Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Recommended Resources Need help finding online math curriculum

Hi all,

I've been doing K12 math with my 8 year old DS, and while he "kind of" likes it, it is clear that he really only enjoys the online aspects, and dislikes 1) the paper worksheets, and 2) me teaching him (I haven't really had to teach concepts yet much, but clearly wants to self-teach).

One of my concerns is that I don't want his knowledge to be "gappy" (it already is - he knows a lot of 6th grade concepts, but also has gaps in some lower grade knowledge - for example times tables), so I think I want him to follow some sort of actual curriculum or program - but ideally it would allow him to either test out of units in areas he already knows or at least let him move through the material quickly (we've been doing that with K12).

As background, he is in PS (not accelerated and no differentiation in math - we hope to change some of that at some point). Since it is in addition to school, I feel like he really needs to enjoy doing the math program.

So, any suggestions for math curriculums that are completely online and might be a good fit?

Thanks

My 5 yr old DS seems to enjoy EPGY a fair amount. It allows them to move at their own pace and has 20 min sessions set each time. He hit 3rd grade lvl recently and I expect him to stay there for awhile, lol.

His knowledge is also very 'gappy' - he doesn't have his add/sub tables memorized and will 'overthink' his answers sometimes - his first answer is right and then he thinks it's wrong and 'fixes' it. He's now only doing EPGY every few days while I try to work on the facts he doesn't have memorized. But I also figure he's only 5 and as they are only doing numbers to 20 in K I'm not too concerned yet.

It's not absolutely idea for you, but it might be worth considering ALEKS (http://www.aleks.com ). It's much cheaper than the other alternatives, and there's a free trial, so you might want to consider this first and move on to more expensive options only if you need to! The negative, for your needs, is that it doesn't have great teaching. There is an "Explain" button under each question, but this gives a step-by-step "how to do this question" page without all that much in the way of explaining underlying concepts. However, you might get your DS to try this first, and ask you if he needs further help, especially if a lot of what he'll be doing is consolidating things he's sort of met or filling smallish gaps, for a bit; you might also consider getting hold of a good book he can look things up in (we have the Usborne Dictionary of Maths, which I recommend). What it does have instead is a very soundly thought through set of paths through the material, so that a mathy child almost doesn't need teaching: DS basically learns by attempting a question which is only a little harder than things he can already do, and figuring it out.

The positives are cost, as I already said, and that it doesn't have a lot of repetition, but still does enough automatic assessment that it doesn't seem to be possible to move on without good understanding (IME - I've read people say that their DC learned to do ALEKS questions without being able to apply the skills elsewhere, but that's opposite to what I've seen with my DS). Three consecutive correct answers to questions on a topic are enough to "get it on the pie" and move on, and assessments both check topics that are already on the pie and explore things that are not yet on the pie, so that one goes on or back depending on whether more review is needed or nearby topics are skippable. It always presents a variety of topics which the child "is ready to learn" so there are lots of choices, which is also good.

I will say that my DS loved ALEKS at first, and then went off it after about 6 months. There were specific reasons for that (he changed course and for a combination of reasons ended up with "too little" on his pie in the new course which led to him having to repeat a lot of stuff he already knew, which was boring) but it also seems to be a common experience with ALEKS. The format does get a bit samey after a while. I bought a year's subscription, and while we've certainly had value out of that by any reasonable measure (DS just finished his third full course in it, and is still determined to do 2 more which will both fit in the year, I think), I would tend to advise buying it not more than 6 months at a time (and less to start with).

You also mentioned times tables as something your DS doesn't know yet. For that, I thoroughly recommend Timez Attack (http://www.bigbrainz.com/ - there's a free version that covers all the tables, and then the paid version adds two other "worlds" to play in).

I would second Aleks for filling in the holes. My DS had multitudes of gaps from basically being self taught. The nice thing is that the child takes an assessment prior to starting the course so you are pretty clear on where the holes are. The explanation have worked well for us. My son is super "mathy" and he flies through it at amazing speeds at times but since you pay by the month it doesn't matter how much gets consumed.

I forgot to add that it has a section that is called "quick tables" that works on multiplication tables.

We've also been happy with EPGY which dd is using through Melissa's homeschool group (melmichigan is her user id here). It is much, much less expensive if you go the "school group" route.

I've never used Aleks, though, so I can't comment on the comparison btwn the two.

Thanks for all of the responses - this is very helpful. I can imagine that for younger kids with less of an attention span, any program would get a little boring after a while. I will look into both of these (I seem to recall that EPGY was kind of expensive if you just sign up to do it on your own, which doesn't mean I wouldn't do it, but I might check out the other alternatives first).

Once again, thanks.

Cat

I also meant to ask, for EPGY, what happens if you finish up one of the blocks before your quarter runs out. For example, my son is in 2nd grade and definitely knows all of his 2nd grade math. EPGY suggests starting them at their current grade level, but I'm afraid he really would know all the material at that level - would we have to pay for the new course, or would they just let us move up to the next level when he was ready?

Cat

Cat, use the search feature to find ALEKS and EPGY... there've been several excellent discussions in the last few months.

As for EPGY, the answer is near the bottom of this page:
http://epgy.stanford.edu/applyandregister/tuition.html#info
In part:
"If a student completes a course mid-quarter, he or she may register for the next course in the sequence for no additional tuition charge (although registration and shipping fees will be charged whenever a student begins a new course)."

I recall, however, that there is a cut-off in terms of how close to the end of a quarter you can get and still be able to start a new course.

Here's a great page @ Hoagie's with some good info on EPGY. You'll also see links at the bottom with info on distance-learning in general:
http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/epgy.htm

I agree that Alex would be good for filling holes. We did it over the summer to prep for 2 grade math skip. DD liked it a lot but I didn't feel like it was complex enough. For us, this might have been that dd should have been placed higher but I wanted her working at the level should would be doing in school this year. If we went back to it, I don't know what level I would put her in. I did love with Alex that DD could do it all independantly. I don't know how it would be for EPGY, but we may find out next year.