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Math Guidance- Rightstart too slow, now what?


skippitb
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I have an untested, likely-gifted, homeschooled kindergartener (just turned 6). We have been using using Rightstart, and are half way through B, and my DD and I are just flat out bored. She is easily ready for multiplication, division, and subtraction with borrowing 3 and 4 digits, but Rightstart will not get in to that for at least another year, possibly two. I love Rightstart and thought we would just push through, but we have a hard time getting motivated (because neither of us want to do things she already knows) with her interests getting further and further beyond the curriculum.     

We are looking to go to something else that will move significantly faster and also be more challenging. I am thinking about singapore, or trying to just teach her on my own and push her up a grade to be ready for beast academy. I have no experience with either of these I just know that they are well recommended. If anyone has any experience with this problem with rightstart, or can offer any advice I would love to hear it. 

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I compressed RightStart through A, B, and most of level C. It was soooo slow. Beast ended up being too big a jump for DD regarding the maturity to work through difficulty. Right now, we're on an extended math break and I have no real advice for you. Just sympathizing about the pace of RS.

 

Having looked at Singapore and Math Mammoth, both would have been much easier to accelerate.

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We moved out of RightStart about 2/3 of the way through B.  My son went into Singapore 2A with no problems.  Singapore is easy to compact/accelerate and gives gifted kids a good challenge, particularly if you use the Challenging Word Problems and/or the Intensive Practice books.

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ODS is my math-intuitive kid, and he found RS to be slow, also.  I condensed lessons in B (often did a couple days at a time, skipping the review and only doing a handful of problems on the worksheets to demonstrate mastery).  I had purchased C, but that had virtually no new content for him (other than geometry).  We then moved on to Beast 3--though I firmly believe I could easily have moved him on to Beast after RS-B because he had a solid foundation and good intuition.

 

DD does not handle challenge well, so I moved her to Singapore rather than Beast.  I started at Singapore 2A, but she was easily able to zip through the whole level, having only begun a bit of RS-C.  (Now we're slowly working on SM3, but she's not loving math lately so I've only been requiring a page a week so she doesn't forget everything.)  Just like in RS, I just have her do enough problems to demonstrate mastery before moving on.  We have a lot of un-worked pages...but maybe I can use them for YDS! :laugh:

 

On a side note, does your daughter play Prodigy?  DS finds the game to be delightful because it combines traditional strategy elements of gaming with math problems that continually get harder; he's doing Prodigy problems aimed a couple grade levels higher than he is in BA.  So BA allows him to go deeply into topics, while Prodigy allows him to enjoy some breadth and introduce topics he won't hit for a while yet in Beast.

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Thank you everyone for the great advice. :-) I think I will pick up Singapore 2A and see what that looks like to DD.

 

And it is funny that you mentioned prodigy, because that is primarily how we ended up so far ahead of rightstart. My daughter loves prodigy.

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I got math mammoth... It is actually similar but presented in a totally different way, but I find it a lot easier to progress quicker if you need to... Or skip parts that you know already...

 

I will say though that I found my kiddo was more bored because we did the same math every day, than even by the content... To me I like the fact that math seems to be the one subject that I can teach my kiddo a bit of discipline with... So I personally am okay with a bit too much practice... But I don't want him to get bored...

 

So now we do Righstart, Math Mammoth, Life of Fred, and occasionally Ray's, the RS Card Games, and living books..

 

I love math mammoth because the parts that we do t use are like my teachers manual, making sure I am not missing huge gaps...

 

I love the way Righstart ages he's math, so wasn't ready to give it up, but while what we are doing probably sounds insane, we are all happy with it..

 

So I guess my point is, try stuff out and see what works. But with my kiddo I find my multigrain MM download invaluable... The affordability and excellence of the program give me security in knowing that with that as a spine we can try out lots of other stuff to keep us from being bored without ending up completely crazy pants confused...

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We've been using MEP and like it well enough.  There are still huge leaps he made, but I just didn't download those books and we did a week's break where we covered the oral/hands on work for about 5 lessons at a time to make sure nothing was missed. Multiplication is introduced in year 2, and it's one of the two curricula recommended by AoPS before Beast Academy (the other is Singapore).  For the price, you can't beat it.

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Perhaps you're in the wrong guide -- maybe retake the RS placement test and call the office for help, if you would like to stick with RightStart in some form. Maybe your child would place in D, or could with minimal time of fast-forwarding.

 

Maybe use the games along with something else?

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Or you could get the Activities for the AlAbacus tutoring book from RightStart.... it was the original program, along with the games. It shows how to teach the 4 operations the RightStart way... I think Fractions too..... but I haven't looked for a while. You can work on whichever skills they are ready for when they are ready.... no scripting.

 

Sent from my SM-T530NU using Tapatalk

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Following because I'm in the same place with kindergartener DS6.5. We're halfway through B, and while we both love the curriculum in theory, he's playing with multiplication for fun and using the standard algorithm for multi-digit addition and subtraction. Their online placement test just put him in D.

 

My plan is:

 

Prodigy for now (was recommended in another online group and I signed him up yesterday)

 

Skim the rest of B to make sure I introduce topics he hasn't hit yet

 

Compare physical copies of RightStart C & D at an upcoming homeschool convention in June.

 

Buy Beast Academy 3A to try or find someone local to borrow it from

 

Keep playing the RightStart Card games and advance to the harder ones as needed.

 

Reassess in June.

Edited by AndyJoy
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Can you just skip every 3rd problem?  Or do the first 6 problems, if she gets them right, skip to the next section?

 

 

I'm a fan of board games for kids who can handle it (need a long attention span and the ability to be a good winner/loser).  Depending on the game, it allows them to explore addition, subtraction, multiplication, probability, and strategy while having a lot of fun.  

 

Settler's of Catan: probability (if you want to spice it up, get a different set of dice and make your own number pieces)

Dominion: Mostly Strategy with a lot of practice at adding multiple small numbers and some multiplication

Backgammon: Probability (when they want to leave a blot, you ask "what rolls can I use to hit you with?" and compare that to other options they have for moves)

Blackjack: addition of smaller numbers

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I taught a class for elementary teachers that used this book, and I think it is excellent as a guide to teaching all the elementary math topics.  You can go probably at any speed you want through various subjects.  but since it is expensive i recommend looking at it in a math ed library first to see if you like it.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Elementary-Teachers-Activities-4th/dp/0321825721/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1461458470&sr=1-1&keywords=sybilla+beckmann

 

 i don't know if it has enough drill for a standalone text for the child but a gifted child could well benefit from it at least as a supplement, as well as the parent.  I recommend it because everyone here is aspiring to be the best teachers we can be, so it seems prudent to have a book like this as well as standard subject texts.

 

even though i am a professional mathematician, this book helped me with my arithmetic operational skills.   you may laugh at this, since i am a researcher on complex algebraic geometry of curves and abelian varieties, but  i always kind of struggled with borrowing and paying back in subtraction.  maybe that doesn't make sense, but that's what i call it.  the book explains it more correctly as "regrouping", and I really liked that concept.

 

i think i understand multiplication better.  my students all thought of it as repeated addition, but i see it as forming a rectangle in geometry.  i.e. the product of say 5 times 6 is the area of a rectangle with sides 5 and 6, i.e. the number of squares in that rectangle.  that way multiplication makes sense also for any two numbers, not necessarily integers, say pi and sqrt(2), i.e. it's just the area of the rectangle of sides pi and sqrt(2),  but you may not agree.

 

of course you may be thinking of how to carry out multiplication with decimals, rather than how to define it as a concept.  pardon me i do rattle on discussing teaching math.

 

here is a copy of beckmann's book for one cent!

http://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Elementary-Teachers-Sybilla-Beckmann/dp/0201725878/ref=la_B001ITXCCA_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1461809590&sr=1-5

Edited by mathwonk
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