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Rod and Staff Math-why do you love it?


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I did not realize this is a mastery program. I prefer mastery to spiral as we have gone the Saxon route with many tears. Now we use MUS and Singapore together and it seems to help, but it would be nice to do only one program.

What are the pros and cons of R&S. I'm thinking of it for fifth and second grade. I know there are no placement tests....

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I've used R&S with my son since 1st grade. He's now in the 6th grade book. I love that it is a mastery program with lots of review. I feel that it moves at a developmentally appropriate rate for him. He is a very concrete thinker and needs to learn the "hows" before the "whys". I had started him out in Rightstart math and it was just a disaster for him.

 

He recently had an educational evaluation and scored in the 94th percentile in computation, which was equivalent to 12th grade level. I have a friend whose son is really advanced in math and she recently commented to me how quick my son is with calculations. She noticed that when she was watching the boys playing a game. That is one of the real strengths of R&S.

 

After all these years of R&S, my son really knows his arithmetic and I have just recently started to cut back on R&S to 3 days a week and then he does CLE on the other days. CLE is a break for him, but it also is teaching him concepts R&S does not cover in the middle school years (geometry and algebra concepts). CLE would never have had enough practice for him in the early years, but it's going great for him now in combination with R&S.

 

Anyway, I'm not sure I'd use R&S with a child who picks up math quickly and easily since there is so much repetition and practice in it. The biggest drawback with R&S for me was that the workbooks end in 3rd grade. That led to me having him write in the book and then finally making my own worksheets for him since he has trouble with writing.

 

Overall, I am very pleased with the results we have had.

 

Lisa

Edited by LisaTheresa
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