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To those of you who got ALEKS through your schools for the $35/year price, how exactly did that work? Who did you talk to -- teacher, principal, etc.? Did the school pay for it or did you? And if you sign up through a school, can you child work on the program at both school and home?

Also if you have more than one child using the program, do you have to register separately and pay the $35 fee for each child?

Thanks!

Debbie -
I found working with DS10 using Aleks last year to be a very eye-opening experience. I use terms like: "Balanced Push" and "parenting him through it" - sounds better than an 8 year old melting down. We only used it for a few months because I wanted him to be the one who was motivated, but we accomplished a lot of math and learn-to-learn. It was a slow, difficult and painful process and I was grateful for every moment, although perhaps not exactly during every moment - LOL! He learned to check his work! He learned to rely on me to teach something. That includes listening to another human being know something he doesn't know - not easy. He never learned to make much use of the explaination text or use it independently - Perhaps because the 5th grade level had more complicated concepts? Perhaps he needed to be shown rather than read text?

Just a week ago we clashed over his Math homework - he had missed the class on "Scientific Notation" and I wanted him to read from the book because he couldn't figure out the homework from "just looking" and I want him to learn how to learn. He wanted me to "just tell it" for Goodness Sake! How could I be so cruel? Withholding information like that! Some nerve! I did acutally cave after 10 long minutes of gently insisting that he read, and there were tears. I've talked to a few homeschoolers and the suggestions of "why" range from "he's lonely" to "low frustration tolerance" to "unused to learning the normal way" to "lazy."

I'm looking for more opportunities to fight this war. I expect it will be a seige. OTOH - he's much farther ahead of the game than I was, trying to learn how to learn without family support while away at college. Good thing I was pretty and had good social skills. Perhaps peers are the best teachers of "learn how to learn" skills anyway?

this kind of thing is the best demonstration of the "special needs" of gifted kids I've ever seen.

Love and More Love,
Trinity

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!

Galaxy Girl: I mentioned ALEKS to my daughter's teacher during a p/t conference. I offered to pay for it. She took it to the principal who checked how ALEKS compares with our Utah curriculum
and went ahead and purchesed it. So the school picked up the cost. There are 5 kids working on Aleks each day (by advocating for my daughter I helped four other kids!). During regular math class TA takes them to the school library (computer lab is occupied) and they use computers there. My daughter has a user name and password, she can access ALEKS at home and work on her own. We love it! I have to mention one thing though, this school makes a hughe effort to accomodate it's students so maybe that's why the whole process was painless :-)
Debbie: I am so happy for you!
Ania

Debbie and Ania -
I'm so pleased!

I can also report that during last night's homework, which I wasn't involved with, in any way, I observed DS10 taking my suggestion of looking back at the examples and pages when he was stumped. (His book has little notes in the homework: If you need help with questions 22-28 turn to Example 4 on page 199. Is that cool or what?)

Isn't it weird when they resist/yell/cry that they won't do it your way, and then a week later you look over and see that they are doing it your way? Parenting is a strange ride!
Trinity

MY son has started an online class through www.artofproblemsolving.com. (mathcounts)
It is really challenging, he has an understanding of only about 30% of what they are talking about. A huge eye opener for him:-)
- there are people out there, his age, who know way more than him.
He is already thinking about contacting two that he knows are from SLC area. He asked me last night "mom, do you think they like to play D&D ?"
And one more thing, his password "...his name...is cool"
that he is using to log on. I just loved it!
Art of problem solving is a great math site for older kids.
Ania

Can anyone tell me about the Dive Into Math interactive CDs? I think Willa mentioned it before. Doesn't Mite do this?

I have a meeting scheduled for next Tues with the teachers about son's math skills/program. He is not wanting to keep doing ALEKS at home, but I'm going to suggest it for school. I wanted to have other options to suggest and wonder about the Dive Into Math, since it is based on the Saxon program they already do at school. But I think it might start at a level too high for us.

Debbie,
what happened to the ALEKS? My son's interst also waned. I think my son really likes learning with others. I wonder if Aleks will every do a forum so the kids can talk to each other while they do the math.

I liked larson online 4-6th grade, but not prealgebra. Pretty pictures.
T

Trinity:
I think he just is tired of doing school work all week and so doesn't want to do it at home. But to be fair, I haven't had the time to actually sit for long and encourage him. I'm going to try again this weekend. Since I work full time, the weekday evenings are just too busy for adding more academic stuff. He just needs "mommy time" and some down time to be a kid!

I also think that the school will hesitate to have him work on ALEKS there, as he still needs help navigating through the tutorials. He is only 5 and 1/2, so although he is doing the math, he isn't really independent to read the explanations and udnerstand it all on his own. Needs that initial support and guidance to move through the steps correctly and grasp the concept initially. But then he can do the repetitions of the exercises with just a little supervision. But I know the school will say they don't say have a staff member who can monitor him.

He likes being with the other kids, too. When I asked him if he thought he would rather do 2nd grade math he said yes, because it would be harder and he likes hard math, but then he said he wouldn't like to be with new kids. Funny thing though, two days ago he told me that he informed his math teacher that "this math is way too easy." Unfortunately he couldn't tell me what her response was! DH and I figure she was stymied and said nothing!

LOL - DS10 couldn't teach himself from Aleks at age 9! But just because they can't teach themselves, doesn't mean that they don't deserve to learn. Same here with DS10 not wanting to do school work at home, he wanted appropriate work at school.

I think it's not uncommon for boys to be less willing to settle. For better and for worse. And yes, it's tough on the extroverted ones who don't want to work alone in the back of the class.

Trin