RightStart Math users, help me make up my mind

[wy_kid_wrangler04]

I have the order all ready to hit the submit button on Christianbook.com. Please tell me why you love Rightstart and let me know of any and all cons to the program. Thanks

[Snowfall]

Pros:

 

I love how well DD is able to do mental math, and that's definitely due to RS

The games are pretty cool

The alabacus is fantastic

It's different from all the other math curricula I've seen, but in a good way.

 

Cons:

 

The games are very hard to play if you have a baby wanting to steal all the cards and eat them or mess up your stacks, etc.

It does require lots and lots of parent involvement

I don't like the way subtraction isn't covered much until C

 

Overall, I highly recommend at least level B of RS. I have C and the beginning of it does seem somewhat slow, so I can't say yet whether we'll love it, as we're not finished with B yet (we're over 2/3 of the way through). I know DD feels very accomplished with RS, and that means a lot to me.

[wy_kid_wrangler04]

The games are very hard to play if you have a baby wanting to steal all the cards and eat them or mess up your stacks, etc.

 

 

 

:lol:

[prairiegirl]

I am a huge fan of RS. We have done it with my two oldest all the way through to Level D. I didn't use it with my youngest because the games caused panic attacks (hers not mine.)

 

After seeing a few other math curriculums, I think that RS is one of the better ones. I like the variety of the manipulatives and the variety of how they teach the concepts. I like the lack of worksheets until they are older. I like cementing the math facts with card games.

 

The one thing I do not like is the order of their lessons. They seemed to teach a concept with the higher numbers before going on to the lower numbers. So I would teach the lessons out of order because my oldest could not handle adding two digit numbers before she had mastered adding one digit numbers.

 

As far as RS being teacher intensive, I don't think it is any more intensive than other math programs. I am doing BJU with my 8 yr. old and I consider BJU much more teacher intensive than RS. I find BJU much more confusing to teach than RS.

[wy_kid_wrangler04]

The one thing I do not like is the order of their lessons. They seemed to teach a concept with the higher numbers before going on to the lower numbers. So I would teach the lessons out of order because my oldest could not handle adding two digit numbers before she had mastered adding one digit numbers.

 

 

Really? How do they have you teach it like that? I have not heard that before :confused: Does it work to go out of order? Do they have a reason for doing bigger numbers before smaller numbers???

[prairiegirl]

Really? How do they have you teach it like that? I have not heard that before :confused: Does it work to go out of order? Do they have a reason for doing bigger numbers before smaller numbers???

 

I don't have the books here (I gave them to a friend) for me to give you an example. But if memory serves me correctly, they did double digit addition before they had mastered single digit addition and the addition in the teens. I definitely know that I jumped out of order to teach the multiplication facts. If I am wrong about this, I am sure someone will correct me.

 

Some people say that going out of order is the wrong thing to do but we had no problems in doing it this way. We would just do all of the lessons that did addition with the one digit numbers then go on back to where we left off. It wasn't a biggie.

[wormbuy]

We are almost done with A, have less than 10 lessons left.

Cons

I was under the impression that the lessons were meant to be completed in more than one day, but most of them are easily done in 30 minutes. Many of them I found to be longer than we wanted to spend for one day, but not really warranting 2 days of time, if that makes sense. Like maybe 45 minutes, which was pushing it timewise for my DS.

 

I find it somewhat cumbersome to try to lead the child into figuring things out rather then teaching them how to do it outright. And sometimes the question will be, Why? But no answer is given and I dont' really have a good one. (This has only happened a couple of times.)

 

As far as a previous post about teaching larger number addition first....they start out with single digit numbers, then jump to double digits quickly and ignore the teens for a time. We stumbled here, but I spent time with Math Mammoth at that point and came back to RS after a couple of weeks. This worked well for us.

 

All of these cons are really "personal" tho, all depends on the people! You may not find these things a con at all.

 

The positives - I think it works. My child is learning. Love the scarcity of worksheets. But it is the only Math we have tried, so I don't have any comparisons. LOVE the games.

 

I am ordering RSB very soon.

 

The "math names" one-ten-three instead of thirteen, has caused some confusion here when we tried going back to thriteen. Still working on that at times. I see the benefit of the math way of counting, but I am seriously considering skipping all that with my younger child since it has caused so much confusion with my older.

[Mom-ninja.]

Push the submit button. You will not regret it. :001_smile:

 

I love it and my kids love it.

 

Cons: Lack of review but that's easily taken care of.

 

Pros: Too many to list.

 

 

As for the math way to name numbers, my 7 yr old doesn't like to count the math way yet I make him. Why? Because I saw proof that it works. At one point my ds was confused about an addition problem. It wasn't until I told him to remember the math name for a number that I saw the light bulb go off.

Edited February 23, 2011 by Kleine Hexe

[Homemama2]

Pros:

 

I love how well DD is able to do mental math, and that's definitely due to RS

The games are pretty cool

The alabacus is fantastic

It's different from all the other math curricula I've seen, but in a good way.

 

Cons:.

It does require lots and lots of parent involvement

I don't like the way subtraction isn't covered much until C

 

 

 

:iagree:

 

The mental math the kids have learned w/ this program is amazing, IMO. Today, for example my 1st grader was working on adding numbers like 95+59 in his head (level B). He hasn't learned to add these on paper yet, but the way RS walks the kids through the steps, they can do it. For ex: they teach them to add the 95+50 first, then add in the extra 9. I haven't found a perfect math program yet ;), but I think RS is really good.

[kim.4dogs]

I love it, too! I feel like my dd really understands math and can do a lot of it in her head. I'm in RS C with dd7 and I've thought about switching (since lots of people say RS isn't as good in level C and later). I've looked at Singapore, but I just love the way RS explains things. I'm sticking with RS and just adding in the Challenging Word Problems from Singapore. It's working great!

[emilia]

My daughter was interested in math and was the primary reason I decided to dabble in homeschooling. what I like is that she is learning things. I hear her counting to 300 and on a recent car trip she wanted to know what comes after 900 thousand, what come after 900 million, etc.

We play the games and she enjoys them. Today's lesson 42. Ask her to recite even numbers, ask her to recite odd numbers, ask her what is 9 +1, 4+1 etc. Play "Go to the dump". (this game is like go fish but instead of matches you need to have 2 cards with a sum = to 10) This took less than 30 minutes but she loved the card game so much we played several hands.

 

Cons

This is not a work book type program. If your kid likes workbooks they will be disappointed. Lots of parts. If you are not organized you may need to get a system to keep all the manipulatives.

 

HTH

[plain jane]

We love RS here! I wish I had known about it when my oldest was in K/1st. Before you hit the submit order button, have you tried to find it used??

[Satori]

RS fan here! If I ever have any future children, we'll do the same thing - RS A & B. :)

 

I love the way it makes us think of numbers. It makes math lessons interesting for us everyday. We love the games. Love the interaction. The way we use the abacus (both sides now) is amazing, never knew the abacus could do all that.

 

We're in the process of moving to Singapore 1B now that we're winding down with RS B, but I am so happy with the foundation RightStart gave us.

Edited February 23, 2011 by Satori

[Momofeat]

I must say that if you have a child who struggles with math, any math program is teacher-intensive. RS has been much better for us than any other program we've tried, because my math-challenged dd is able to do it.

[wy_kid_wrangler04]

We love RS here! I wish I had known about it when my oldest was in K/1st. Before you hit the submit order button, have you tried to find it used??

 

 

I have been looking. No luck. I think that might be part of my hesitation, its very expensive and if it doesnt work then I'm out $100

 

 

Anybody want to sell level A? ;)

[Amie]

I just wanted to add that even if you try RS and it ends up being a flop for you, it seems to maintain great resale value. You should be able to sell it easily without taking too big of a financial hit.

[jer2911mom]

I really like RS A. My dd loves the games and they are really teaching her how to break numbers into parts without me having to use flash card drills or something like that. I really like the use of the abacus. I didn't even know how to use one before we started, and I see the value in it now. RS is the only program I've seen that uses it so heavily.

 

My cons are that the lessons are too long for one sitting but too short for two, so we tend to press on but it makes for a long math lesson, like a previous poster mentioned. There are also some errors in the book that aren't listed on the errata. RS has been very good to clarify when I ask about them. They call me directly and very quickly after I email. The layout of the manual could probably be improved as well to make it easier to scan quickly. I think that would cut out some of the time of the lesson if it were easier to read exactly what needs to be done. Sometimes I have to read something several times to get all the steps, especially in the games. It's in paragraph form and bullets or something like that would help.

 

I'm also using Singapore, Saxon, and Shiller, and I like RightStart the best so far. Having said that, I only plan to use it through B because it is so teacher-intensive and the reviews aren't as good for the levels after that.

 

Kathy

[Kirch]

:iagree:

 

The mental math the kids have learned w/ this program is amazing, IMO. Today, for example my 1st grader was working on adding numbers like 95+59 in his head (level B). He hasn't learned to add these on paper yet, but the way RS walks the kids through the steps, they can do it. For ex: they teach them to add the 95+50 first, then add in the extra 9. I haven't found a perfect math program yet ;), but I think RS is really good.

 

:iagree: This is my main reason as well. The RS approach has helped ds begin to really understand how numbers work. Addition and subtraction are easy because he understands that the "whole" is made up of "parts," and you can manipulate them for various problems (i.e., the parts added together = the whole, the whole minus one part is the other part AND vice versa, etc.). I love the conceptual understanding.

 

The only con I've found is a lack of review. I actually sat down at the computer just now to write up some subtraction word problems since I think he needs more practice. Instead, I'm here . . .

[grace'smom]

I think if you wait a couple weeks some of the A's will become available. We only have ten lessons left of level A and I'm sure there are lots of people that started at the same time (September) who are probably finishing up about now as well.

 

The only bad thing about getting the text/workbooks used is that you still have to buy the manipulatives, and that's the most expensive park. If you buy a package from Homeschool Buyers Co op you can get free shipping- so remember that too. I just bought our B package from them to use the free shipping discount.

[grace'smom]

Oh, and we love Righstart too. The pros are that my daughter seems to understand it. The cons- it does take a little while, but it's a fun time anyway. I also sometimes get an anxious feeling that perhaps she's not learning as much as I think because there's no workbook that says "well, she's done 3/4 of the workbook and usually got 80% right so I think she knows it..." Nope, you just have to go with your gut and hope you know enough to evaluate progress well. So that's been a con for me as a parent, but I not enough to stop me from loving the program.

 

The other con is my daughter doesn't particularly enjoy using the abacus, so that throws a kink into things sometimes. She also doesn't "get" the abacus as intuitively as she gets other things like rods or base ten blocks.

As for my daughter's opinion... The other day we had to take a break from it because she's floundering at the "teens" lesson so I gave her some math mammoth and said that was all we were doing that day for math. She was mad and pointed to the rightstart manual and said "I want to do that math!" Even though the day before she seemed like the lesson was overwhelming her brain and she really needed a break, the thought of not having her Rightstart math was upsetting for her.

[Crimson Wife]

I :001_wub: RS for the primary grades but don't care so much for the higher levels (C-E). Singapore is much easier to up the challenge level for a bright child, which is why I switched my oldest after she finished RS C. It's a solid program, however, and I would not hesitate to take a child through E if it was working for him/her.

 

My 2nd is currently using MEP as his "spine" but I incorporate some of the RS methods into that program. I tried starting RS A back in August but he simply wasn't ready at that point, so I shelved it and did MEP Reception. He loved MEP so much that we continued on to Yr. 1 but I've heard that really ramps up in difficulty mid-level. So I'm anticipating that at some point we'll shelve MEP and give RS A another try.