EPGY?

[JWSJ]

We're throwing around the possibility of trying EPGY for our accelerated/gifted 6.5 year old.

 

Can anyone comment on their experiences with EPGY with a young elementary child?

[magpiegirl]

Hello!

 

My son will be seven in June and has been doing EPGY accellerated math since the beginning of February. So far, I have been impressed with the scope and sequence of this curriculum. He is in first grade in a 1-3rd grade public Montessori school and is able to work at his own level there (which is advanced) but EPGY has been good at filling in some gaps and directly teaching him things that he may not have been taught before. It also tracks different math skill sets, so we can see that he is well into third grade for some parts of the curriculum and is in second grade for other parts. One part that really impressed me was the pre-algebra. Around the 2.6 or 2.7 level, he started hitting some pretty complex word problems that he was taught to use algebra with. He needed extra help from me to learn this, but I thought it was amazing that it was included so early. It kind of reminded me of Singapore math that way, which we also use on occasion to supplement.

 

Another big plus for us - the lessons are about 20 minutes in length. This is about his attention span and he would resist if I asked him to do any longer. Right now, I'm just requiring that he do one lesson per day unless we have an after school activity planned, such as gymnastics. On the weekends, he's been doing a lesson or two each day. He seems to like it better than workbooks for the most part because there is no handwriting requirement - a big thing for him.

 

I also liked how I was able to ask his instructor via email to move him ahead twice and it was done within the day. It starts you out at kindergarten level if you are in K-3 and you have to either work your way up or get moved up - look at the concepts covered and ask to be started where you think your son might need some practice.

 

Hope this helped! I'm planning on renewing it so that we can continue through the summer.

Melisa

[Jill]

What is EPGY? I looked in the abbreviation sticky and didn't find it and if it has come up in my time I have plumb forgot! - Thanks - Jill :)

[nmoira]

EPGY stands for Educational Program for Gifted Youth. It's run by Stanford. It is worth checking to see if your local public school system is part of their School Program; if so, you may be able to sign up through it for substantial price discount.

[Pamela H in Texas]

My daughter started EPGY just before turning 7. So we were also considering it about the time you are doing so :) Here are a couple things of our experience:

 

1) my daughter did four grade levels (3rd-6th) in that first quarter. We signed up for only one more.

 

2) she did it in spurts. She'd do it for a time each day for a couple days then not touch it for a week or two.

 

Honestly, the above drove me batty. I was also concerned with the cost. And lastly, the higher math courses had a time requirement I didn't want to even encourage, much less require of a 7yr old, though I've since learned they don't hold you to that much as long as the progression is reasonable.

 

I'm glad for the opportunity. My daughter DID enjoy Algebra at 7. But we went through it in our own way while keeping up the lower math skills, broadening out, etc. We revisited the idea a few times. I kinda wish we had done it around 10 or 11.

[JWSJ]

It is worth checking to see if your local public school system is part of their School Program; if so, you may be able to sign up through it for substantial price discount.

 

My child has never been to PS.

 

Who would I contact within the PS system to check on this?

 

Thanks!

[nmoira]

 

Who would I contact within the PS system to check on this?

Contact the TAG coordinator. Our local PS doesn't participate, otherwise I'd have my oldest in EPGY math. I tried to set up a homeschool EPGY co-op, but unfortunately the folks at Stanford were less than hospitable to the idea.