Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Advocating for acceleration at a GT school

Why? Once she gets it, you move on, right? When it's you doing the teaching, the one who controls the speed is you.

We've done length / weight / capacity in Singapore 3B, because my DD had zero intuitive grasp of the scale of things. After a bunch of dumping water around / measuring everything she could find with a stick made of 100 2cm Mathlink cubes stuck together / using a postage scale to split her deck of cards into even halves and quarters, she has a little bit more of a sense of things. We looked at the textbook for inspiration, and a couple of times I asked her how she'd solve a given problem, then we discussed the way the book demonstrated solving that problem. Then we were done.

She has an interest in the bar chart way of solving complex problems, but the point of drawing the bars is "learn this way of representing problems, so that it's in your toolkit should you come across a problem you can't solve using the tools you have right now." The main point isn't to find the answer to a given problem.

I'd also recommend Aleks - SiaSL summarized the program really well, and it sounds like it would be a good fit for your dd. We used it for *exactly* what you're trying to do - ds sped through the curriculum quickly, but he clearly learned the material, and he also liked the quick pace. When we asked for the acceleration at school, we showed them the reports from Aleks that tie the modules mastered to state curriculum standards for the highest level course he'd taken in Aleks.

I think someone mentioned that Aleks lacks the "explain how you got your answer" type problems, which it definitely lacks... but fwiw, our ds was so extremely challenged by word problems in elementary school level math - but once he was working in algebra he found his words... it was just easier for him to understand how to explain - so I wouldn't let lack of exposure to explain-your-work-five-different-ways-or-else hold your dd back from trying Aleks or a similar program (can you tell I'm a little bit tired of Everyday Math lol!).

FWIW, my dd10 is going to Kumon. I think that might be another option for your dd - but the downside is you can't just do it when you feel like it like you can with Aleks, you are supposed to do a little bit of Kumon math every day, and you are supposed to go to the center each week. It also costs a lot more $ than Aleks Our dd is going to Kumon because she screams when she needs to have her parents answer a math question... but she seems to listen when other people explain concepts...so it's worth the $ to us to have her get annoyed at someone else!

With our ds, we found that 95% of the time, the written explanations in Aleks were all he needed to understand a new concept. The other 5% of the time he caught on by having us (parents) explain it to him. If there aren't any math geeks in your house to handle explanations, I think kids can also ask a tutor at Aleks, but I'm not 100% certain of that.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Yeah, good one. I guess that's where I have to confess that my undergrad major was math, other people's mileage may vary.

Although I have found, both with my son and back when I was asked to help my siblings with homework, being able to intuit answers to math questions does not a good math tutor make ("what do you mean you don't understand?!?").

The Aleks thing sounds pretty intriguing.

I realized I didn't add that we do so much of the "manipulative" stuff and the Harcourt books are mainly to practice the output, for test taking which is part of academic life and so I can see whether she can "prove" on paper that she can do the problems.

But my DD loves the manipulative stuff, and she tends to get stuck on word problems so alot of time we act it out or have a pretend store for all the money stuff. For the online stuff she loves anything that has sound effects.

I suppose it doesn't sound very sophisticated but it gets the ideas locked in there and it's fun.

You might want to give Kumon a try. DS4y5m is very interested in math and wanted to do it but it seemed the workbooks etc. didn't give him the incentive he needed.

We started him at Kumon right before he turned 4 and he LOVES it! He is a very driven kid and likes the challenge of finishing the work and turning it in to someone other than his parents. He has zoomed through it and is currently doing late 2nd grade math.

Also it is made to only take a MAX of 15 minutes everyday although DS did double the work up until a few weeks ago. He would spend about 25 minutes but as the math got more difficult I noticed he started to run out of steam at the end of the session. We cut it down to what he was meant to do and since then he BEGS to do it.

Oh, so to do Kumon, you need to go to the centers? Don't they have books as well?

She has figured out that she has to show her work to get full points, so she knows how to fulfill that expectation, although she speeds through and is a little sloppy (answers are right). She would LOVE not to have to show her work.

I am not mathy, which is a shame for DD. I can, of course, competently perform the operations at this age/grade, but I am not good at explaining. This hasn't been an issue for far, but it probably will be eventually. I just taught her basic multiplication of multidigit numbers this afternoon, and she "got" how to do it immediately, but my explanation was, uh, not inspired. DH is much more mathy, but guess who's home during homework time. I guess I have been thinking/hoping that Khan Academy could help us if we run into a concept that I suck at explaining.

I should have said that I am really hoping not to have to sit next to her the whole time. It would be nice if some other "entity" would basically assess her pace/mastery for me.

You do have to go to the centers either once or twice per week with Kumon (at least that's how it works where we are). You don't spend much time at the center - your child just takes in the packets they've worked on at home to be graded, and picks up their new packet. Some kids work on their first page of their new packet at the center so they can ask questions and so the Kumon staff can be sure the child knows how to do the work, some kids just take the packet and go home.

One little downside to Kumon is that when you're home doing the packets every day you don't have anyone from Kumon to answer questions right there at your house. Aleks comes with fairly detailed explanations, so at the elementary math level even a non-geek could most likely help their child through a challenging topic if they had to. It's possible Kumon has some kind of tutoring # you can call and ask questions and I just don't know about it. You could look up a topic on Khan Academy too - or sometimes with my dd10, who gets stuck with math sometimes, I can just google "how to ___" and come up with a bunch of different ways to explain the math concept.

I'd forgotten about it when I responded the first time, but I do have a friend who was successful in advocating for acceleration in math for her ds after sending him through Kumon, so I'm sure they have some kind of documentation etc they can provide to the school as proof of what a child has accomplished at Kumon.

polarbear

Yep. That. Sal Khan doesn't mind repeating himself, the "playback those last 10s' can be used a gazillion times without him getting annoyed, and the explanations are rather good, and done in several different ways.

My son prefers him to me explaining things any day .

In a perfect world there would be an "Explain more" button in Aleks that would start the correct Khan Academy lecture when pressed...

We go to the Kumon center twice a week and he actually does that days work there with the teacher. For now we can handle the work obviously, but once he gets into more complicated work we will need more help from the teachers. Neither my husband nor I are math people....:-)