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How much should I be helping with Beast Academy


KellieK
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My daughters are using Beast Academy and they love it. Solving problems has always been a favorite activity for them. One of them is dyslexic and seems to need a lot of help from me with the practice problems. I am wondering if this means that it is not a good fit for her. She excels at computation, but usually needs me to reword some of the problems for her to know what she needs to do to solve it. She is not frustrated and genuinely likes to try and figure them out. I guess what I am asking is how do I know if this is working for her? Before this we were using MM and she did very well with that, except the word problems, which I helped her with. She is 10, by the way.

 

I saw a thread the other day about dyslexia and math. I am going to go find that and read it. We are very new to the dyslexia and have only been "sure" about her having dyslexia for a few months. I am trying to rework our school so she gets the most out of it.

 

Thank you for your help.

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I don't have experience with dyslexia, but when we used BA, I reworded problems and asked questions. Sometimes, I also had to 'play' a bit before I found the answer. I tried to model problem solving skills to show that the answer doesn't always come quickly. There's nothing wrong with getting incorrect answers so long as we figure out the mistake.

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I help my dyslexic son with quite a few problems. We are about to finish Beast 3A this week. I have noticed that he is learning problem solving skills and life lessons that he wasn't getting from MM nearly as much. He could get the answers to MM quickly, even the word problems, so I couldn't teach skills like "I need to try a few ways" or "I need to go back and reread". Beast requires some thinking which takes time and he doesn't like math taking time. He's a quick get r done to go play Mario boy. I had to learn to back off and let him crunch the problem even though it might cause a headache because he's impatient with everything. Sometimes I wanted to reword even if he didn't need it just to say something to stage off the boys impatience. I noticed when I didn't reword and just gave time to think he solved it on his own sooner. I think rewording is ok but sometimes just letting them sit to think and reread works the best.

 

What I've learned is he needs these skills just as much as he needs some straight forward problems. He's definitely more well rounded in problem solving skills already. I do notice it reviews subtly. For example, the first chapter is shapes and angles and the third chapter is perimeter and area for the shapes with those angles. Chapter 2 is skip counting which will be reviewed in chapter 4's multiplication. So if your worried she's not getting something let it set and move on a bit. I noticed it was cemented when we got to the next chapters.

 

We are doing one chapter every two weeks which leaves at least one day to play games, review, and do other supplements.

 

Hope that helps. We are not far into it but it's fun for both of us. We can always go through it again. We always get something more from reading a good book twice.

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We are only in our second week of BA 3A but I have been thinking about this very question myself. I think I've come to a point where if I didn't have to help at all, it might be a bit too easy, so helping is ok. I do each question with my daughter, but I am mostly asking questions and providing strategies: what are you looking for? What do you know? Try something new, what if you started here? Let's skip this one and come back as we answer the others, and it may become more clear... etc. 

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The entire AoPS series is about persistence.  It is not called The Art of Math. It is called the Art of Problem Solving.  It is about critical thinking through problems, they just use math.  As such, most kids need a fairly significant boost here or there because critical thinking skills are still developing.  Once they start to figure it out, then you can ease up on what is being asked.  If you look at the curriculum that way, and remove the math, then it can really help a student become independent.  Help them develop the processes to be able to find the answers themselves.  The greatness of the curriculum is that no one tells you how to do the problems.  It is completely designed around the idea of the student finding themselves, finding their own process.  That is what the book teaches.  It just uses math as the medium to do so.

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Thank you so much for your answers. We are having so much fun with these books. I, too, have seen improvements in critical thinking since we started. My help is more of guiding her to continue to try and not give up after one try. Going through it again is a great idea. We bought a few books of logic puzzles, the kind with a grid and a few clues to figure out who did what and where, we have gone through those puzzles two times and some of them three times. I did not worry about those. Math is just the medium is a good mantra. I will not stress anymore.

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