Singapore Math Question?

[Baseballmom]

My 8 year old son just took the Singapore Math Placement Test. He only scored a 70% on 3B, but once I explained the concepts to him, he understood them, and did them right the second time. He did many of the problems in his head. He is very bright in math, but I am not sure if we should go ahead and do 3B or skip it. What would you do? He loved the placement test so much he begged me to do it again the next morning. Also does anyone only use Singapore, or do most of you use it only as a supplement. He is working through Abeka 4th grade math right now, and has previously finished Math U See Gamma and Delta.

Thank You,

[Laura Corin]

Do the level you tested into, perhaps just using the text book, then if it's going smoothly move on through quickly to where you think you should be.

 

We use Singapore exclusively, supplementing with extra Singapore books (Challenging Word Problems)

 

Best wishes

 

Laura

[Debra in CO]

I'm with Laura. I'd go ahead and start with 3B. I'd also consider just doing the textbook. I think when coming into Singapore in the middle somewhere it is nice to start somewhat easy.

 

An 8 year old certainly is not behind if he is working in 3B - and you probably won't need to spend an entire half-year on it.

 

My oldest used Singapore as his primary math program all the way through from Earlybird through 6B. We did supplement that, but only because he was working through the material too quickly... the way it was, he still finished up by the beginning of 5th grade. Singapore makes a very solid stand-alone curriculum though. In retrospect, I wish I had supplemented a bit less, but this particular child did need me to supplement some.

[Myrtle]

One option is to quick-review the concepts by using "Federal Test Papers."

 

Many of the questions are higher-level than what you see in the text, there are plenty of word problems to begin practicing those bar-diagrams, and it only takes about two weeks to go through one. The Test Papers are what they sound like: tests on the different topics at each grade level including mid-term and finals. Since he's already familiar with much of the material you could choose those topics which you think he might need to polish.

[profmom]

We've used SM from the beginning (currently in 5B), but you could also ask Jenny, the moderator at http://www.singaporemath.com, to help with placement. I think it's 3B (or 3A?) where the bar diagrams are introduced for word problems, and you don't want to miss these.

[claire up north]

I would start him in the 3B book where he tested. One of my sons does 5th grade A Beka and 4A&B in Singapore. I got the idea of working a series behind the grade level on this board. It has worked well for us, especially since I view Singapore as a way to teach my ds to think of math problems in a new way. It is a stretching exercise for him. For ex., in A Beka he learns how to add 298+541. In Singapore, they ask him to do it in his head by changing the 298 to 300 and then subtracting 2 from the answer. The Singapore books show the many ways you can approach a problem.

[Baseballmom]

Thank you for taking the time to help me out. I suspected we should start in the level he tested into, but just wanted to make sure. My son seems to already think the way singapore teaches, so I think it will be a good match.