Algebra in Gr. 5: Earning HS credit?

[KarenDV]

Hi,

My fifth-grade son is on track to finish the Key to Algebra series by the end of the year. I have been grading his daily assignments and his tests.

 

What do I need to do to ensure a smooth re-entry into the school system if ever we decide to do that? For that matter, do I need to think about getting official HS credit for this? How would I go about doing that?

 

Thanks,

KarenDV

[EKS]

You might want to post over at the high school board about this. I seem to remember something about the Key to Algebra series not being considered a full first year algebra course.

 

As for entry into the school system, at least in our district, he would have to take a test to be placed into geometry. Our district won't accept transfer credits from homeschoolers (this is common).

[MyThreeSons]

The publisher of the Keys to series does not consider Keys to Algebra an Algebra I course. Your student, however, will be very well prepared to do a complete Algebra course.

 

In general, I believe the rule of thumb is that if the student does true high school level work in 7th or 8th grade, he can receive high school credit for it. I'm sure that most schools would have some sort of a placement test to ensure the student is ready for the next level.

[KAR120C]

First, I agree with the previous posters that the Key To series isn't a full Algebra 1 course. It is excellent preparation for a solid course the next year though.

 

Second, if you're planning to enroll him in public or private school, it's going to be a case of having to ask the school. If it were me, I would probably try to improve the odds by finding out what they use for Algebra, and using that. It seems more likely that they would accept your credit for something that matches their work, although I would be surprised if they didn't require some kind of placement test as well.

 

If you were homeschooling straight through I don't think there would be any issue of whether it was a high school credit or not, until you had a particular college in mind. Some want to see everything starting with Algebra 1 on the transcript with a grade and list of course materials no matter what age it was taken, and some only want the last four years' worth of material listed. You should definitely be keeping records as though you were going to need to include them on the transcript... just in case you do!

 

One thing to keep in mind is that credit or not, it would obviously weaken your DS's college application if he quit math altogether at 7th grade after Alg 1-2 and Geometry -- so if he's doing Algebra now, the choices would be to either play around with fun math now and repeat Algebra 1 later "for credit" or count Algebra 1 as finished (next year?) and then continue to accumulate math credits each year straight through to 12th grade.

 

We're going with a middle road ourselves... DS did Algebra 1 last year (Singapore NEM 1 and 2, algebra sections only, plus a little supplementing) and this year we're doing Statistics. Next year the plan is formal Geometry (NEM 1 and 2, geometry sections, plus work with formal proofs from other sources), and then something else -- number theory, or probability, or cryptography, or something interesting like that. Basically we'll alternate years between the regular progression and some more interesting topics. I don't particularly want him to hit Calculus until he's really about to start college, because I suspect he'll be heading for a math-heavy field, and unless he's going to get a 5 on the AP exam he'll more than likely have to re-take all three semesters anyway. But when I go to write his transcript he'll have all the "standard" math classes AND a math class in every year. Depending on how colleges want to see it, it could be a very long and weird-looking transcript! LOL

[Myrtle]

Hi,

My fifth-grade son is on track to finish the Key to Algebra series by the end of the year. I have been grading his daily assignments and his tests.

 

What do I need to do to ensure a smooth re-entry into the school system if ever we decide to do that? For that matter, do I need to think about getting official HS credit for this? How would I go about doing that?

 

Thanks,

KarenDV

 

 

Ask the district in which you wish to enroll your daughter what their limit on credit transfers from junior high are. A school district near me recently required a homeschooler to retake several math classes that she had already completed prior to high school due to this beaureucratic restriction. She was three years ahead of her peers before high school and only a year ahead after she enrolled.

 

Most public school districts are not set up to appropriately address the educational needs of advanced students. No elementary school I know of offers algebra to begin with, for example, so it's not surprising that the high schools can't handle a student who began high school math while in the fifth or sixth grade.

[8filltheheart]

It may depend on your state. For example, in TN students may only carry 2 or 3 credits up from middle school as high school credit.

 

I would recommend following up Keys with a yr of a more standardized, thorough textbook. My current 7th grader complete MUS's alg/geo in 5th grade followed by Foerster's algebra last yr. He is currently doing Chalkdust geometry. He never ceases to amaze me in how clearly he understands the material (at times explaining it back to me more clearly than it has been taught to him by ME!!:tongue_smilie:)

 

Unless you are definitely planning on entry into public school, I wouldn't be overly concerned with ps requirements. Our experience has been that private schools are willing to work with students based on placement. (Our 16 yos attends a private school and even though he is only a jr, he is taking 3 senior level classes)

 

As long as you plan on continuing math through graduation and will therefore meet math credit requirements for grad, I would just keep going forward. You will probably need to plan on dual enrollment at a certain point. Our oldest just turned 19 in Aug and even though he should be in his first semester of his sophomore yr, he has already completed all of his math requirements for his engineering degree (cal 1,2,3 and differential equations) and is talking all junior level chemical engineering courses.

 

Dual enrollment is our plan for our current 7th grader. He will take alg 2 as an 8th grader, pre-cal as a 9th grader. I will either have him dual enroll in pre-cal 1 or 2 beginning in 10th grade. (Our oldest dual enrolled in pre-cal 2 after a yr of pre-cal at home and it turned out to be perfect plan for him)

[love2read]

I would recommend following up Keys with a yr of a more standardized, thorough textbook.

:iagree:

Some of the things they cover in the standard pre-algebra texts are never seen again (e.g., 2 and 3 step word problems with percentages and fractions.)

[Storm Bay]

I second using something else for Algebra besides Keys to Algebra because it's not complete. Using a different program can be brand new, too, and refreshing.

 

Each school district is different, and some are very reluctant to put a child too far ahead of his or her age peers, particularly if they've been homeschooled. In our district, there are children who take Algebra 1 in middle school in gr. 8, although not all do this.

[Mrs Ives]

I had this problem with my eldest. When he applied to college, I simply did up his transcript by subject rather than by grade level or by year. For example, Mathematics looked like this:

 

Algebra I 1 credit

Geometry 1 credit

Trigonometry 1 credit

Calculus I 1 credit

 

It saved a lot of explaining about how he could really have done all of high school in 3 years along with a bunch of college level CLEP & AP courses. Had we done things the normal way, he wouldn't have had enough High School credits in Math, because I told him he could quit Math when he could pass the Calculus exam and he did that at 13. It's a stupid system that awards 4 Math credits to someone who takes 4 years to learn Algebra and Consumer Math, but would not do the same for someone who can easily pass the AP Calculus exam no matter when they had done so.

 

We had no trouble with his college accepting the transcript the way I wrote it. He had lots of CLEP exams to prove that he'd actually learned something at home, and his SAT scores were high enough to earn him a full tuition merit based scholarship. This particular college even gave him credit for all of those CLEP exams, so he only has to take 3 courses in college to complete all of his general education requirements. Turned out to be a good thing too because he's just finishing up a 1 year sabbatical from college and now he's changed his mind about what he wants to do, so he's going to be taking a variety of courses to figure that out. All of those CLEP credits gave him the freedom to study whatever he wants and still be able to graduate in 4 years. You really can't beat homeschooling in high school if you want to provide opportunities to learn at their real pace and to learn well beyond what would be possible in a one-size-fits-all environment filled with people who don't want to be there.