Thanks for the input. I started him at fourth grade, because 4B (end of fourth) is as far as we went in Singapore Math before, and I wanted to make sure he was solid before proceeding due to the long time without any math. I also chose fourth because of worries about mismatch between the scopes and sequence between SM and ALEKS; SM is not keyed to state standards while ALEKS is. SM is a good program but like all of them it has its quirks, for instance introducing exponential notation later than some.
I guess at this point what we're going to do is stay the course, because he's only got about 2-3 sessions left before he finishes the fourth grade review. Then we will probably stop ALEKS for a while in order to let him do other math and science stuff over the summer.
The half-formed math plan I made with the wife a while ago was this: finish up through fifth grade Singapore Math, and perhaps sixth, while adding enrichment, then go on to Art of Problem Solving. It may be that we don't need ALEKS after this year. No matter what, despite what I feel is a bit of a rough fit, I am glad that we used it to let DS go mostly at his own pace while slogging through some boring review. In an ideal world we wouldn't have had to remediate after such a terrible school year.
