Changing Math - Frustrating

[SailorMom]

Ok - so Life of Fred worked swimmingly for my older DS who is now in 8th grade. My younger DS loved the first two books as well, up until chapter 25 in the second book. And here we have been stuck. He cannot seem to understand the concepts at this point :(

So - as sad as it makes both of us - we are abandoning LoF. We're going to miss that little guy.

DS is dyslexic, dyscalculic, and dysgraphic - so I suppose I should have seen the potential issues :tongue_smilie:

I just ordered Saxon 8/7. We've never used Saxon, but according to my MiL (who was a teacher and used Saxon at school) it should work well.

 

Anyone else here with children with 'dys' issues use Saxon with success?

[NCW]

My oldest liked LoF until she got to higher levels and felt it was really sexist. Didn't ever plan to use it with ds due to all the reading. This year we are using Thinkwell's 7th grade, so that he has lectures online. In early years, we did RightStart through Level E. Singapore didn't have enough explanation for dd for middle school after RS E.

 

We have never tried Saxon. I hope it works for you!

 

NCW

[SailorMom]

Yeah - Singapore just didn't look like it would work, and I needed something rather plain.

I hadn't even thought of Thinkwell.....

[Guest Cheryl in SoCal]

Saxon was a major bomb at our house, though I used it with my children who don't have special needs. Saxon's teaching method is incremental spiral. It gives the student little bits of different concepts each day and then puts them into review. My boys were exceedingly frustrated by this. To them it was like giving them all the pieces to build a house but not giving them the directions. One son could memorize all the steps and got 100's on almost everything but had no clue what he was doing. The other floundered terribly because he was never able to learn anything and couldn't memorize like his brother. It was an absolute nightmare. Saxon has lots of work (it's the inspiration for the term "drill and kill") so I'm thinking it wouldn't be a good choice for a child with dyslexia, dyscalculia, and dysgraphia but I'm not an expert.

 

Do you have access to someone who specializes in the kind of learning issues your son has that could at least give you a general idea what things to look for in a math program?

 

On another note, I see you are another TRISMS family. We LOVE it:001_smile: Last year we did DAW and this year we're doing DAW and EOC.

Edited September 3, 2010 by Cheryl in SoCal

[Renee in NC]

My ds hated Saxon, but tolerates Rod and Staff fairly well. We have also used Kumon workbooks with some success, but it sounds like you are past that point (I think they stop at Decimals/Fractions.)

[SailorMom]

Uh oh - now I'm worried about Saxon! Even if it doesn't work - I only spent $20 on the whole package......

 

MUS was recommended - and he did great on that until he finished Epsilon. Zeta did NOT work for us, so we switched. That worked ok last year, but we hit a wall with it....

 

He has an appt with a developmental ped psychologist - but not until Dec 29th. The evals he had in the past through the PS were basically a waste of time :glare:

 

As for Trisms - we LOVE it! Alex is only in 7th - so the language assignments have been a bit tough - but otherwise we are both enjoying it. History Makers was a real success last year.:D

[Guest Cheryl in SoCal]

Uh oh - now I'm worried about Saxon! Even if it doesn't work - I only spent $20 on the whole package......

 

MUS was recommended - and he did great on that until he finished Epsilon. Zeta did NOT work for us, so we switched. That worked ok last year, but we hit a wall with it....

 

He has an appt with a developmental ped psychologist - but not until Dec 29th. The evals he had in the past through the PS were basically a waste of time :glare:

 

As for Trisms - we LOVE it! Alex is only in 7th - so the language assignments have been a bit tough - but otherwise we are both enjoying it. History Makers was a real success last year.:D

 

There is no harm in giving it a try, especially since you got it so inexpensively. Just don't torture him with it for as long as I did my children if it doesn't work:blush: If it doesn't work it would give your developmental ped psychologist more insight into what doesn't work for him.

 

What was it about Zeta that didn't work for him? I think trying to figure out what it is about curricula that makes it not work for him will be helpful in finding/ruling out additional curricula. I was going to suggest MUS or something else with a video because of the dyslexia. Could it have been a maturity issue or was he able work similar concepts in other curricula?

 

We haven't really done History Makers. I've mainly used the high school volumes. I have HM but didn't have time to use it between with our older kids during Jr High because we adopted twice and one child needed several surgeries for cleft lip/palate. We had to go minimalist during those years:001_huh::lol:

[SailorMom]

Oddly - one math curriculum will work fine - he'll really "get" it. but then - at some point, the way it is explained just doesn't make sense to him anymore. Even with Mr. Demme and his DVD's, and manipulatives, etc - he just didn't get it.

LoF worked great untl CH 25 of D&P. Then he just no longer understood the way it was being taught.

I really am not sure exactly what he isn't getting, though. Oddly, he will seem to understand it in the lessons - but then cannot pass the tests....:tongue_smilie:

I'm hoping maybe he just needs more practice and a more straight forward approach. MUS did have some strange ways of doing things (at times i had no idea what they were doing and just had to show him my way), and LoF was, well, very wordy I guess.....

I have Saxon in my hands now. I do really like the B & W text (which was something I liked about MUS), and the explainations look very concrete.

Crossing my fingers for Tuesday when we will start using it.

[siloam]

It really depends on the kid. My dh was the sort who had to know the why, and he did horrible with math in PS because it doesn't explain why. On the other hand I just loved to play with numbers, and still do a lot of Sudoku. I could care less about why as long as I got my number play. I would just memorize the formula, use it and move on. I did fine with Saxon in PS.

 

Though for my dyscalculic I am giving Kinetic books a try. She is a hands on/auditory learner though. I can't tell you how many times she just didn't get a problem and once I read it out loud she already had the answer in her head. I was looking for something that had an audio component and also would deal with some of her other short failings, like guessing at the right way to do things instead of asking. With Kinetic books it doesn't let you move ahead unless you get the answer right.

 

Heather

[SailorMom]

I haven't even heard of Kinetic....

(off to google.....)

[Ottakee]

Another option is the Christian Light workbooks. We did 3rd grade level for my 13dd last year and she did very well with it. She could understand it and they had lots of review. You would need the placement test though as they can be quite advanced in some areas.

[HeidiD]

Anyone else here with children with 'dys' issues use Saxon with success?

 

One of my kids with the same issues is happily plowing through Saxon independently. I might try using Saxon with my other dyslexic child now that he's mastered all the basic concepts. I suspect I'll have to be heavily involved in his lessons and supplement it with other things or jump back and forth within the series, though (nothing new there). One of the main drawbacks is the need for so much copying from the textbook. But overall, I think it's a good program for dyslexics at the higher levels (lower levels not so efficient).