Singapore: Extra Practice or Intensive Practice workbooks?

[Mamabyrd]

What is the difference between the Extra Practice books and the Intensive Practice supplementary books? Which do you prefer and why? Thanks.

[StacyWithFourRugrats]

Extra Practice is just more of the workbook problems. Intensive Practice is more advanced problems on each topic.

 

Personally, we prefer the Intensive Practice. My 8yo ds though is advanced in math and is working on 4A. He has started to hit some walls (finally!) and I will probably start having him do more workbook problems as opposed to IP (once he can do the workbook problems without "fuss" I will have him do the harder IP problems).

 

Basically, it depends on the child. I suggest IP for the more advanced student and the workbook for most others. Also, some children find the workbook "boring", so you may want to take that into account. If SM is going to be your math curriculum for years, try out both on this level and see which your child prefers. :)

[Myrtle]

What is the difference between the Extra Practice books and the Intensive Practice supplementary books? Which do you prefer and why? Thanks.

 

I have rarely used my Extra Practice books. They only offer a single exercise on a topic and if real remediation is needed this simply isn't enough. All topics are given the same emphasis and this doesn't reflect the fact that some things, such as long division, simply require more practice sheets than others.

 

Intensive Practice offers more practice problems for those that need remediation, more word problems, as well as more challenging problems and stumpers for kids who need more of a challenge.

 

When my youngest needed "extra practice" on basic facts, say in the form of drill, I went outside Singapore (Saxon, Rod n Staff, Christian Liberty Press, Flashmaster) for it. The handful of extra sheets in the Extra Practice book were not even close to the kind of work she needed to do to catch on.

 

The most common thing that my kids needed extra practice on were two step word problems and for that I rely on the challenging word problem books more so than the Extra Practice or even the Intensive Practice.

[nmoira]

For most topics, DD uses IP in lieu of the workbooks because the workbooks don't provide enough challenge.

[Elisabeth in IL]

I have the Extra Practice books not the Intensive Practice. I don't have the boys use the text book questions at all. They do the workbook and the extra practice. If they need extra work, I then have them do the textbook questions and reviews. For my boys it is easier to have books that they can write in verses using paper. I hope all that makes sense.

[karensk]

For PM-1 through 3, I use both, most of the time. The exercises in Extra Practice are pretty much the same format as the ones in the PM Workbooks, just less volume of work per topic compared to that in the PM Workbook. I assign nearly all of the corresponding exercises in EP. I usually assign anywhere from 60% to 80% of the Intensive Practice exercises for the particular topic, leaving the rest for us to come back to later (as review). It seems like about 30-40% of the IP problems are at around the same level of difficulty as the PM-WB & TB, but ~50% or more seem to be at a more challenging level than the PM-WB & TB.

 

For PM-4 through 5A (the highest level for us so far), I only assign work from EP if ds needs extra problems of the same level of difficulty as ones in the WB (i.e., he's made too many mistakes in the WB exercises). We do all of the corresponding exercises in IP except for the "Take the Challenge" sections at the end of each unit, saving those for a later semester.

 

Also, the IP series includes a Word Problems section for nearly every topic/unit (e.g., not for Graphs or Geometry units). EP has some word problems, but here they're fewer in number, simpler, and available for fewer topics.

 

If I could only use one, it would be IP.

 

HTH!