Math or Math Misunderstanding ?

Math or Math Misunderstanding?

I volunteered as a tutor for 3rd grade students in Polk County.  These students are having difficulty in math and reading.  I figured I would be able to help them considering it was third grade level, and I knew I could handle both subjects at that level.  At first I wondered why their parents were not assisting them considering it was a lower level of math and reading, but I knew my focus needed to be the children not the parents.

Day one, I met my first student.  She was very bright student, had a lot of potential and was full of life.  She wanted help with her math. We went over fractions, word problems, some division.  All of it seemed pretty good, until I asked her, what she was struggling with.  That's when the problem seem to arise.  I asked her what she wanted help on.  She could not answer me, she gave me a blank stare.  I asked if she understood everything and she seemed to respond with a yes.  I was very puzzled by her lack of response but figured she would answer me eventually.

Finally her parents arrived at the school, and then I found out what the problem was.  It was not her inability to understand the problem, it was her inability to explain the problem itself.  She spoke Spanish in the home and had problems translating the story problems into Spanish from English.  When I worked with her on the problems in English, she understood and could come up with a solution.  The problem arose when she had to go home and seek assistance from her parents, she was unable to translate the story problems from English to Spanish and back again.

I left a note for her teacher, hoping they could find a solution for her, or had the story problems in Spanish cause I figured she might not be the only one who was struggling with the translation.  I now wondered if the issue she was having was really in math, or translating her homework to her parents.  Where was the information getting lost?  How much information gets lost every day due to language barriers, not only in the classroom, but in the home?

This had me thinking, and wanting a follow up? Was the issue, a math misunderstanding, or was math getting lost in translation?