Has Anyone used Developmental Math?

[KJsMom]

I am looking for some opinions. My dd is in 3rd grade. She was in public school for K and 1st, we started HSing last year. Our problem is that she has never been strong in math. She memorizes the process long enough to get through a lesson, but doesn't retain anything. Every review is like brand new information. Even the basics, which I thought she had down cold, frustrate her when we come back to them. I am considering starting developmental math at level 2 and working our way back up to where she should be. Any ideas?

[Wee Pip]

Do you think a spiral approach might help? (spiral - old concepts consistently reviewed while new concepts are introduced). Just wondering if using a mastery approach (mastery - not moving forward until concept is mastered fully) might be part of the problem? Or - one phenomenon I frequently encounter with my kids is this scenario:

 

masters addition/subtraction facts

move on to multi-digit adding/subtracting, but suddenly, dd forgets the easy stuff (goes from knowing all facts to not being able to add 1+1)

 

I find that whenever we tackle something new, the old is temporarily forgotten. I've learned to just keep moving forward with the new stuff, while explaining the old as though she's never seen it before (LOL).

 

About Dev Math - it is a mastery approach, so it will focus on that one topic until the end of the book. It won't really get much review in the next book in the series. I like DM a lot, esp for learning how numbers work and understanding the concept while learning the facts. It will not follow a typical school scope/sequence, so if you plan on standardized testing or keeping up with the school, DM may not be a good choice for that. But DM can help with learning facts and the "why's" of math. Some people use DM all the way thru, and then move into pre-algebra or algebra (seems like the unschoolers/relaxed schoolers do this happily). Some people use DM as a supplement to their main math program. This is what I plan to do because we do standardized testing and I worry about not keeping up to some extent. I wish I could throw my cares to the wind and not worry, but past years have proved that I am not able to do that.

[patchfire]

We used it alongside Miquon for several years, up through level twelve or thirteen. I really liked the series - more so than my daughter. ;) If I had been using it as a primary program, I probably would not have just gone in order, though, since some skills would be left rather "late," kwim?

[KJsMom]

Thank you for your help. I wondered how complete it is and how much I might need to supplement. I'm not sure exactly what our difficulty is but I do know that she has no confidence in her math abilities. I hope that DM will help her to understand why she is doing things instead of just doing what the book says today and forgeting it tomorrow. I plan to HS for the long haul and we are in Texas where testing isn't required, so I guess we can take this as slowly as she needs.