The long and short of it

Trevor's math curriculum introduced long division a few weeks ago.

And no, contrary to what I thought before we began hsing, you don't just decide to sit your kid down one day and teach long division. Like any other student in any other school, the children are led up to it.

I have to back up. Math comes very easily to Trevor; he "sees" the numbers differently than most people. We were using a different curriculum last year, one that spent weeks on teaching very simple, single digit addition and subtraction facts, and it was already glaringly apparent to me that this curriculum was not going to be the best fit for Trevor. I chose a different math program and gave him the placement test. Although he was only "supposed" to be learning single digit subtraction, he could solve the three digit subtraction problems, things like 321 - 286 -- and he was solving them in his head. It seemed that switching to a curriculum that moved more quickly might be a good thing.

From that point on, I began asking Trevor HOW he was getting his answers. It wasn't just multi-digit subtraction, he could add easily in his head too. In the beginning, it was difficult for him to verbalize, but I knew I had to get some sense of how he was thinking, and that this would help both of us down the road.


Meanwhile, he preferred to do as much work as possible in his head, and I worked at making sure he understood he didn't have to do it this way, that most people don't, and that sometimes it would be easier to write problems out.

When we hit long division, I showed him over and over how to do it on paper. We used manipulatives, and then we used the manipulatives along with the whiteboard to show how the numbers connected. He continued to be frustrated and couldn't understand what in the world I was doing. We'd work on it, and I'd finally think he got it, but nothing would "stick." At one point, he thought perhaps something would click from Schoolhouse Rock and sat down to watch all the math videos looking for the "key." He really wanted to learn how this worked.

We took a few days to think about it. I knew it wasn't his problem, it was that I didn't know how to teach it in a way he could understand. I felt like I was speaking Chinese to a French kid. It finally occurred to me that since he already self-taught keeping numbers straight in his head, he might do better with short division.

He picked up short division instantly. I was able to see that his mind is faster than all the long division steps and he couldn't connect those steps with what his brain was thinking. After working a few problems, he quickly decided that short division is "fun." I was able to breathe a huge sigh of relief, yet I wondered what might have happened if he were in a classroom of 25 kids and expected to pick this up like everyone else.

Fast forward to this morning. Holly and I were discussing the various ways to find what percentage 32 is of 40. Trevor walks by, picks up the calculator (which he never uses), shows me the ".8" answer on the calculator, and says, "Yep, Holly's right, it's 80 percent."


At first I thought he just pushed point, eight to get it on screen, until he told me what numbers he put in to get the answer. But I still think that was a fluke. Every time I think about the possibility that he knew was he was doing . . . well, I try not to.

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Disclaimer: Everyone has strengths, and everyone has areas in which they could improve. This just happens to be one of his strengths. It'd be really nice if it were one of mine.