See. And frankly, we never looked back. It’s made a tremendous difference in my children’s lives. Michael, I have a terrific question here. And I know that there’s parents who can relate to this question. And it is this: my daughter is nine. She’s creative. She loves music, art, and has a beautiful imagination. She’s not a logical thinker. She does not have her math facts memorized. Where do I start? She’s been in public school and is on an IEP in school. I’m not good at math either. So where do we start? And I know you’ve got a great answer.

Michael Sas: 00:35:09.314
Yeah. That’s a great question. And what we would recommend, honestly, is to start back with the facts. What we want to see with every student, couple things: we want to see– first of all, we’d like to see them all memorized, but we also recognize that every student can memorize. And so in that case, we trust you, the parent, to know when they have them down to the best of their abilities. We have developed a new program – actually, I don’t know how new it is. It’s about two, three years old now – called– yes.

Gretchen Roe: 00:35:36.032
Right here behind me.

Michael Sas: 00:35:37.090
Oh, yes. Okay, Accelerated Individualized Mastery, or we call it AIM for short. And we developed it for older students to help them memorize their facts. Because a nine-year-old, she’s not a first-grader anymore. However, there might be something in first grade that she may need to work on yet. And so the stages that she’s in is different than what a first-grader would be in. First-graders are [going to?] have to know what does an addition sign look like? What does the subtraction sign look like? They need to know, ultimately, that addition is fast counting. They need to know the inverse of addition is subtraction. They need to know how to get to the answer. But a lot of times, students at nine years of age know how to get to the answer quickly. It’s just that they’re counting. And so these programs aren’t necessarily designed to teach them something new. It’s designed to get rid of the habit of counting. And so what we want to do is get rid of the idea that I have to depend on my fingers or the tally mark or the number line and to know that I know the answer.

Michael Sas: 00:36:37.182
And so what this program is going to do, it’s a four-stage process. And we’re going to start off just, like I said, 15 minutes at a time with at least two to three hours between sessions. It’s going to use that Build, Write, Say methodology initially. So we’re going to not use rote memory tactics like flashcards and drills because a lot of times, they don’t teach and they cause stress and anxiety because a lot of times when we walk through a– I don’t know, I had mad minutes in school, where we had to see how many facts could be done in a minute’s worth of time. And that was just an anxiety fest for everybody. We had to be able to see if we could get 45 done in a minute or whatever the number was. And once we get anxiety, learning stops, like Gretchen had mentioned. And so these things will go to our short-term memory, and we lose them very quickly. A lot of times with a flashcard, if I show Gretchen a flashcard and say, “What’s 7 plus 3?” And she goes, “10.” I’ll say, “Great job, Gretchen. Here’s 9 plus 3.” And she’s like, “Oh, I don’t know that one.” I say, “Gretchen, you knew this yesterday. What’s going on?” I’m going to get tears. We’re going to have kids running to their moms, and it’s going to be a thing, right?

Michael Sas: 00:37:46.499
And so because they want to please us so much, they’re looking at our reactions, and we want the best for our kids that we’re saying, “Come on, buddy, you got this yesterday. What’s going on?” And there becomes that tension, right? And so with this, we’re trying to use a multi-sensory approach and slowly take away the senses until it’s just the fact in front of them. And the great thing is the students flipping over the fact, and we’re sitting next to them so they’re not reading our emotions. So we start off with a Build, Write, Say. Then we’re going to do some word problems to make sure they’re knowing how to apply it. We’re going to do the Build, Write, Say to the word problems. And then we’re going to take some blocks away. Our goal is very much like rolling a dice. You roll a dice, you get a five. Your brain doesn’t count the dots. It knows the pattern. And most of us can picture all six patterns of a dice in our head.

Michael Sas: 00:38:30.093
We’re going to transition to her drawing. So that’s great. She gets to pull out the colored pencils now, since she’s really creative, very artistic. We’re going to pull out the pencils, a colored pencil that she’s going to draw lines to represent the block. She’s going to write it, she’s going to say it. And then we’re going to use a fact check card to see if she’s memorized it or not. And we’re going to walk through these stages. What I’ve seen a lot of times with very artistic, very creative students is that they get into the story problems and they start to think about the scene around them and the story problems. So if we had a simple word problem like, “Susan had eight apples and Timmy came along and took two apples, how many are left?” she can get caught in the weeds of thinking about, “What is she carrying those apples in? Is it a wicker basket? Is it a different type of basket? Are these Granny Smith apples? Are these red delicious? What type of apples are these that she’s carrying?”

Michael Sas: 00:39:21.090
And so what I typically do with my kids is I will ask them, “What numbers do you hear in the problem?” “Well, I heard the number eight.” I think I used the number eight. “And what does that represent?” “It uses the number of apples that she has.” “So let’s take out our eight block. Okay, then what other number do we hear?” “Two.” “What does that represent?” “The number of apples Timmy took,” right? “And so when we say ‘took,’ are we adding those or are we subtracting those?” “Well, we’re subtracting them.” “So what do we do?” “We take two away.” “So how many are left?” And we have six blocks remaining. So I ask a lot of questions so she knows exactly what number she has to be looking at, what information she has to be looking at. And we’ve even developed a chart where we have different phrases on the chart for the different operations. So if we have altogether, it’s going under the addition. Took, it’s going under the subtraction. How many groups maybe it’s going under multiplication. And that way, they have something to look at to be able to say, “okay, this is this type of a problem I’m going to be working with” until they start getting more and more comfortable with it. And so walking through those stages can be helpful when it comes to word problems.

Michael Sas: 00:40:29.273
And I would start back with the working on our math facts and helping them get solidified because it’s a very similar idea of math facts is to reading. When you learn to read, you have to sound out every single word. And if I would come along and ask a question about the book, what the character was doing, what the plot was, you may not be able to answer because you’re so focused on starting out the words properly that you didn’t think about what was the comprehension of the story. You weren’t comprehending the story. Same is true for math. If I have to look away from accounting, my focus isn’t on the process. My focus is on accounting. And so what we want to do is change that just so I can know the facts and I can be focusing on the process as I go through the different courses.

Gretchen Roe: 00:41:16.760
So for Gina, for her daughter, two things I’m going to recommend. One, I’m going to recommend that she go to our blog, demilearning.com/blog. And there’s a webinar I’d like for her to watch. It’s myself and a colleague named Sue Wachter who’s an artist. And she talks about the fact that art and math are not separate entities. They are two sides of the same coin. And a creative student is a terrific math student when we can help tap their creativity in their mathematics. The second thing I’m going to say about Gina is if you see yourself in the scenario that Gina very graciously put forth for us, I would recommend that you reach out to our placement consultants because, as we’ve already said, every child is different. And if we can give kids that solid foundation, we can move them along. I’ve had another question from a parent who said, “well, my kid’s in high school and is Math-U-See even fathomable? How could we start Math-U-See at the high school level?” And I think that’s a terrific question. I love this question because I started Math-U-See at pre-algebra because that was where my daughter’s weaknesses were illustrated. Every child is different. You may need to take a couple of steps back but can you step into Math-U-See at high school? Absolutely. Michael, I know you do these placements frequently. Can you talk just briefly about how a high school student would be placed within the Math-U-See program?

Michael Sas: 00:42:49.829
Yeah, absolutely. One last comment to Jean. I just want to, first of all say don’t feel bad if your students don’t have their facts memorized. This is very common. It’s not anybody’s fault. A lot of times when you get through those grade levels, the most important thing that we look for, I know as a parent, myself, until I came to Math-U-See, I didn’t realize the importance of having the maths memorized. And a lot of times, my goal was to make sure they just know to get to the answer. I didn’t know how it affected them later on in life. And I also thought they would just learn them later on. And I realized how much that isn’t true because we’re so focused on the NICS concept. And so don’t feel bad about these things. This is common. We have solutions for them. And we’re here to help. This is a judgment-free zone. It’s just here to help and find solutions so your kids can have success moving through math. And so yeah, with Tricia’s question about transitioning to high school math, we absolutely can do that. What we want to identify, though, is are they ready for that level?

Gretchen Roe: 00:43:48.072
And let me clarify, Michael. She says he’s actually already in algebra two but maybe he would need to repeat that class. So I think here’s the opportunity to extol the virtues of placement.

Michael Sas: 00:43:59.974
Right. And that’s where we would start with is to, we do have placement tests for your students to do to identify if they’re ready for that level. And like I said, our goal is not to start kids over, but to work on the concepts that they need to be successful. So sometimes, especially if we’re going into algebra one, specifically, if we didn’t do algebra one well, sometimes it’s because we didn’t have fractions down well. Maybe it’s because we didn’t have the foundation provided through pre-algebra. And what we want to do is we have ways to individualize that if need be, to get them ready for that course and even algebra two. We go algebra one, then geometry right now, and then algebra two after that. And so we just want to make sure that we’re ready for it because Math-U-See isn’t a magical curriculum where we can just jump in and have success with it. If the foundation isn’t there, it’s going to be a struggle. And so that’s what we want to do is help identify those things that your student may or may not need.

Gretchen Roe: 00:44:54.948
And the other thing that’s important that we do in the placement process is we ask you what your student’s goals are. And having a senior in high school, I recognize that those goals change on the daily. But the truth of the matter is, what do you think and see your student having a desire to do after the high school experience? And then we tailor a math program to help you meet what they think they want to do. If a college experience is in their offering, then we would offer you recommendations. If you tell us they’re going to go to trade school, the recommendations might change. So it’s very much a collaborative experience in the process. And I think you would find it to be a virtuous one.

Michael Sas: 00:45:38.507
Actually had an email from a customer this week, and I talked to my team members about this because it was humbling in a way because they had a 16-year-old son. And we decided at that point to move him back to aim for addition and subtraction because he didn’t have his facts memorized. One of the things that we talked about on the phone was, what are your goals? And that’s exactly what you said. As a 16-year-old, I don’t necessarily want to necessarily do this, but I know how much it’s going to help him. If he has very specific goals for college and where he wants to get to, and you need to get through these levels, then I respect that and we’re going to move that direction. This is going to be your plan. I’m just going to give you some options. They decided to go back to aim for addition and subtraction. And they’ve had incredible success. They’re so happy that they did it and are moving their way to multiplication now. And that was their plan. And so I want to make that clear that it’s not us telling you have to do this. We’re going to give you some different options and allow you to make the best decision for your family. Because math, I always say to parents, is tricky. It’s a different animal.

Michael Sas: 00:46:47.718
We put a lot of pressure on kids K-6 to stay with their peers. And it gets, I hear a lot of parents tell me that they don’t like to see them be at the same place as their younger sibling, or they don’t like to see their friends being farther ahead. It’s important that we work on the things we need to work on because once we get to junior high and high school, kids go their own path. The goal isn’t necessarily to get through calculus for every student. Some students, it’s only algebra two, so you have two years of grace there. Some may be only algebra one. And so you have three years of grace. And so keep that in mind. It’s not about where you are currently. It’s about where you want to get to as they graduate. And we can help put plans in place like that.

Gretchen Roe: 00:47:30.713
Now I want to shift gears a little bit. We’ve been talking about high schoolers. I want to talk about this question that a parent asked, which I think was really important. She said, what do you suggest for my daughter when she’s doing worksheets and she can only and she gets frustrated with longer worksheets. She can only work through three to four problems. And I think that goes back to this is your math program. So Michael, you want to talk a little bit about that?

Michael Sas: 00:47:59.538
Yeah, we don’t have a perfect day of school ever. And so if we only get through three or four problems of math, the important thing is that we do those three or four problems well. It’s not always about finishing the whole worksheet. It’s about doing what we do well for that day. And sometimes we need a mental health day and that’s okay. Sometimes we need to do less of certain subjects or maybe make it a half day of school because that’s what the kids need that day. And I would encourage you not to put pressure on yourself that something may get completed. Each day is going to look a little bit differently. And I think my whole mindset is each day, do the best I can with that day. And we trust that the next day we’ll do the same thing. And whenever everything’s said and done, we’ll be where we want to because we’re doing things well. And I think that’s the most important thing about how many problems you do, is the problems that you do do them well. And I think that’s what Math-U-See–

Gretchen Roe: 00:48:58.674
It’s also important for parents to frame expectations affirmatively. You talked earlier about how we speak about our children. So if in this scenario, a parent can say, “Hey, I’m going to sit right here with you and we’re going to work through this problem.” And before she reaches frustration, you can say, “All right, now we’re going to take a break.” Michael, you’ve talked about that earlier, framing that in the affirmative so you can have your student step away before they associate every math experience with a frustration would be a really helpful endeavor.

Michael Sas: 00:49:38.216
Yeah, my son actually has a– this was given to my occupational therapist that’s a temperature gauge more than anything. It allows him to change it from green to I think yellow and then to red based upon how he’s feeling. And if he can’t verbalize how he’s feeling, he can turn it to the specific color that will indicate that emotion at that time. And so if he turns it to red, I can say, “Oh, buddy, something’s not going well right now. Do you need to take a break? Or do you want to– do you want to talk about what you’re feeling?” We give him that space because math is a very emotional subject, I feel. And it can go either really well or really poorly. If it starts to go poorly, you start to think negative thoughts of, “I can’t do this. This is hard. This is dumb. I don’t want to do this anymore.” All of these type of things. And so it allows the student to decide or your kid to decide, how are you feeling? And to recognize being angry or being frustrated is not wrong. It’s how we handle those emotions. And so being angry in itself or being frustrated in itself, perfectly natural. It’s okay to feel that way. But if you use that in a negative way where you’re hurting somebody or yelling at somebody or ripping over your paper because you’re mad, that’s not the way we handle things. And so teaching them those ways to handle those emotions is equally important.

Gretchen Roe: 00:51:11.743
Absolutely. I think it makes a tremendous difference. Michael, we had a terrific question that I answered here, but I’d kind of like you to answer it for the parents in general. How long does it take to get through an intervention with AIM?

Michael Sas: 00:51:23.639
It depends on the student. Flaky answer, I know, but it really comes down to three things. It’s going to look at how many facts the student has memorized coming into it. It’s going to look at how much you can do in an actual day. So if you only do it once a day versus do it twice a day or even three times a day, it’s going to make a difference. And then thirdly, how quickly your student can memorize the facts. All those play a part in it. What I usually see is each operation’s about two to three months. So in addition, subtraction, that’s going to be four to six months to get through. And in multiplication, it’s going to be two to three months. What that I always caution parents, especially if you’re going backward, is that it’s going to feel like, “I just want to get to the next thing.” And sometimes the biggest reasoning doesn’t work is because we’re moving too quickly for our kids. Because we’re eager. We don’t want to feel like we’re behind. And so we want to get to the next thing quickly instead of taking our time with it. And so that’s kind of the biggest thing I would encourage you as a parent to do is that memorization is hard for the student, and it’s hard for the parent to do the same thing each and every day. It’s a grind. And so it may take longer to walk through these than you’re anticipating. But I guarantee you, if you give it the time necessary, it’s going to help your kids incredibly as they continue through math.

Gretchen Roe: 00:52:49.686
Absolutely. It makes a tremendous amount of difference. I worked with a student a number of years ago now who happens to be a middle school math teacher. She was weak in her addition and subtraction facts. She was weak in her multiplication facts. She was weak in her understanding of fractions. And so she had actually failed Algebra I not once, but twice. So we worked together. We set up a plan and worked collaboratively with her mom. And not only did she find success, she found scholarship money in Florida. She went on to college, majored in math education, and is now a middle school math teacher. And I remember having a conversation with her as she graduated saying, “Wow, this is not what I expected you to do. What made you decide to do this?” And she said, “Miss Gretchen,” she said, “there’s lots of kids out there like me. I want to be the change maker for them.” And if there were more educators who felt that way, maybe there wouldn’t be so many of us who felt like I did years ago now. That child is now 37 when she was told she didn’t need to memorize her multiplication tables. And I said, “Wait, hold the phone.” And that’s how I became a homeschool mom literally overnight in the middle of a calendar year because I knew that that was an important skill to be able to have. Michael, we’re almost at the top of the hour. What closing thoughts do you have for parents with regard to Math-U-See and ADD and how it can help their kids be successful?

Michael Sas: 00:54:20.187
Sure. I think Math-U-See in general is great for kids because it gives them more than one thing to do. They can play with the blocks, put them into where they need to go. They can be able to write it down. You can hear your students say it. And so there’s a variety of ways, and it’s a very small amount of problems to do in each day. I would say, as an ADHD parent, give yourself a lot of grace. There’s many times I make a mistake day-to-day with them, and I focus too much on the tasks we have to do and not on the student themselves. And so allow yourself grace to make mistakes, to try things. And if they don’t work, it’s okay. I think making changes because you think it’s going to benefit your kid and it doesn’t work, it’s perfectly fine. And so I don’t know. It’s hard being a parent of students with challenges because they’re learning differently than what we’ve learned. And so because of that, there’s a lot of trial and error. A lot of the things that I’m telling you today never would have entered my mind five years ago, but they’re all because of people who have found success and have taught me things. And we found success using them with our kids. So I hope it was helpful. I was enjoyed being here with you guys today. And if you do have questions or anything that comes up, we’re here for you. Definitely call us. We do definitely care about your student, your homeschool situation, and we’d love to help.

Gretchen Roe: 00:55:57.727
So Michael’s still in the– as my German father used to say, the [mitn drinen?] of his parenting experiences. And I’m kind of closing out that chapter in– my husband’s in my life. But I will tell you this. Math-U-See was an integral part of my kid’s success. My fifth child was told in a public school in fourth grade that he was not college material. And Math-U-See was a huge game-changer for him. He had dyslexia. He didn’t learn to read till he was nine years old. He struggled with auditory processing disorder. He struggled with attention deficit disorder. He is a computer programmer today because Math-U-See taught him how to learn. And he was able to take that build right, say methodology of Math-U-See, and expand that to the other things that he did. And so he became very successful in his field. And the reason I tell you that story is because there are parents out there right now today who are discouraged in your children’s journey. You think, how is this ever going to end? What am I going to do? And I have compassion for you. And I also have empathy because I know what that feels like. But you’re fighting a good fight, and we want to continue to encourage you to continue that journey forward because you won’t regret it. It takes time to see the fruits of your labor when you homeschool, but it’s worth every ounce of energy that you invest.

Gretchen Roe: 00:57:32.717
This is Gretchen Roe for The Demme Learning Show. Thanks for joining us. You can access the show notes and watch a recording at demmelearning.com/show or go on our YouTube channel. Be sure to rate, review, follow, or subscribe wherever you may be hearing this, especially if you really enjoyed it.

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