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Please refrain from smacking me for another prealgebra thread but...


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What if you were using supplements for application and problem solving and also had an amazing tutor coming to work with your child in problem solving?.

Keys is more for drills or long car rides. Have you tried MOEMS Div. M problems for fun since your tutor is a MOEMS coach?

A good math tutor can make any textbook work, or they just use pen and paper. My high school math lecturer used to just teach with chalk and blackboard even for calculus. She didn't need a textbook (nor a graphing calculator).

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Well the tutor is actually coming because my son thinks he hates math and has zero problem solving skills.  He will use guess and check for an hour before doing anything creative.  Which is frightening since he is going for a Comp Sci degree.  So, we finally realized there was an issue and hired/were blessed by her to tutor him.  He is probably like at a 3rd grade level in MOEMS, if that.  Honestly. 

 

So, no we aren't at the point where he would do MOems stuff for fun yet!  The Lord willing, that day will come though.  

 

Also, she is not really doing a lot with the textbook because she is only coming every other week.  She won't have time to really teach the day to day nitty gritty of prealgebra, and recover his love of math, and teach him how to solve problems without shutting down. :)

 

So, I get to continue with the day to day stuff and if we really get stuck, we can ask her on her tutoring day, but it wouldn't really be an ideal use of our time.  :)  Thanks for the ideas though and also for being another voice in my choice about Key To. 

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Wow thank you Ella Darcy.  He generally doesn't mind copying but I think it's math as a whole that is making him shut down and of course all the copying is part of that!

 

I am going to stick with Key To.  The tutor thinks it's ok.  He is doing one page of the free Glencoe CA Math Pre-Alg refresher alongside Key TO this week, and he really loves the Key To.  He just thinks they are such happy cute little workbooks.  The free workbook I printed reviews all elementary and middle school math concepts for a week, before moving to the next.  

 

And I am considering purchasing Zaccaro's for problem solving stuff he and I can do....

 

 

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You know, I don't see why it's such a bad plan. I think the Key to books get a bad rep. Some kids need their simple procedural focus in order to practice so that they can go into the more thought provoking stuff. And they do lay out the reasoning for the algorithms. Someone will probably flame me for this, but I think they're sort of like super pared down Math Mammoth pages in a way. Lots of practice and building up by introducing "in between" steps. There's less of the "more than one way to do things" element of Math Mammoth and certainly the hardest problems are a lot easier in the Key to series (plus almost no word problems), but the way it teaches the algorithms really reminds me of MM (with more calm white space).

 

I think your plan to do it alongside Challenge Math makes sense.

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Well I have to say....i was feeling OK about the Key To thing, but just OK.  I signed my son up to work with Jann in TX w/ Lials and he is thrilled with that plan.  She teaches well and asks a lot of questions and keeps the kids involved, not to mention going over areas of weekness, taking mid week emails when kids are really stuck, grading tests, and pacing out assignments.

 

SO, now we have a really good plan between her teaching w/ Lial's and the local tutor coming to really work on that deep problem solving stuff.  

 

But...we both really liked the Key To books so I am going to keep them around the house for when someone gets stuck.  Personally I think they teach better than any textbook I have seen in a long while.  They show the visual, explain how it works, walk kids gthrough making connections, all with tons and tons of practice. .....my son just about finished the Percents 2 book and he REALLY gets percents now.  

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But...we both really liked the Key To books so I am going to keep them around the house for when someone gets stuck.  

 

I have them on hand for just this sort of thing. I wish they still offered them in PDF form because I usually only need part of one workbook to get it through their heads.

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I first used Keys To... 20 years ago when I taught at a juvenile hall. They were perfect for independent work with kids who really needed to go back and learn fractions and decimals. Now I use the algebra ones with my own daughter on trips and during the summer as review.

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