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I started my 8-year old second grader on Redbird math. She has not gotten any above grade level instruction but seems to know almost all second grade and third grade material. She will panic and cry if she thinks something is too hard so I started her at second grade level. There are some things like addition models? that she is not familiar with. Well she thinks they are stupid and says that she uses her brain to get the answers and not any strategies, tables or lines. I'm wondering if she will run into trouble if I will advance her to third or fourth grade. She knows multiplication to 10 (and more) and division of course as well so I know she does not want to do those again. Do the kids need these different strategies later on the program or can they "just use their brain"?

Thank you. I forwarded her placement a step and there were few things DD needed to see. It is hard to figure out a working program for her as we are not in US so common core stuff is not helpful for her and here they use very different order to teach. For example her class has learned multiplication up to 10 times table and same for division but have only added easy double digit figures. Redbird has only multiplication in third grade but three digit adding in second grade. DD is good at mental math so she can do three digit adding and subtracting in her mind but was not familiar with any methods how to do it. I think I will forward her another step soon.

My kids used both EPGY and Redbird. I think Redbird has been much better designed than EPGY. It has projects for each level which my DS especially liked.

The methods they use are aligned to common core. So arithmetic is done quite differently than what we used growing up. There are entire discussions on the merit/demerit of the new approach. So will not repeat here.

Thank you, I'm happy to hear you liked them both. I have decided I'll forward her to end of third year or beginning of the fourth and if I notice later that there are somethings she missed I'll try to find appropriate Khan Academy lessons for those things. She can not be accelerated at school so last thing she needs is more time on subjects she has already mastered.