I wanted to update you on our success with ALEKS! I decided to sit down and do it myself a little, just the practice pages. I was making mistakes on purpose so it would keep giving me problems. Son walked over to see what I was doing and then started correcting me! He eventually pushed me off the chair and took over, staying involved with the program for over an hour! He finally understood how the program works and was loving the pie chart - seeing his progress documented. He also loved how he could open up new modules by answering questions - he thinks it is like his Math Missions game where he moves around the city opening up new places to go!
He also started to get the idea of learning to learn and even asked me to help explain when he was confused. I let him work on his own and he actually handled making mistakes pretty well when he realized he had a chance to correct them. Later in the day he took a spiral notebook and was making up his own "assignment" with two digit addition with carrying. He showed it to me and said "look, I'm doing my NEW math homework. I learned this today!" Made me want to cry!
Now, I'm definitely going to talk to the school and see if he can do this there. Math homework this week is still the same as all the other weeks - he can't thrive for long in this situation!
Thanks for the great resource! I highly recommend it!
