MEP for middle school - am I crazy to skip Y6

[EmilyGF]

Hi all,

 

I have a daughter who used to hate math and now loves it. She loves MEP and Elements of Math (online) and is doing well. I waffled about skipping MEP 5 last year because she was doing so well but decided to do it after all because I wanted her to feel confident.

 

She rarely gets a problem wrong and easily finishes the lessons. We're 10 lessons from the end of the year and I'm trying to decide whether to skip Y6.

 

Pros: 

More interesting problems

Not spinning wheels covering easy problems

A bit of acceleration (I'd rather her be a year beyond where she is now)

 

Cons:

Possible frustration if too hard

Losing the gains we've made in love of math if frustrated

 

We'll stick with MEP because it works so well with how she thinks. (I've read all of Lewelma's posts on using MEP secondary.) She doesn't seem annoyed that the problems are too easy for her, rather happy that she can do so well.

Emily

[Zoo Keeper]

In your case, I'd just accelerate her.   Year 7 and 8 are topical, so it should be easy to see if she has any gaps.

 

Looking at the  Overview, Learning Objectives, or  Facts to Know and Remember for Year 6 may help you see if she's ready...or some of the sample Exercises for Year 6 (here's the solutions).

[hollyhock]

I think accelerating is a good idea. She will probably find 7 easy in comparison. 8 gets a bit harder.

[Sherry in OH]

Years 7-9 cover the same topics as years 4-6.  Be prepared for your daughter to move through many of the year 7 and 8 topics quickly.

[EmilyGF]

Well, here goes!

[Farrar]

I guess I'm wondering though... would it make more sense to do year 6 and then skip or skip parts of years 7-9 and only do the topics she needed more review of? When I've used parts of years 7-9, they're really easy compared to the material in year 6, which my son did most of. If she already thinks year 5 is easy, isn't she going to think years 7-9 are beyond easy? Or am I missing something?

[EmilyGF]

I guess I'm wondering though... would it make more sense to do year 6 and then skip or skip parts of years 7-9 and only do the topics she needed more review of? When I've used parts of years 7-9, they're really easy compared to the material in year 6, which my son did most of. If she already thinks year 5 is easy, isn't she going to think years 7-9 are beyond easy? Or am I missing something?

I guess I didn't realize that Y7-9 were actually easy. I'd better go look at them more...

Emily

[Farrar]

I guess I didn't realize that Y7-9 were actually easy. I'd better go look at them more...

Emily

 

I've only ever used snippets, mostly for review. But it felt easier to me than Y6 in some ways. The way they're laid out, it's much easier to accelerate it though. I sort of assumed they were intentionally on the easy side since they're the same material as Y4-6, so I assumed they were for kids who needed more review, which is presumably students who need more practice and a slightly easier take on the material. But maybe I'm wrong?

[EmilyGF]

I've only ever used snippets, mostly for review. But it felt easier to me than Y6 in some ways. The way they're laid out, it's much easier to accelerate it though. I sort of assumed they were intentionally on the easy side since they're the same material as Y4-6, so I assumed they were for kids who needed more review, which is presumably students who need more practice and a slightly easier take on the material. But maybe I'm wrong?

Y7-9 contains enough work for three tracks ("Academic" = basic, "Standard", and "Express") and the teacher's guide includes specific schemes of work for each level. Using Express brings in other explorations and only does about 1/3 of the work book problems. So I think the workbooks look easy because it has three levels of problems but only the harder ones are done for Express. I think using the Express level will provide a good level of challenge. Also, as in the early book, the most interesting (where interesting*easy = constant) problems are in the teacher's guide/excursions. 

 

Emily

[rose]

I'm using y6 with one dc and y7 with my other dc. I skipped y6 with my dd and it was a great choice for her. y7 is definitely easier than y6. That said, you might appreciate the change. It's structured entirely differently. The year is made of 24 units. Each come with a unit test and then there are tests after every five or so units. What I did was have dd do the unit tests at the beginning of the year to see what units we could safely skip. One thing that I really appreciate is the that student book has instructions for the students so it's not so teacher dependent.

 

y6 has been a good choice for my ds though. He has more aptitude than his sister but he's lazy. y6 works a lot of honing arithmetic skills. It's a lot of work. This child needed the drill so that he can move on to higher stuff. I'm actually planning on moving him into y9 when he's done y6.

 

As a side note, there are a bunch of extra files that go with each unit. There are different ways that you can go about using them. The way I've been implementing it is that I sit down with the student book at the beginning of the unit. I circle the problems that I want her to do and hand it to her. The teacher notes are not nearly so valuable in year 7 as they are in the earlier years. The three streams are expected to answer different questions. There are suggestions for what to assign but I haven't bothered too much with that. After she does what I've assigned I mark her work. If she's struggled then I assign her more of the questions. If she still struggles then I go to the extra practice files. I've also used these for review of some of the harder units. After she's competent with a unit I give her a unit test. It took me a bit to figure out what was necessary and what wasn't but it's working out for us now.