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Trouble with Lial's prealgebra


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My daughter is having trouble with Lial's prealgebra, but she doesn't want to switch to something else. My husband also doesn't think we need to switch and feels that our daughter is grasping the concepts. I think part of the problem is that we were previously using a spiral based curriculum (Horizons and CLE) and Lial's is mastery. Lial's does have commulative review before each test, but my daughter is still having trouble identifying how to set up problems within a set of mixed equations. For example, she will do great on each individual section within a chapter  (mixed numbers and equations, adding and subtracting signed numbers, multiplying and dividing mixed numbers, equations containing fractions, area and volume, etc), but when it comes to the test she does poorly. My daughter feels that the problems in the commulative review are easier and don't accurately reflect the more difficult problems on the test.

 

Any suggestions on how we can add in more review? Would you suggest supplementing with something else? Need some help here. Pretty please and thank you!!!

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We ran into that a few times when we were using Lial's PreAlgebra last year.  It didn't happen for every chapter, but it did happen on a few of them.  My DD was also coming from spiral programs (also CLE and Horizons), but I'm not sure if that was the problem or not.

 

When we hit snags like that, I had no problem slowing things down and reviewing a ton more.  Usually we spread a lesson out over 2 days and do the odd problems.  We also do all the odds for any review sets as well.

 

Any time I noticed that she was struggling at the end of a chapter, we would add an extra review day and work the evens on the review set.  If she was still struggling I would pick and choose from all the evens that we hadn't done during the actual lessons, making yet another review set.  Yes, this did take some time because I would write them all down for her like a worksheet, but it definitely helped.  You could even do this more than once because Lial's has so many problems.

 

I also kept Lial's BCM on hand.  Occasionally I would add in extra problems from that or use it to add in extra lessons on particularly tough topics.

 

At one point in time I thought about adding in some of the Key To books, but the above method ended up working out well for us and it was free.

 

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It’s been a few years and I don’t remember many specific issues, but my DS also used Horizons levels 1-6, then struggled with Lial’s pre-algebra. We did switch the following year to Mr. D. Math, in which he has done very well for Algebra 1, Geometry, and Algebra 2. I do remember that some of our struggles came because Pre-Algebra required more teaching and wasn’t as independent, and outsourcing to a “non-Mom†teacher helped quite a bit.

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It’s been a few years and I don’t remember many specific issues, but my DS also used Horizons levels 1-6, then struggled with Lial’s pre-algebra. We did switch the following year to Mr. D. Math, in which he has done very well for Algebra 1, Geometry, and Algebra 2. I do remember that some of our struggles came because Pre-Algebra required more teaching and wasn’t as independent, and outsourcing to a “non-Mom†teacher helped quite a bit.

 This is very similar to our story. My dd had used Rod and Staff for 1-8th grades, which included prealgebra. We switched to Lial's for Algebra i. She had gotten quite independent with R&S in the last couple of years, and could work the problems herself right from the book and didn't need much help from me. I had thought that Lial's would be similar for her since all of the problems are worked out in the student book for her to read too, but something about the format was difficult for her. We slowed it down a lot and did a lot more review, sometimes it felt like even going over a chapter completely more than once. We switched to Mr. D's for geometry, and so far so good. I think we will use it next year for Alg.2 as well. If I really like it, I might put my middle schooler right into it too, skipping Lial's Algebra altogether. 

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What is Mr. D math?

www.mrdmath.com

 

This is an online program/curriculum (Pre-Algebra through Pre-Calculus) that can be taken via online class with a certified teacher, in-person co-op classes with a certified teacher, or as an asynchronous program at your own pace.   My kids are now both using this curriculum at a co-op and love it (as much as they CAN love math - one of my kids really enjoys math, the other not so much).  It's a mastery-based program with built-in spiral review after every 3 lessons.   There are online recorded video lessons, plus twice a week online help sessions with a live teacher.    Mr. D. also does full-year summer intensive courses, summer review courses, and SAT/ACT boot camps.

 

My DS has now done Algebra 1, Geometry, and (currently) Algebra 2, and is currently also taking an SAT boot camp.   My DD has taken Pre-Algebra and (currently) Algebra 1.

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