Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Online/App Math Resources Light On Mechanics

Because if the severity of my son's LD, his efforts have always focused in coping and surviving math class, but that has changed this year mid-way through 7th grade. While he still does not have his times tables memorized, his dysgraphia and dyslexia seem to have far less effect in him.

He expressed over the break that he is frustrated that they just keep re-learning the same material in his regular math class while the kids in gifted are learning new material. He said if he doesn't keep up with them, he'll never catch up and never get the same opportunities in high school.

Now that he is expressing the need/desire to push forward, I'd like to find some online or app resources that teach higher concepts of math that he could use to teach himself. Ideally they would be heavier on the concepts than on the rote mechanics, so that he can learn the concepts without getting bogged down with the challenges of his LD's.

Do any of you have suggestions or resources you've used?

I recently discovered he taught himself Klingon online, so I'm thinking this would be a more productive use of his time,,,

bump

I'm not sure what it is about but Ko's Journey is supposed to be a great math game for 6th and 7th grade. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3105141/C2CDN/Ko/content/educators_guide.pdf

Geogebra is bookmarked, haven't checked it out yet.
http://www.geogebra.org/cms/


Don't forget about youtube and Khan Academy.

Lisa, this is probably a really boring answer and maybe not what you're looking for... but fwiw, during the years our ds couldn't advance in math at school due to his dysgraphia, he after-schooled himself in Aleks and liked it. It's just a bunch of very short modules that each tackle a specific math subject and are put together by class/grade and tied into each state's stnadards so it's easy to generate reports showing what your child has mastered. The modules self-pace, so that if a child picks up on a concept quickly they only need to practice it 2-3 times before moving on. It doesn't have any bells and whistles etc, but it was an easy way for my ds to keep caught up and eventually move ahead in math. He stopped at 6th grade math, but the courses go all the way through high school.

Right now ds is taking a science course through CTY Online, and he's asked to take a math course this summer to skip ahead another year in school. CTY is expensive, but you get access to a teacher and you should be able to get credit (or placement) for having taken the course.

DS was so frustrated by being held back in math in elementary school - and he really has done so very very well once he was accelerated in middle school and finally had math teachers who understood math enough to realize ds is really good at math - that made a huge difference as much as just getting past the math facts and writing challenges. I don't know if you feel confident in doing something like this, but have you considered pushing to have him accelerated without having him play catch-up first, and instead play catch-up as he needs to?

Good luck!

polarbear

Not specifically for higher level math, but I found this concept driven approach to the times tables pretty cool:
http://www.visual-learners.com/support-files/nbf-6-9-10.pdf

Definitely like Khan Academy, if for no other reason than how cool their Math Map is:
http://www.khanacademy.org/exercisedashboard

And not sure how the MIT stuff is presented, but likely worth a link:
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/#mathematics

And what could be more fun than exploring old math competition stuff; the AMC site has some cross-links to various competitions as well as problems from some of their annuals.
http://amc.maa.org/a-activities/a7-problems/problemdir.shtml

He could try the Art of Problem Solving Prealgebra videos (http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Videos/index.php?type=prealgebra) and on-line problem program, Alcumus (http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Alcumus/Introduction.php). Ideally, this can be done along with their text, though I see nothing wrong with playing around on Alcumus without it, to see if he likes it.

Wow -what a great collection of resources! Thank you! ... And thanks DeeDee for the bump.