Then it would seem like your daughter doesn't know how to approach word problems. Unless you can stop her and teach her, then giving her more word problems will not help. It's like a child who doesn't know how to do long-division, being given a few long division problems each day to work on. Giving her more work that she has demonstrated that she doesn't know how to do, will only guarantee that she has MORE opportunities to get them wrong. The way that I teach kids, the first steps to solving a word problem is 01) Put your pencil down. 02) READ the entire problem carefully. Once you have read it entirely and carefully. Some kids read without regard to punctuation and it messes with their comprehension, so I make them tap the page each time that they see a punctuation mark as they read, and they double back and read that part according to the punctuation. 03) Read the problem again, to find your Information, Clue, Question (the 3 things every elementary word problem has). 04) Pick up your pencil and UNDERline the question. Read the problem again and OVERline the information. Read the problem again BRACKET your clue. 05) Put the pencil down. 06) Read the QUESTION (it's underlined) 07) Check that your clue and information are relevant to THAT question. 08) Decide what you need to do and tell me, first, so that we can talk about it. If they realize that first I have to add up this, and then I have to multiply that, sometimes I have them draw a line to divide the work space into 2 parts so that they realize/remember that they need to do 2 steps, and the work is seperated and legible 09) Pick up your pencil and set up your calculation(s) needed. 10) Write the units and box your final answer. Practically every student that I've ever taught has benefited from the "1st step: Put DOWN your pencil" rule. Sometimes the speedier a kid is at calculations, the more they want to rush through word problems and the more you have to force them to slow it down a bit. Some kids, more than others, need to be forced to explicitly slow down and actually listen to (read) the problem and think through the information given, the questions asked and how that information relates to the question being asked. Only you will know whether or not your daughter needs to be made to adhere religiously to every step, and for how long, but I find that a few weeks of going through word problems (both with and without numbers) VERY explicitly with students almost always works out the rushing through word problems kink. After those kinks are worked out, SOME kids can be allowed to 'slack off' on some of the steps, by maybe just reading it twice, then marking the ICQ, and setting up the calculations. But almost every student that I have worked with over 1st grade has benefited from a thorough word problem workshop. I also require that my students write out the calculation that they are going to perform, so even if it's 2+2 as a word problem, I want to see 2 + 2 = 4, and I make them fix it if they just write 4.

Does she get the calculations for the question that she thinks is being asked correct?

If you want to get the books for the fall, then that's fine. (Congrats on getting into the Spanish Immersion program!) Spanish phonics are very simple and yes, a child who can not speak, but can listen to and repeat Spanish can learn to read in Spanish correctly. I'm practically monolingual Anglophone, I have tutored Spanish speaking children in Spanish reading, using native materials and gotten good results. Mom, take the time to learn to pronounce Spanish, then get a mirror. and teach her to form her vowels. The 'a' ALWAYS looks this way in our mouths, it ALWAYS sounds this way, it is ALWAYS this sound. The same for 'e' 'i' 'o' and 'u'. In Spanish there are FIVE vowels and FIVE vowel sounds. That is it. None of that 3+ sounds for 'a' that you have in English "father" "cat" "navy", In Espanol, the letter 'a' sounds like "father" and you hear this in "gato" and every other Spanish word with "a" . Always, always, always. After you learn a vowel sound, then you go through the syllabary for that sound. a ba, ca, da, ,fa, ga, ha.... e be, ce, de, fe, ge, he.... The same for i, o, u. Then you begin the reader and follow it through. Spanish phonics are sequenced very typically and logically and I really like the method. Most of the Spanish phonics books I've seen begin with syllables for m, p, n, and d. Children read words and phrases about mama and papa. Because the letters C and G change sound in front of 'e' and 'i', the are sequenced a little later in the book. When we learn Ga, Go, Gu, we learn "gue" and "gui" too because they have the same /G/ sound due to the u "buffering" the G so that it makes its hard sound with the 'e' and 'i'. As watching YouTube videos will show you, the "ll" and "rr" are different than an English speaker/reader would expect. In Spanish "ll" makes a /y/ sound, and "rr" is hard to explain. Say "Betty batters the butter" The "rr" is almost the "tt" sound in those words, but not quite. They will fix her accent in Spanish immersion school, so don't worry about her having an accent in some sounds.

Has she been taught to read in Spanish yet? I would want to go through the syllabary with her to minimize the habit of English accent on the vowels. You can have her watch videos from AprenderaLeer.com to learn the correct way to read. Spanish vowels are constant, unlike English. Early Readers don't translate well, in English those books were written to have easy to decode words in them. So "The dog sits on the log", (6 words, 6 syllables) but in Spanish that'd be El perro se sienta en el tronco, (7 words, 11 syllables) and it just doesn't retain it's "easy to readness" If you want to give her a headstart in reading Spanish, teach her the Spanish syllabary from YouTube and get a Nacho reader (or something similiar) off of Amazon. You can go through it quickly (1-2 months for a child who is already reading in English) and then begin reading other books. You might consider a subscription on ReadingAZ.com, as they have many books available in English and Spanish, many of the "easy to read" books in English are "easy to understand" in Spanish. She can get a preview of and begin to pick up on the grammar of Spanish, such as adjectives coming after the nouns. Eng: A red car. Spn: Un coche rojo

Since he is interested in learning to read and asking you, I would begin to teach him. I use, love and highly recommend The Reading Lesson. and you can sample the first 3 chapters of the book on the authors website. They sell other products, but I only have The Reading Lesson and it's usually enough to get a child up and reading. I also like to use the Sight Words By Sound chart, but whether or not I'll use those Sight Words by Sound and how I use it varies by child. I can give you tons of ideas about that if you like. Begin Buddy Reading with him everyday once he completes the first 5 chapters of TRL (or before, if he's eager) and get an older set of 1st grade reading anthologies such as Reading by Houghton Mifflin or Journeys. Make time to read each day and just go at whatever pace he goes at. Get nonfiction readers according to his interest from the library and read those with him to build his knowledge base. Continue to read to him from books that are above his level, but that interest him. So read to him about robots and machines and such. As for math, I wouldn't press it too hard, but to get him started I would get some counters and play counting games with him. If he shows a strong interest in math, then I would begin to teach him math more consistently, but he's got an interest in reading already so I would indulge that fully.

It's about 70.00USD but I can't figure out if it ships internationally and I'm in the US. Does that website I linked offer international shipping and if so, can you link me to the page? Also, does the video speak to the contents of the CD? I see in the product description that exercise pages are included on the CD rom, but is that all that is on the disk?

I'm very interested in this French langauge reading/phonics program that I found on line Créamots : Les amis de l'île - Méthode pour lire, parler, orthographier Demo video: There is nothing on Amazon.fr, but I think that I found it on this French website and this is the product description My English and Spanish background have me interpretting the first sentence, in bold, as "this Program covers for children in the situation of learning or having difficulties in reading and oral expression from age 5 and up." Is this a program for struggling readers or is this a typical French reading program? I would like to know your impression of this program based on the video. How does it compare to other Native French reading programs in your experience?

It seems that you're overwhelming him with all that independence. If he wants to practice at 5AM fine, but he must make a recording of him doing it. Perhaps tell him has to take a screenshot of his XtraMath progress at the end of each section and save all of the files in a folder on the computer desktop. This will give you the date that he did it because it'll be on the screenshot. If you can not monitor him during, then I would just make it a habit to sit down at before/after/during lunch and check his work. Anything that is not done needs to be done. Most people, regardless of age, need someone to hold them accountable for unpleasant, but neccesary tasks and its okay. Give him the support he needs in this regard.

I'm hoping to hear from someone who has used or at least owns the various books for a single grade and has been able to compare them to one another. I need help deciding on which books to purchase. Can you tell me how the IP compares to the WB and/or EP in terms of practice problems and scaffolding/teaching/guidance? About how many problems are in an IP book? I know that I read CWP has few problems because they leave white space in the book for students to perform the calculations and do the work.

In your case, passion. Hands down. I would NEVER cut into the time that an elementary aged student devotes to growing skilled in an area of their passion. I vote let him do 3Rs as you see fit for your family culture and mode of education do what you can to encourage, nurture and develop his musical passions for a few more years. What is a 7yo really going to get out of forced science and history lessons at this point? I'm assuming that your time is at a premium. How is his reading? Maybe you should get some elementary school textbooks on content subjects and let his "reading time" consist of reading and discussing those chapters with you, that way he's covering reading and content in the same amount of time. If he's not reading independently/fluently yet, then keep it simple and just continue to work on his reading and once he's able to read well then use elementary level textbooks for content and choose nonfiction from the library when you deem him to need assigned reading.

Those Bob Books for the Alphabet are horribly disappointing. They took advantage of the Bob Books reputation to peddle semi-useful materials :/ They are essentially very boring ABC booklets. I don't know if the PreREading series is any better, but I was so disappointed with the ABC Bob Books that I figure it's worth throwing in a precautionary tale. I'm sorry that I spent money on them and I got them used for pennies on the dollar. That's what I thought! I loved the Bob Books and have 2 sets of the early readers, but I don't know if I can trust their non-phonetic Reader books because The ABC Bob Books are horrible! They are very boring and not even as useful as the average ABC books that you'd get from the library or dollar store.

Thought experiment. If we, as a society, were to do a year or two of "formal lessons" on anything not the 3Rs, which topics, content knowledge or skills would you want to see given the spot light for a 4-6 year old childs pre-Academic education? The assumption is that these are developmentally appropriate and geared towards meeting the child where they are at and the lessons are meant to systematically increase a childs skill/knowledge in those areas. There isn't a punishment or stigma if the child doesn't show marked improvement at the end, but the purpose/goal is to give the child some foundational skills or content knowledge. Similarly, if you were to focus or center the HS education of your 4-6 year olds on something non-Academic, then what would you, in an ideal world, pick?

Do you live near a used book store? You can look for a set of Public School reading anthologies for 1st-2nd grade with a variety of stories in them. I liked Houghton Mifflins Reading, Scott Foremans Reading Street and SRA Open Courts Reading also. They have trade books compiled into graded volumns and if you get them used.

I need to know how to pronounce the Latin origin of tutor, "tueri". Tueri Is it /too/-/eh/-/ree/? I do not care which pronunciation, I just need to know how to say this word in some acceptable form of Latin for a presentation. Thanks.

You could tear out the pages and put them in a folder by topic/skill or stable them to make "on the go" packets or summer review packets.

Read an episodic mystery, or choose your own adventure book. Work on a model together Listen to a cd lecture, book or music Learn to Dance from YouTube videos

Here is a helpful, purchase enabling link. That is all.

I say suck it up. He's in the 1st grade (5-7yo) and with RS, he understands and loves math, he is thriving and wants to continue what he's using and loving, even though he HAS access to Beast Academy. He's in the first grade. Math should be parent intensive in the first grade, it's the nature of the first grade beast (no pun intended).

Yes, I know the expression and without looking it up I always understood (assumed :unsure: ?) that dickens was a euphemism/replacement for devil. I just assumed it was because some people are uncomfortable with using the words God, devil, hell, for a variety of reasons and used words like Gosh, dickens and heck to fill in for them in other expressions. Oh my gosh, What the heck Run like the dickens. etc... So....what does it mean?

I think Tanikit got it. The cover isn't quite right when I look online so I am going to get it from the library, but ai think that she got it.

There is a book with a really generic title like The Cat or The Cat Sat, but it is a phonetically controlled chapter book. We got it from our library once and it was one of like 100 books that we got during that time. It had a really generic title but I can not for the life of me, find it again. :( I've checked the library constantly, I've asked librarians, I've looked on Amazon. No luck. I've been trying to find it because I'd like to purchase a copy off of Amazon! I know it's a long shot, but if anyone can help me, it's The Hive The book that I'm looking for, LOOKS like a chapter book. The pages are made of that chapter book paper, not picture book paper and I think that it has a darkish cover, I think it's dark blue/purple/back and has a picture of the cat on the cover. It's around 100 pages I think. It has simple BW illustrations and its about a cat and (a dog). Anyway, it's a beginning reader, it's phonetically controlled and each chapter includes a new phonetic pattern/rule. There is NO teaching in the book, it's a trade book, but it would go so well with a phonics program. It looks like a "big kids" chapter book if it were just sitting on the table you'd think it were for 3rd-5th grade students.

Can you do 1-2 modeling problems a day, but continue with the curriculum otherwise? Since he has a method of modeling them (and assuming that it works everytime) I would keep going in the main book. Maybe do the same problem with both processes side by side, and keep working on the bar models gradually.

I would strongly encourage you to print a set of the Sight Words by Sound put them on index cards and use these words for decoding practice. You'll use columns 2a and 2b with the first 5 chapters of TRL. I'm assuming that your grandson already knows many of the letter sounds since he worked in PP so there is no reason to not start now. You do want him to build quick recognition of those words--they are everywhere but you want him to learn them via decoding/blending, not as whole pictures. Kids who learn them by whole often confuse from and for, to and at, yes and yet etc. and unlearning them, once they've been learned wrong is a brutal process. You can use 1-10 cards a decoding warm up prior to each phonics lesson, then use the cards for games also. I have the older version of Sight Words by Sound and don't like this new version as much, but it's every bit as useful. Those 2 pages are a literacy treasure. Seriously.

The first 3 chapters are available as a sample online and your daughter can print them for free.