:iagree: Do the Chem with 3 classes a week, at least until the price of gas goes down (we hope). Driving 5 times a week is a bit much.

Caution: I don't know what state you are in, but many states--ours, Florida, among them--allow students who graduate with a diploma (whether it be from public school, private school, or a homeschool) to go straight into state 4-year universities and colleges. HOWEVER, any student who has a GED is not allowed into a state 4-year university; he/she MUST first attend a community college for two years, to "prove" him/herself. When we first began homeschooling my hubby was dead-set against it, he wanted an official piece from a "real school", and he said if dd wasn't going to get a diploma from public high school, then he wanted her to get a GED. When he learned about the comm coll requirement, though, he changed his tune and figured a "mommy diploma" was just as good, if not better, especially since our dd was planning on going straight from homeschool to 4-year U.

I'm in a bind with my dd, 18, and I need some advice. dd has been taking ALL college courses this semester. They are staggered in terms of ending--one has already finished, another ends next week, one ends around Memorial Day, and the last one ends in late June. This was not our original intention. This past winter dd listed 4 college courses on the Common App update. Since that time, one of the courses was canceled, so we had to scramble for another course (the one that is ending Memorial Day). The other problem, a bigger issue, is that since January up until a couple of weeks ago, dd attempted two different college math courses for which her SAT score qualified her. But taking a math course online, we discovered, just doesn't work for her: dd needs to be in a classroom setting every day, if possible. She needs access to a tutoring center and she needs help transcribing math answers (what she is thinking in her head--the correct answer--never seems to make it onto paper); she has ADD and a possible LD (that's another story). Again, we had to scramble to find a replacement, and we did: the college course ending in late June. But it is not a math course. Anyway, how do I account for her math? Last fall she was finishing Alg2 and stepping into Pre-Calc...this past winter/spring she was in College Alg 2x and couldn't do it. What do I call all that time she spent doing College Algebra online but for no college credit? Bottom line is, dd will have 4 college credit courses, as she originally noted on her Common App. The only thing is, only 2 of the original 4 remain the same. Do I not worry about it? Thanks for advice.

From DD's experience: 50 is a pass in most schools; some require a 55 or 60 in certain subjects. Check your school's list. Intro to Sociology was her first CLEP exam, she adid not know what to expect. She studied for one week; she went into the exam sweating, and came out sweating, saying it was harder than she thought (well, I would guess so, with only a weeks' worth of studying??) but she did score a 69. English Comp/College Comp with essay--DD took this so she could "skip" English Comp I in college and go directly into Engl Comp 2. No studying whatsoever. She scored a 74 on the exam. She is an excellent writer and she has great grammar, but again, she was sweating; she likes to write well and get her point across. She said her writing was down to the wire. Intro to Psych was last and dd knew how to study and what to pay attention to. Again, she did this to clear an Intro course so she could go right into other Psych courses. She prepped for 2.5 weeks. She was ready, no sweating, and she scored a 71. Overall DD said the REA books were about as hard as the exam, Peterson's (online) was easier, and InstaCert was the most helpful. She could not have done it without all 3 sources. DD's biggest problem was not with the prep but where she took the exams--the woman at the CC who oversees exams was very "down" on dd taking the CLEP and gave her a hard time, 1) because dd was too young, 16 the first time and 2) because she said there was no experience to replace being in the classroom, and CLEPping was not a good thing to do. I had to argue with the woman and set her straight about the minimum age to CLEP, and that got dd all rattled before the exam. For later exams I drove an extra 18 miles to another institution and had dd take the exams there, she felt more comfortable. Good luck!

My heart goes out to you as we have been where you are! I've sent you a PM.

My dd took several FLVS courses. All instructors were great, very approachable and helpful. Totally true about making certain the class is NOT a "new" or Beta version. My dd enrolled in Spanish 3 through FLVS and it was a trial version. The instructor informed us that it was comparable to an AP course and it needed significant tweaking. So my dd dropped it and enrolled in a online college level course, same amount of work, for college credit! DD also began an Algebra 2 course through FLVS but she had to drop that due to illness. She liked it and said the material was explained far better than she had learned in the classroom setting. I say, go for it. You have nothing to lose!

Same here. The public h/s dd attended up until last year (Jan 2010) puts out a lot of impressive news, and a huge number of students take AP courses, while others are in the IB program, but the bottom line is that most of the students do not pass the AP exams. And dd has friends in IB who seldom had any homework! The other thing that I find strange is that dd was never a fantastic student while in h/s, she was surrounded by others who were straight As and always winning awards. But when it came down to PSAT and SAT scores, these same straight A students were usually only so-so (mid 500s in SATs) whereas dd was significantly higher. Most of her once high-achieving friends have gone to mediocre schools and are now doing mediocre work. Baffling. I do believe the students in high schools today are rushed through math and science at a quicker pace. There is so much more classtime missed due to "Peer Counseling Seminar" and "Communication Skills Workshop"--you know, all that p/c stuff--that something has to give. Unfortunately, it's academics. The fact that dd chose to continue being homeschooled for her senior year as opposed to returning to public school says it all!

Geez, same here. Can we share a hug? :grouphug: I do everything except: banking, cleaning the household appliances (a/c, pool filter, under the refrigerator, etc). Husband does all that. BTW, he's retired, 64 years old. It makes me very, very sad that hubby has no rapport with our daughter, 18, and doesn't really do anything more than say "hello" to her. It's as if she's just a guest in our house--and this is his natural daughter! He has another, older dd, 30, from a previous marriage (she's now on her own) and he treats her the same way. Stilted conversations with both children, since they were born. He's like that with all women: polite and very stiff. We've been to countless therapy sessions about it and husband listens and nods, chimes in every now and then, but nothing changes. Yet I count my blessings, because we are extremely fortunate in that neither of us has to work a real job, haven't had to in ten years. But there are tradeoffs, and as you can see, nothing is perfect.

Joan, I am so sorry to hijack this thread, but my questions are not totally off subject. I can understand the fundamental subjects as a basis for the exam of La Matu, but what is the specifique? Does this mean additional time or advanced study in a subject? For example, if your daughter continues in math as a specifique, does that mean she goes above and beyond the "norm" for the students of a same age group? What would be the equivalent in a US school, an AP course? Also, Esther Maria says: What is considered the abnormal criteria, in this context? Thank you for helping me understand this. I have a daughter who will be attending college here in the US this fall and I have just enrolled her in an Ancient Greek & Latin language college survey course for the summer. Of course in no way can it compare to what your daughter will be doing, but it is the best we can do, given our time limitations.

My niece, 21, her roommate, 20, and my dd's best friend, 19, are all in college, and these are the types of things they purchase with their academic year allowances, $400+, $225, and $160 a month, respectively... Concert tix Eating out Spring break vacation Weekend trips off-campus (i.e splitting a hotel room, gas, fees for such things as national park entrance fees, kayak rental, hiking maps, etc.) Tattoos (!) Sorority dues and required clothing Hair styles, coloring Tanning salon Magazines Beer/wine/drugs Gifts Movies Netflix and iTunes I did not include gas, car insurance, meal plans, or other expenses that are essential. The ones I listed, above, are what I would consider nonessentials. BTW, dd is now a h/s senior, and we give her a $125 monthly allowance. That is meant to cover her cosmetics, gifts, groceries (stopping for a bottled water and snack when she is on the run), entertainment, etc. and anything left over is hers to keep. She's pretty frugal and usually has 10 or 20 dollars remaining, which she banks. I think we'll up it a bit more when she "goes away", but nothing more than $200 a month, which will help cover groceries and sundries for her dorm suite. Also, most meal plans are not designed to cover 3 meals a day, 7 days a week. In the admissions packet my dd received it was very clearly stated that even the most expensive meal plan is only meant to cover "some meals" and students will need additional money for groceries and off-campus meals. College students today are incredibly privileged.

No, I was directing it to SweetHomeAlabama. Elsewhere I posted about our local high school using RS for a German class. Yes, the students are getting high school credit. But are they learning any German? No, not really, according to the students in the class, as well as the parents of those students. They feel RS has not been successful. Of course, if it is a matter of granting high school credit, than yes, by all means, it can (and is) done; as I said, it is done at our local high school. But if a student is going to spend anywhere from 40 minutes to an hour a day learning a foreign language, and the parent is going to spend money on the curriculum, then it seems reasonable to go with the best program for the least amount of money. And at the price that RS is being "rented"--remember, the purchaser cannot resell--the results don't merit the expenditure. Also, if SHA is intending to send her child to college, most schools require at least one year foreign language study. The better equipped the child is for college, the easier the transition to college-level work. :iagree:..... different methods for different students--and thank goodness we have so many options available to us.

--every penny we have spent on foreign travel; I do believe there is nothing that can open a mind more than experiencing, firsthand, the diversity of this planet --every dollar we have spent on college courses: Clovis Community College (online) at $125 for up to 6 credit hours; and University of Idaho Independent Study at $100 credit/hour for advanced foreign language classes as well as upper-level courses --the $90 for each CLEP exam that dd took (and passed) --the $55 for MUS Geometry which gave dd an extra 40 point edge on her SAT exams, thereby throwing her into a higher scholarship category and garnering an extra $5500- per year in awards --TWTM book, which encouraged me to pursue excellence in education, despite our brief (2 year) stint of homeschooling. Dd has just started a Greek & Latin language college course--and I can do a :thumbup: that dd is finally getting a truly classical education, as short as it may be! I would never have believed homeschooling possible for our family. We were forced into it when our lives came apart due to a family tragedy, and we had no options but to pick up the pieces and go on. Sometimes blessings come in mysterious ways!

Sorry, I have to respectfully disagree. My dd took high school Spanish (for high school credit) in 8th grade public school, and it was an in-depth class. She used a textbook series called Paso a Paso. It is a good series, it's not difficult, and it is thorough. Also, dd had a great Spanish teacher and she made those students work! dd learned quite a lot. As a h/s freshman she took 2nd year Spanish (supposedly, the second semester of college Spanish) and she used Realidades, which is a bad textbook series and has scathing reviews on Amazon. She learned very little from this book and the mediocre teacher. As a sophomore she took no Spanish, but that summer we spent a month+ in Central America, so dd absorbed a lot. As a junior we began homeschooling and dd enrolled in College Spanish. It was a rigorous course! She was expected to spend at least 4 hours a week in the language lab, in addition to spending 4 hours a week in class, and time doing homework. Yes, the material is "somewhat" the same as h/s Spanish 1--starting with the alphabet, days of the week--but even though it is called Spanish 1 or Intro to Spanish in college, they don't mess around...they assume that the incoming student knows something of Spanish, and if not, well then, buckle down. During the second semester of college Spanish our dd had moved far beyond what she had learned in her high school 2nd year Spanish class. In both segments she used the ¡Arriba! series, which included workbooks and online access to a language lab. Now she's in Intermediate Spanish, and she has just learned subjunctive verb tenses. She's getting into difficult grammar, and she spends at least 1.5 hours a day on her Spanish, sometimes more...reading, watching videos and audio labs, writing essays. Her exams--6 per semester--are 90 minutes in length and average 7 pages, 2 of which are "write 3 paragraphs describing where you would travel if you won a trip to anywhere in the world" kind of thing. She uses Vistas, which is the most popular program in colleges today. There have been discussions elsewhere on this board about the quality of instruction using RS and if it merits high school credit. You may want to do a bit more research in this area. Good luck.

:hurray: Happy news! Yeah!

If you compare the narrative/instructional text in TT to MUS, you'll see a huge difference in the number of words used to express a point. MUS gives the absolute bare bones of how, when, and why. TT is written in such a way that seems designed for those kinds of students who like long descriptions? are less intimidated by words? prefer a narrative way of explaining as opposed to a bulleted list of steps. TT would have worked great for me, if I had used it in high school. I was a very word-oriented, artsy type who liked words more than numbers and symbols. IMHO, TT is written as if the writer is speaking beside you. I like this, it makes me feel as if I am not alone and I am being "talked through" the experience. I'm a gabby, chatty type (notice my posts!). But my dd is not like this at all. She's the type who is constantly saying "get to the point".

Our public high school uses RS for German. My neighbor--a native German speaker--has a child enrolled in the 3rd year German class, which is actually 3.5 years of German, because in the middle of the cycle the school offered an Intro German college credit course for one semester. My neighbor--I just got off the 'phone with her, as I asked on your behalf--says that her child has not learned anything of value while in the German class using RS. She (mother) said that after 3 years and all As she would have expected some improvement, but there has been none. The only positive she can give is that RS reinforces whatever vocab the family has learned on their annual summer trips to Germany. But in terms of grammar (they do use a RS workbook, but it seems ineffective) the mom said she was highly disappointed. In fact, she was so disappointed with her child's lack of progress that she went to the school and looked over the materials, sat down in the language lab and used the program herself. She said it did not detect her voice as being correct (within the "green") although her pronunciation and inflection, as a native speaker, is excellent. In short, she said she would never wish this program on anyone, and when her child goes off to college this fall she will not pay for instruction if the class uses RS, she will put the money towards a foreign exchange semester. BTW, she (mom) did also say that German is a hard language to learn, since the grammatical structure is difficult. She added that the quality of instruction and the teacher's competence is highly important, because of the nuances of the language. As a frame of comparison, my husband took 2 years of German jr/sr years in high school, and both instructors were native speakers. With just those 2 years of German behind him, hubby was fluent enough to travel to Germany after he graduated high school, and he spent 6 weeks working in a hotel there and communicated easily. Of course, this was 30 years ago, when education overall was more rigorous. Hubby says his h/s German class was a lot of work (though nothing like his Latin class) and they were drilled almost daily in class--in his words "they didn't cut us any slack like they do nowadays." Good luck.

I went FROM Teaching Textbooks TO MathUSee, so I have a different point of view. At first, my DD really liked the thoroughness of TT. However, what she grew impatient with was the long (narrative) explanations of how to solve a problem, especially when she understood how to solve the problem about halfway through. I think TT is good for someone who wants to/needs to understand the how and why of math and is--shall I say, comforted?-by a substantial narrative. Or the parent, reading through the lesson and understanding it (from the narrative), THEN teaching it. What we did find worked better with TT was just using the DVDs to learn the material. The TT textbook was referred to only on tricky concepts. We have also used Lial's (and ALEKS, and PLATO, and VideoText, and Kinetic, and...well, the list goes on.) The ONLY thing that has stuck with daughter, 18, is MUS. She still remembers methodology she learned from the Geometry books and the DVDs, which boosted her Geometry scores on the SAT by 40 points. Unfortunately we gave up MUS--at dd's insistence that she skip Alg 1 and Alg 2-- "because I already learned this stuff in public school"--so she went right into College Algebra, which she failed 2x. We have given up on math completely in this household, for the time being....However when dd attempts math again in the future, she is going back to MUS to do over a summer college break.

I don't post on the SN board much because my dd is older (just turned 18) but since she was small we have known she is "different". She is gifted with a very high IQ, but with that comes challenges--ADD, slight Aspergers (for the longest time she wouldn't look people in the eye: I had to train her to do that, and how to make social conversation); sensory issues; and an eating disorder, which has been her way to cope with a world she doesn't always quite understand. Despite all that--or maybe because of?--she has had to work harder than her peers to deal with everyday life. Things that come naturally to us "normals" (if there is truly such a thing) can overwhelm her. She's very inflexible, but that pays off when it comes to driving a car, because she is a safe driver and obeys the law. Ditto for drugs and alcohol; though I know she has tried both, she decided they were not for her and she remains steadfast in her beliefs. DD also has a sense of innocence that allows her to see the beauty and wonder of life around her. When she is disappointed she feels it to the core, and unlike her peers, she can't let it roll off her back and just move on. Yet that makes her a wiser person, and she remembers lessons learned. Academically dd has done okay, but not what you would expect from someone with an IQ in the top 1 % of the population. When things got very bad in ps we had to begin homeschooling dd (11th grade), but she has matured a great deal and has achieved more than she believed she could do, coming from the terrible place she was at 2 years ago. Not only that, but she was accepted at a highly selective college (see my signature) because her patience and hard work has paid off. Best of all, dd has figured out to "center" herself. She knows she is not one of those people who can get by on just a few hours of sleep; she knows she needs a lot more quiet time than most; she knows she needs to exercise, eat well, and take one day at a time, while still planning for the future. She doesn't need to be reminded to take her meds in the morning. She handles all her scheduling, which includes a part-time job, full-time classes at the cc, and a boyfriend. I have been relegated to the role as her emotional support coach and chief cook and bottle washer, which is what I am supposed to be, at this stage in her life.

No, I have not tried WWE. I will look at it (Google>?) and see what the methodology is, maybe they have it for math. About saying the steps aloud: I think that is an excellent idea. That seems to be the only method that works for dd! Since she is going to college I'm hoping she can design an IEP (she is already diagnosed with ADD) which allows her to take exams, etc. verbally.

Catherine, your post heartens me. We have had so many problems with dd, and we can't always separate what is dysfunctional from what is gifted. DD is extremely gifted, over 144 on the WISC-III test, but we never considered that it would affect her learning style as it does. Maybe we parnets need to rethink this. Wapiti, she is also a VSL but again, we never considered how much it affected her learning....to us (and her), it was more like a "oh, so I'm an Aquarius" kind of thing. Hmm. I guess we've been approaching this wrong. Thanks for the input. Now we need to prepare before she goes off to college.

Again, I'm trying to get some idea of where my dd should go to be evaluated (she has ADD and she takes med for that) because this quirk? dysfunction? interferes with some of her academics. My dd has a terrible time following instructions in a sequence. She needs to read/hear the entire activity/concept in full, bits and pieces at a time don't work for her. For example: dd is very clutzy when it comes to dance IF someone explains a dance to her by breaking it down, step by step--"left foot forward, right foot back, pivot left, arms to the side, toe tap". Especially if the instructor is talking AND dancing. But if the instructor just starts doing the routine in one complete motion, my daughter catches on like that (snap of fingers). When she was a little girl she took dance classes and she was always the worst of the students, so she gave up when she was 14. Recently she began dancing again, this time with a professional dance troupe (she dances for money), and while all the other women have to resort to typed sheets of choreography, dd carries the routine in her head, from just watching the choreographer. She is a very accomplished dancer if she doesn't stop to analyze. Ditto for chemistry experiments, biology labs, and math (sigh). She is taking a college level chem class and, as in high school, if she has to stop to refer to directions, or go back and forth between notebook, textbook, lab station, and the lecture, she is horrible at the labs. BUT if she watches a YouTube video before class, and she sees the entire experiment being done in one complete, smooth action, dd performs flawlessly in class. Does anyone have a child dx'd with this type of behavior?

I'm glad mine isn't the only one. Does your son have problems with other areas which require breaking things down into smaller steps? I am posting another topic on this, I think they might be related in some way.... Please keep me informed about your son's eval. As soon as my dd starts college next fall she is going to be tested.

We really want to get to the bottom of this math issue, so the other day dd (18) and I sat down and went over yet another test with over 50% wrong. It was easy, EASY material which she had covered in Pre-Algebra and Algebra 1, as well as Algebra 2, which she has taken twice. Anyway, here is what happened: dd could LOOK at the problem and TELL me the answers, verbally. She could look at my graph and tell me where to place the dots. She could explain how to do every problem, even the most complex equations, some of which she could solve in her head! But as soon as she took up a pencil and paper and started to write everything down, step by step, she messed up. She writes slowly, carefully, and neatly, but it is as if her hand can't keep up with her brain. She says her brain is already done with the problem and has moved on to the next, while her hand is still writing the solution to the previous problem. So the two aren't coordinated. She does take ADD meds to slow her brain down, which helps her with English and her other college classes, but we don't know how to work with the math. She has already attempted College Algebra, and she can explain ALOUD how to solve all the problems and she arrives at the correct answers if she says the steps aloud (sometimes she leaves out steps because her mind has already gone on to the answer), but that doesn't go over well in classes where you have to show each step of your work in written form, or on exams, you have to write those! Thus, she had to withdraw from the class (this was before we discovered this LD). Any suggestions?

My dd is 18, super bright, has ADD and is a slight Aspie, among other things... Anyway, her WISC-III score was 144 in Math and 141 in Verbal (English) So you can imagine why, starting since middle school, we have been so concerned with her terrible math grades compared to great English scores. [she scored 750+ on her Verbal SAT areas while only a lowly 540 in math]. We have always thought she was careless with her math work, but come to find out, through homeschooling, I learned she has an LD (that's another post). In ps her strongest area was Algebra (B) and Geometry was weakest ©. Last fall we did a massive review with her using a variety of sources. You can imagine how amazed we were when she retook her SATs this past December and scored perfectly in Geometry. I attribute this to MUS. We used MUS for review from grades 1-Geometry. Sadly, we skipped MUS Alg 1 and 2 because we tried another resource. I wish we had continued using MUS. Good luck.

Although 18 and really intelligent, my dd has an LD (we are just figuring it out) in math. Although she understands concepts and can arrive at the answers with lightening speed, she has issues. One is distraction within the textbook (i.e. politically correct photos, blurbs about current events ["last year, there were over 320 hours of cartoons shown on television every week. If Alejandro and Lashawndra watched..."] and busy fonts in different colors. Anyway, we were doing a math review from grades 1 through 11, and we used MUS in MOST areas. The proof was in the pudding: when my dd went to take her SATs a second time, she scored highest in Geometry (which had always been her worst area!) and I attribute this to her review using MUS. She also scored very high in Probability and Statistics, which, again, we focused on using MUS. She had used other sources for Algebra, etc. and did not do nearly so well. The other thing is, dd is very finicky about who is teaching math and how they teach it. She could tolerate Mr. Demme, while she could not bear any other instructors on video. Also, something to consider--after you are done with the MUS materials you can re-sell them for a decent price.