Thank you, I have enough answers now. :)

[chilliepepper]

I'm trying to figure out what else I can eliminate from our daily work to make things more doable. And I'm wondering if checking my kids' math could be one of them.

 

If I stop checking, should I have them check their own work with the answer key? And if they find that they get an answer wrong, how can I ensure that they will look it over and try to find their mistake? Or...does it even matter if they do that? I have one guy that I don't necessarily trust to admit it when he isn't getting something; i.e. he might say that he checked his work and found no mistakes, or find mistakes but not really think about what he did wrong, just for the sake of being able to move on and be done.

 

What if their work wasn't checked at all, and I just told them they better be sure they are getting it (and asking me for help if they need it), because if they fail the quiz they get to repeat it?

 

I have 2 boys, ages 9 and 11 (roughly grades 4 and 5), and we switched to CLE this year. I have them both in the 400 series because the 11yo has struggled with Math so I've dialed it back to try to rebuild his confidence.

 

Thanks!

Edited October 1, 2016 by chilliepepper

[Janeway]

Yes. I do. At high school, with a much more responsible child, I might not check daily work.

[HomeAgain]

I check my kids' math.  I sat and did math with my oldest up through geometry.  Skill subjects are not worth skimping on, especially if you're not sure if they're understanding the material.

 

Things I did not always check - Latin, Spanish (self correcting), art, music, history (checked at the end of the week), science (same).

[happypamama]

I check their math, but up until last year, DD was using Saxon. I noticed a lot of careless errors in her work (as in, if I pointed them out, she redid them perfectly without having to look at how to do them), and I queried here for ideas. People suggested that she check them herself. Surprisingly, that cut down on the errors quite a bit. I think there's nothing wrong with having them check their own math. I'm just checking my kids' math this year because they're both using AOPS, which is written to the student, so by checking it myself, I'm staying in with some part of their math.

[Guest]

We go over every.single.problem together every.single.day. I feel it is important, especially as they are learning such important things, especially my son solidifying everything before he goes into higher math. We have enough problems without worrying about him not grasping something completely and us not catching it. I think it seems time consuming, but if they are having to go back and redo lessons because they didn't grasp them the first time is even more time consuming.

[Shred Betty]

I'm not planning to do this daily by any means, but after a lesson yesterday I handed my 7 yr old DD the answer sheet and asked her to check her answers herself. I was not expecting it to be a "maturity moment" - her eyes got big, "woooah, cool!" I could tell she was feeling all powerful at that moment lol. It took her more time than I expected but hey, first time for everything.

[EKS]

With math that has straightforward answers (so not geometry proofs, for example), I sit in the same room as my son and he tells me his answers.  If they are wrong, he had to try to correct them immediately.  If he can't correct them with reasonable effort, then I help. But if I have to help, he gets another problem the next day just like it.

 

I am still doing this now that he is in school.  Especially since he is in school.

[...................]

I think it has to be checked daily. If they get confused it can really hurt them, and you won't know right away. It's also

A good time to give some encouragement! Smileys, good jobs, notes on neatness etc.

 

There are also reasons IMO for you checking it and not them checking against an answer key- you may notice problems with neatness, number alignment, how they "set up" their problems and many other issues.

 

Once in a while if I forgot to check my 9th grader's work I don't match upstairs at 9pm or anything :) but he is also a very trustworthy kid and usually very consistent.

 

Another reason is that i actually don't make

Him re-do every incorrect problem :). I let a few silly errors go especially when I notice he needs to re-work some problems that have serious errors that possibly show a true misunderstanding of the concept.

 

Those are my thoughts. Maybe something else can be delegated?

[purpleowl]

I think it's important for their work to be checked and corrected (and errors understood). If you think that can happen with them checking their own work, go for it, but it sounds like you're not certain.

 

Maybe you could ease into it. For the first week, they check their own work (and follow up on their own or with you to understand/correct errors), and you go behind and check their work after they say it's done. Assuming that goes well enough, the next week, you only check behind them 3 of the days, then 2, then "I can check your work any time, so always be prepared," and don't forget to do the random checks for a while.

[SparklyUnicorn]

I check it immediately.  Always have.  I feel it's important to have the feedback too.  I also make them redo errors.  I think it would be a rare kid who would be disciplined enough to do that all on their own, and you do not want to discover months from now that they've just been half butting math. 

[The Girls' Mom]

Check it.  Even kids that are trustworthy get tempted to slack when no one is checking.  Math is extremely easy to get lost fairly quickly if you don't know you are doing something wrong.  

 

I left one of mine to check her own.  It didn't end well.

[redsquirrel]

Not only do I check it, my kids prefer that I check it as they go along.  That way, if they make a mistake they don't repeat it  throughout the lesson.  So, every question or two I check the answer. If one is wrong we go over it and we make sure the error is corrected. If it's a really tricky one, we do it together. I am more concerned with mastery than how many are correct. I don't bother with quizes because it's obvious from the day to day work if he understands what we are doing.

 

 

It shouldn't take long to check math, I can't imagine you would gain an appreciable amount of time. It's certainly not worth what could possibly go wrong.

 

[busymama7]

Didn't read the thread.

 

I learned the vey hard way that math must be checked by me every single day and all problems corrected. If it doesn't happen the day before (I try to check as soon as they are finished when I have a minute) then they are required to bring it to me to check before they can begin math that day. Sometimes this has meant that they help hold it and prop it while I'm nursing a baby or something. Still has to be done. Very very rarely and usually something like I'm literally cleaning up puke, I have asked an older sibling to check it and be sure they fix everything. But that is a rare, emergency situation. I must keep right on top of exactly what they are doing and how well they are doing it.

 

There are quite a few things that I think can give in a typical homeschool and lots of ways to accomplish educating a family at home. This is not something that can give.

 

ETA: we use cle too. Well we are new to it this year. We really like it. Skipping the quizzes because you can see how they are doing daily will actually save you more time then not correcting daily and is totally legitimate since they don't need to prove anything.

Edited October 1, 2016 by busymama7

[Guest]

Not only do I check it, my kids prefer that I check it as they go along. That way, if they make a mistake they don't repeat it throughout the lesson. So, every question or two I check the answer. If one is wrong we go over it and we make sure the error is corrected. If it's a really tricky one, we do it together. I am more concerned with mastery than how many are correct. I don't bother with quizes because it's obvious from the day to day work if he understands what we are doing.

 

 

It shouldn't take long to check math, I can't imagine you would gain an appreciable amount of time. It's certainly not worth what could possibly go wrong.

We check as we go on stuff like Beast Academy. With their Saxon we have daddy check at night since we have no teachers guide, so each problem has to be worked (and he is so much faster than me at all of it). Any wrong problems are reworked, but usually the errors in Saxon are careless transcription errors like writing an 18 instead of a 15, so they get the right answer but to the wrong problem.

 

Outsourcing that to my husband was helpful to me since I'm already multitasking so heavily just to get school done and smaller people watched, but it never takes all that long with an answer key and with things like BA that are super complicated and take a long time per problem we found it worked SO much better to check as we went.

[OneStepAtATime]

With math in particular I would not stop checking problems daily, especially at those ages and with kiddos that struggle a bit in math.   Not at all. If they misunderstood something, and kept doing it incorrectly, even if they are correcting their own problems with an answer key, they may get completely mucked up...like forever.  That happened to me with a couple of specific things in math in elementary school and I was still accidentally making the same mistake in college because the confusion got reinforced before it got corrected.  Those initial brain connections were strong.  Fixing it later didn't really help.  Don't head them down that path.  Work with them daily.  Check their work daily.  Find something else to cut out.  Also, even diligent kids may start slacking off inadvertently if they know their work is never or rarely ever checked.  Math is building blocks.  Without a solid foundation (that IMHO requires daily support and feedback in at least the elementary years) they are building their math foundation on sand.  

 

If you are doing CLE, sit near them (work on your own stuff while they are doing their math), have the TM readily available (makes checking soooo much faster than the Answer Key) and as soon as they are done just run through the problems.  If they have questions, you are right there to answer them BEFORE the confusion gets ingrained.  I usually pay bills or process other paperwork while sitting near where the kids are working on math (we use CLE and CTC math among other things).  We usually run through a couple of the new problems together on a dry erase board to make sure they understand the material then I work on my own stuff while sitting near them.  I am able to answer questions about anything confusing and as soon as they are done I can run through and correct the problems within just a few minutes.  The TM makes that pretty easy.  

 

Maybe if you wrote out your entire schedule (accurately estimating length of time for each thing) you could find a better place to make up some time?  Hugs and good luck.

[redquilthorse]

I have my oldest check his own work but he has to tell me how many he missed, then I decide whether to assign more for practice or redo them. We have been doing this since 7th grade. I do keep the solutions manuals where they aren't easy to access while he is working. I check my other kids' work, but not everyday. I check it every couple of days or so. When I have gone longer than that, I have run into trouble with kids not understanding something so then we have to go back and figure out where they went wrong. 

[RoundAbout]

From a cognitive science standpoint I read that immediate feedback on errors was one of the fastest ways to learn, so I check everything right away. Also because we are doing AOPS there is a lot of discussion involved in both right and wrong answers. I wouldn't have a problem with a little bit of self checking on routine problems but I don't feel my son has the stamina at this age to do the problems and also do a thorough job checking.

[chilliepepper]

Thank you all for answering. I think I have my answer---yes, check the math! I just edited the title of my post so that people might not feel the need to spend their time answering this question anymore. Again, thank you.

[IfIOnly]

We tag team. We sit side by side and I call out answers and my child marks them off. We go over missed problems as we encounter them. Quick and efficient!

Edited October 2, 2016 by ifIonlyhadabrain