I know what you mean anot Everyday Mathmatics. My son (also with Aspergers) could not grasp it. But the really ugly thing is, my wife and I also struggled helping him on his 2nd and 3rd grade math homework. The algorithms were foriegn to us. This year (4th grade) they did drop Everyday because of parents complaints, but because he learned nothing the last two years, we are playing catch-up.
Math Education: An Inconvenient Truth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr1qee-bTZI
I am glad that your school was willing to drop the Everyday Math. My daughter’s school was not. I was told point blank that they had spent over a million dollars on the corriculum and were not going to abandon it for just one chiled.
There is hope. If you can, get a Saxon Math book off the internet that is appropriate to your child’s understanding of Math. Perhaps 2nd grade ... whatever. Start with that and put in 30 min extra per day. Yes, I know the tears and the frustration for doing “extra” homework. We used bribes to get my daughter through it. Complete X problems / pages and you will have earned the right to do something that they like.
At first, I had to stay with her. I used a teaching method from the Boy Scouts called EDGE (Explain, demonstrate, guided, enable). First I would teach the technique and explain it. Often I would use symbols like triagles and squares to make the point. Then I would demonstrate on one of her problems. I had to teach her how to recognize a type of problem. Then guide her through doing a problem. Once she could talk and walk me through the problem, I would then let her do one on her own.
The key point was to show her at the end of the problems how I went back through and looked for her to proof read her own problems. I showed her step by step where she would make errors and how to correct them next time. Later as she became more skilled, I could simply identify which problems were incorrect and she would then go back and find her own mistakes. She was then required to show me her mistakes and how to do it properly.
Lots of time from me ... lots of tears from her. But it pays off now. She is now understanding (still not liking) math and only occationally comes to me for help.