I don't really have any advice, but I did want to give you some encouragement. I'm good at math. I understand math concepts easily. But all of the above could apply to me. I have a lot of trouble with mental math. I know how to break problems down into simpler parts, but I can't hold all the information in my head at once. By the time I've solved the 3+4 part of the example you gave, I've forgotten what the other part was. And if I can remember it, I will have forgotten the 7 once I've got the other part. I usually have to do the problem three times before I've figured it out; writing it down and solving on paper is much faster. I practice these kinds of problems when playing board games every week, and have for years, so I don't think it's a practice issue. I'm 40 years old, and I still can't really remember basic math facts. There are certain multiplication facts I can only recall immediately if I practice them at least twice a week. I always think of 6x7, for example, as "6x6 is 36, 42." I often "count on" when doing simple addition. I proceed methodically and write a lot of notes on paper when doing any kind of complicated problem. I think being able to remember math facts and do mental math is very useful, but not being able to doesn't mean you're bad at math. She might benefit from finding SOME method that works for her for each type of problem, and focus on getting really good at that. A person doesn't actually need five methods for division, if they are good at ONE method that works every time.

I made a list of ten words drawn from the previous lesson and any other lessons that needed review, and had her read the list. She tended to get distracted if I used the actual book for the review, plus a list of ten words seemed manageable to her.

I don't have any specific advice, but not reading at just-turned-five isn't late reading. :) Do you feel that she wants to learn, and is trying? Or do you feel like she just doesn't care much about reading right now? Lots of kids her age don't really care about reading. It's only in the last 30 years that we've started expecting kids under 6 to learn to read in this country.

Out of idle curiosity, I simplified problem 1 so that the girl was going to be 10 instead of 20. I left the rest of the wording the same and asked my Kindergartner. She had no idea what to do with it. I read it to her about three times. I suggested that the critical issue was to figure out how old the girl is right now. After she thought about it and expressed confusion, I told her everything she needed to know was in the second sentence, and re-read just that sentence. She figured out how old the girl was. Then I read her the entire problem again, and she was able to tell me how old the boy was. I think I would probably expect her to be able to do a problem like this without help two years from now. But I have no idea what is typical.

Since I seem to have gotten myself embroiled in a tangential discussion with Bill, I just wanted to say to the rest of you who have shared your experiences: Thanks! I appreciated hearing about your children's responses to manipulatives, and what worked better for you. It is helpful to hear other people's stories!

Things like, "if you know that 5 is made up of 3 and 2, it's easy to see that the answer needs to be 2." This would have been for a problem like 5 - 3= ?, for which she didn't use the Cuisenaire rods; she just knew that 5 = 3 + 2. Things within 10, most of which she has memorized. Sometimes she forgets and needs to think about it, though. Yes. Though for the most part, she doesn't like it when I explain things to her and work with her to help her figure things out. She prefers for the book to explain things, which is one of several reasons why we've had trouble with Miquon and are using Math Mammoth instead. It broke down because she wanted to use the Cuisenaire rods, and successfully used them at the beginning, but then lost track of the main point (the math) and focused on rote procedures with the rods. Come to think of it, it's not just math -- there are occasionally other kinds of hands-on things where she gets derailed by the hands-on aspect. For example, she deals much better with writing words down on paper than with forming them out of magnetic letters. I don't know if she could have done the particular subtraction problem she got hung up on without the rods, as we haven't been working with subtraction in the last couple of months. It was her choice to use them. In order for this to work successfully, she would have needed to: 1) Think about the problem. 2) Figure out how the rods could help her solve the problem. 3) Use the rods to solve the problem. 4) Write down the answer. She skipped steps 1 and 2 because she got distracted by using the rods. Oh, don't worry, I will continue to read the Lab Annotations and see if there is anything useful to our study. But I also don't want to fight with her about math. I want her to be enjoying math, and if what she needs in order to enjoy math is to have Math Mammoth build up the ideas for her slowly, then that's what we're going to do. Yeah, she screams at me when I try to get her to talk about what she's thinking and doing, which is why I spend more time listening to what she volunteers. I'm working on encouraging her to be more receptive to teaching, but we're not there yet. But I know what the problem was in this case. She was using the rods as you would for an addition problem even though it was a subtraction problem, because she was not thinking about what the rods represent. It wasn't that she misread the problem -- she knew it was a subtraction problem -- she just lost track of the connection between what subtraction is and how you would represent that with Cuisenaire rods. She also volunteered, after the fact, that the rods make things more confusing. And yes, Bill, I have read all the Miquon teacher's materials, we spent a lot of time playing games with the rods, building things out of the rods, etc. She's definitely sufficiently familiar with the rods and how they work.

We usually spend .6 to .7% of our gross income on Christmas gifts. Our mortgage, property taxes, and homeowner's insurance are about 24% of our gross income. Edited to add: we spend about 10% of our gross income on food.

I think I have this idea that it ought to help her understand things she's having trouble with, but what seems to help instead is to build the concept up slowly, which is what Math Mammoth is doing for her. Which would be why I started using it. I'm glad it's working, I was more just looking for been there stories, suggestions for the future, that kind of thing. I would describe her as pretty good with math, but not exceptionally so.

I'm being forced to accept that my child is confused by math manipulatives. It's possible for her to learn to use them, but generally speaking, she gets distracted by the procedure of using the manipulative and stops being able to think about the math. Math Mammoth is working well for her right now, and she's fine with pictures of objects. It's just the physical objects that throw her off. Today she wanted to try Miquon again after a hiatus of two months. That was fine with me, since I was interested to see if things had changed. At the beginning of the page, she could add and subtract, using the rods, and make intelligent remarks about what she was doing. At the end of the page, she could no longer figure out a subtraction problem because she was using the rods wrong and not thinking about the actual math problem. It was clear to me that the problem wasn't that she was tired, but that at the beginning, she was using the rods to model the problem based on her understanding of the math, and by the end, she had stopped thinking about the actual math and was instead worrying about the right way to use the rods. If you've been there with a kid like this, I'd love to hear how it went for you. Did you just stop trying to use manipulatives? Any words of wisdom?

This sounds more like a family problem between this man and his ex-wife than like a homeschooling problem. He trusted his wife to oversee the education of his children. Now they're divorcing and he doesn't think she did a very good job. All that really shows is that he's angry with his ex-wife. Perhaps his ex-wife adheres to an unschooling philosophy, which might well lead to the kids being "behind" in reading and math at those ages. No real way to know what was going on there!

To clarify, this isn't what the author was getting at. He was saying that the "New Elite" is out of touch with "Mainstream America." When he said that people who got between 3 and 7 yes answers should "get out more," he was suggesting that if they did, they would get more questions right, not less, presumably because they'd have contact with more different kinds of people who would know these things. He describes in some detail how this "elite" group goes through their entire lives in a bubble, never mixing with people from other social groups. The article wasn't at all negative about "mainstream America."

Why would I be embarrassed? :) Obviously, you are better-informed than I am. Come to think of it, I attended a Rotary Club meeting when I was in school, too. I had participated in a Rotary Club essay contest, and was invited to the meeting to read my essay.

For the record, I had 1 "yes" answer -- I can identify a field of soybeans. I'm not really sure what "mainstream America" means these days. I know I don't belong to it, but I'm not sure what percentage of the population actually does. Will there come a time when the majority of Americans belong to some group other than "mainstream America"?

The answer key said that: * If you got 0-2 "yes" answers, you're a member of the New Elite. * If you got 8-10 "yes" answers, you're a part of mainstream America. The author also suggested that those who got between 3 and 7 yes answers needed to "get out more."

In the "Outlook" section of the Washington Post yesterday (an opinion section of the paper), an article appeared discussing the concept of the "New Elite," and opining that those who belong to it are out of touch with "Mainstream America." The author, Charles Murray, asserted that membership in this "New Elite" cuts across ideological boundaries. Accompanying this article was a quiz, which purported to identify whether or not a person was a member of the "New Elite." I am wondering what other people think of this quiz. I will post the "key" in a follow-up, and attach a poll. These are all Yes/No questions. 1. Do you know who Jimmie Johnson is? (The really famous one, not the football coach.) 2. Can you identify military ranks by uniform insignias? 3. Do you know what MMA and UFC stand for? 4. Do you know what Branson, Mo., is famous for? 5. Have you ever attended a meeting of a Kiwanis or Rotary club? 6. Do you know who replaced Bob Barker as host of "The Price is Right?" 7. Have you ever lived in a town with fewer than 25,000 people? (During college doesn't count.) 8. Can you name the authors of the "Left Behind" series? 9. Do you live in an area where most people lack college degrees? (Gentrifying neighborhoods don't count.) 10. Can you identify a field of soybeans? Edited to add: Oops, I forgot to provide for a "0" option in the poll. If you had 0 "yes" answers, please use the "1" option. Sorry about that!

We were on vacation this week, but we did so many educational things, I wrote up a weekly summary anyway. Highlights included the USA Science & Engineering Festival and a once-in-a-lifetime exhibit of Arcimboldo paintings.

This remark is not intended as criticism. I don't have an opinion about whether this approach is the "right" thing to do. Consider it more as food for thought: What is it that you need to be getting done during school time? If you were a teacher in a school, and they were students in that school, what would you be doing during their independent seatwork? Would it be beneficial to adopt a similar model?

Oops! Yes, of course, I meant AD. :-) And yes, I know there's no year 0- that's what I get for editing out a longer discussion of the dispute about when exactly the centuries begin. Thanks for correcting me!

Yes, if you're talking about the 18th century, that's the 1700's. You can think about it this way -- the first century BC is the first century after the year Christ is believed to have been born, that being year 1. Whether the first century starts with year 1, or year 0, is a matter of some dispute, so whether the first century runs from year 0 to year 99 or from year 1 to year 100 is a bit of a gray area. The 13th century BC would be the century including the 1200's.

I read the Hewitt site's FAQ, and they said the scores are compared with those of other kids who took the test at the same time of year. But I really have no idea about this particular test. I think I would personally be more inclined to trust one of the major nationally normed tests, like the SAT10 or the ITBS.

For what it's worth, in Germany cursive is typically taught in first grade. From what I've seen, German kids today are taught printing in the first part of the first grade year, and cursive later on in the year.

I just saw that in the National Archives gift shop last week, and wrote it down for future use. It looked really good for those ages.

I would definitely try MEP. In some ways, it is more difficult, and in other ways, less difficult than Math Mammoth. I like MM, but I think MEP fosters deeper thinking and is also more fun. I have used both with my daughter.

I use the handwriting paper from DonnaYoung.org. She has 3/8", but not with a red baseline: http://donnayoung.org/penmanship/handwriting-paper-clr.htm

We used a research guide about penguins and Antarctica this year, which I thought was good. It was basically just a non-fiction book about the subject. No color photos, but plenty of informative text. I would definitely use one again.