We started our first class with TPS (Algebra 1) and I’m disappointed for a number of reasons. The classes are too long (90 mins/twice a week) and not much is covered, so it feels like a lot of wasted time. The teaching seems shallow. Perhaps it’s just the review but I don’t like the instructor’s explanations (encouraging simply using the algorithm instead of mentally doing it in steps, etc.). Anyone have ideas on what we could do instead? I feel like I’ve explored every option and this was supposed to be *we finally found it*. What we are looking for— a conceptual, engaging Algebra course that student can do independently, preferably with online teaching component where he can ask questions with an outside instructor rather than myself. I love math and can help but relationally he prefers me to not be the main teacher for math at this point. I wish my son was open to AoPS, as my oldest daughter has thrived with it, but unfortunately he thinks he hates it. I’m at a loss to find a suitable replacement.

If your child has taken a math class with TPS, I'd love to hear about your experience. Any particular teachers your child enjoyed-- or didn't? They recently switched to using the Elayn Martin-Gay High School Series, which I'm unfamiliar with, but it sounds to be conceptual and rigorous. Any thoughts about that?

Possibly from SM Challenging Word Problems, or an old AMC test? There are a few that I enjoyed so much and recall distinctly-- anyone else remember solving Cheryl's birthday?-- and I was wondering if anyone has a fun one they'd like to share. It doesn't have to be the most difficult, just one you enjoyed.

She actually tests quite high in vocabulary (likely because of all the great literature), but she does have an official 504 plan and all state tests are read aloud to her. She tests way above grade level in reading comprehension, too. The words she's not understanding in Barton are just not ones she hears-- midriff? Snippy? I don't think these will come up in a vocabulary program anyway :-). Has anyone successfully used AAR with a severe dyslexic, after some initial work in Barton? Before, when we tried it and it moved too fast, it wasn't the phonograms that she struggled with, it was the word lists. She could successfully sound out words all day long... but that was just it. It never moved beyond sounding things out. So to work on a word list every lesson until it was "memorized" was not going to happen. It felt pointless to continue moving forward with the assumption that she'd "mastered" a set of words that she hadn't. BUT, perhaps now I could look at it really differently, and if she doesn't get the word lists just throw them out completely. I have the advantage of a charter school that will provide any of the programs for me to try out... so I'm not down anything to explore another option. i DO want to use what is absolutely best for her in the long run, and if that's Barton, well okay. But I'm just curious to hear other voices and see if I haven't overlooked another option. It is helpful to hear from someone with a child with either severe or profound dyslexia, though, since I know it's uniquely challenging.

We're going to order these right away. Thanks ladies!

We tried AAR early on, before we had an official diagnosis, and it moved WAY too fast for her. But perhaps now that she's worked through the early Barton levels, she could jump in easier? Anyone have experience with this?

I just want to say THANK YOU for this response. I am hoping to find an alternative to Barton, but there is so much wisdom here to glean from no matter what program we're using. And until we do find something else, I want to stay positive and enthusiastic, as difficult as it is.

Well, I got on the forum to post but saw the "Throwing in the Barton Towel" thread first, which I can completely relate to. Friends, we literally hate this program. Every single sentence and story is so very contrived and ridiculous. Here are some recent examples: "When I put on my new silk dress, Jenny was a critic. She said, "The fabric is a bit shoddy. I expect it would be spiffy if you were not so skinny." "Once, when Henry did a fancy step, he got a kink in his biceps. When the tempo got frantic, Henry got frisky." "The snippy gals regret their gossip on campus about Patty and Tony." Imagine this day after day for years... It literally breaks my heart! Throughout every lesson, my daughter asks, "What's 'iffy'? What does 'snippy' mean? What is a 'fat midriff'?" I can just see her mind shutting down more and more every day... it's like she's forming the mental habit, "I won't understand anything I read. Just decode and sound things out, even if they make no sense. Just disengage and go through the mechanics." We follow CM educational practices, so everything else we do is LIVING, and I've seen that go so far for all of my children, including this one. Children learn with joy when their work is infused with ideas and meaning. This same daughter (9, severe dyslexic, working in Barton Level 4) is loving unabridged Pilgrim's Progress and Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, for example. She listens and can narrate back with detail and passion. She has a wide variety of interests, loves to learn, and has an incredibly cooperative/positive attitude. Is there another program that isn't so... dead? Is there anything that can compare to Barton sequentially, but that's actually written with quality of ideas in mind? I can hardly take it anymore.

Wow, so many helpful replies! Thank you ladies! I haven’t been on these forums in a while— and I miss this communal knowledge. What a gift!

Well, we’re hitting some MAJOR walls in Singapore 3. Multi digit multiplication— she can do it with manipulatives but then she thinks she’s figuring out short cuts and throws zeros all over the place... Where would you go from here? My first thought was to scrap it and play multiplication games with c rods, which we’ve done for the last 2 months. We came back to the book and bam. Wall again. I know she’s really discouraged... she always thought math was “so easy†which has been such a gift to her confidence because she is SEVERELY dyslexic and struggling to push through Barton 4 right now. Help?

She's 12, 7th grade and finishing up AoPS Pre-A. She LOVES it and does well, but this girl is also my liberal arts lover/reader/writer/painter/baker extraordinaire. She rides horses and spends lots of time collecting wild flowers and basically operates at a SLOW pace :-). She started Pre-A halfway through 6th and it'll be about 18 months from start to finish, but we did move cross country in the middle of that. So here's my dilemma-- she can work at a faster pace, yes, but I really don't want her devoting hours a day to math. Honestly one hour, five days a week, is all I want, for 8th at least. She's got so many other talents and gifts and I want her to continue to have time to pursue life in the fullest degree. But now I'm worried about not getting through enough math. She's definitely college bound and more than capable of getting through Calc at least (in a standard curriculum) and I'm really tempted to just give her something easier so it takes less time. But she is begging to continue AoPS. She really, really loves it. (Now, she may love something else too, since she's pretty easy going about school work.) Is it possible to make this work with AoPS? If we somehow complete Intro Algebra in a year, should we skip counting and probability and jump to Geometry for 9th, Int. Algebra for 10th, Pre Calc in 11, and Calc in 12? How much time would you say your student gave to AoPS if they completed this sequence? Or, should we jump to an easier curriculum and supplement with AoPS alcumus or problem solving books?

Not answering your original question, but my son (who hates the physical part of writing and is not strong at typing yet) uses speech-to-text technology to "write" his assignments. He does have to go back in and edit, but it allows him to really tell his entire story, without getting stunted in word count because his hands are tired.

You always deliver... thank you all! I'm giddy about several of these.

Singapore, with you actually teaching a short 5 minute lesson every day. He'll get through the independent work in no time and really understand why he's doing what he's doing.

What's the most engaging grammar book you've ever seen? Is there a grammar book written conversationally, with humor and maybe even passion? A grammar book that made you as the teacher want to keep reading? Does it exist?

He's definitely a math brain but not ready for AOPS Pre-A, because he doesn't work independently yet and I don't have the time to hold his hand through it all. We've loved SM for him in part because he can keep moving forward conceptually without much work ethic :lol: Should I just move into SM 6? Or does anyone have any fun suggestions? He's a little bored with math as it is, and I would love to liven things up. I do love teaching math and I'm wanting to explore some alongside him, but with an older sister in AOPS Intro to Algebra and a younger in RightStart D, I need something that is somewhat self-guided. What I really need is a program that will challenge him, hold his interest, and lead him in working more independently. And MM is out, because it's way too much writing/repetition for him. Help???

Probably not the type of reason you're looking for, but my son hated the comic style... He's always hated cartoons and things that aren't realistic and just couldn't get over it to enjoy the math side. He said it was "babyish." Also, we had already been won over by Singapore...

Can I ask how you are handling grades/credits? We are in California as well. Do you file as a private school? If you come up with your own credits/grades for the math courses, do you other assessments to figure those? I guess I don't know if pushing for the online class where they may have to go faster and earn a B is a the best route, or if a better option would be to stick with AoPS on our own, go slower and "score" higher. Does AoPS have a typical grading scale, or is it similar to Singapore where different percentages match up to grades? We've never done any "grading" with it, but my Pre-A now has an 85% accuracy on Alcumus... Would she earn a standard B?

We are looking at Pre-A 1 and Intro to Algebra 1 for spring semester. What have your kids enjoyed about the social aspect? If you aren't taking it for HS credit does that change the grading process? We had considered using Algebra for credit because our homeschool charter is being weird about it...

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think the intro games and play are mostly just to learn naturally the values, patterns, etc. and to form a positive association with using them :-). It certainly doesn't hurt to give some extra time just getting acquainted with them and making connections on her own. However, I'm not sure it's necessary. We never did the intro videos fully and have used the rods/videos successfully through lots of different topics.

Would love to hear about your experience. We are loving AOPS but kiddos are nervous about the schedule/format/"pressure" of enrolling online. Edited to take out irrelevant rambling...

We consider formal grammar year after year a complete waste of precious time. We don't teach formal grammar until 7th grade. My 12 yo who has had little/no formal grammar recently went through some ACT test Prep and aced almost every grammar question... She's read LOTS of classic literature and picked up most of it naturally or through casual explanation.

I've purchased a few Boomerang and Arrow issues, and I especially like the hand holding for grammar/mechanics through copywork and dictation. I can easily find interesting passages, but my grammar/mechanics explanations aren't as clear and simple as those in Brave Writer. I would love a resource that lays out all of the grammar concepts, types of sentences to look for, how to teach the grammar concepts from those sentences, and a natural sequence in which to teach them. (For example, SEMICOLON SENTENCE-- this week look for a sentence with a semicolon. Explain to the student that each side of the semicolon must be an independent clause, able to stand on its own as a complete sentence. The two clauses are related and the semi colon takes the place of a coordinating conjunction). I know WJ covers A LOT that we already know, but I'm willing to spend the $ if it has the above. We don't follow the same format as WJ (reading one lit selection a month) as we follow Ambleside schedules. So while an arrow issue may have 4 dictation passages for a 20 chapter book, we would do 1-2 per chapter. That plus the cost makes Arrow/Boomerang a bad fit for us.

Boy or girl? I might change my selections slightly depending, but these are all "don't miss"-- Narnia series A Christmas Carol Princess and the Goblin Where the Red Fern Grows The Bronze Bow Black Beauty Bambi, Life in the Woods Tom Sawyer The Secret Garden Men of Iron

DD seems to be doing fine, and really enjoys it. Occasionally she has a question about a concept, and we go over it together, but she mostly plugs along by herself, including checking her own answers. She gets the majority of the problems correct, and she always gets really excited when she gets a challenge problem. She is using Alcumus, and she's at 85% accuracy there... is this enough? This is the first year that I'm really hand off with her because my younger students REALLY need my time. I'm slightly worried we will get through Pre-A and realize she really didn't understand some of it. Should I be checking in with her more somehow?