When to start RS?

[cseitter]

I was planning on starting RS A with my twins in the fall when they turn 5 but I was reading on the RS website to start them earlier if you could before you really started teaching counting. We are doing MEP reception right and my kids are going through it pretty easily. Would you wait until fall to start RS or go ahead and start now?

[Satori]

I'd vote for starting now.

 

We started at age 4.5 and I only wish we had started with RightStart instead of using other programs even a few months earlier.

[Celia]

I'd start now, but do half a lesson at a time.

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

We just started, and my son just turned 4. He is good at counting objects up to about 20, but this did not seem to have a negative effect on him for switching to the RS method of "seeing" the numbers as a whole. We did stop at about lesson 10 or whenever we got to the number 10 on tally sticks, and spent a week JUSt doing Yellow is the Sun and number identification without counting, and that really helped him break the counting habit.

[Haiku]

I did a few lessons with my dd when she was 5, but we didn't actually do A until she was six. I think that was a good time for her. She's very mathy and picked up the concepts nicely. My ds was five when we went through A and it was more difficult for him. But neither of my kids had any problem with the counting issue.

 

Even though we started RS "late," my dd9 (who just turned 9 less than a month ago) will be moving into MM4A in about two weeks ... so she is definitely not "behind" in math.

 

I vote for starting later. I don't think that RS's placement questionnaire is particularly helpful.

 

Tara

[cholderby]

DS started at age 5.5 and it was WAY.TOO.SLOW. Maybe it was my fault, maybe it was presented in a format that didn't work for him, maybe I should have started with B...

 

If you are sold on RS, then there is certainly no harm in buying it now and doing some trial lessons!

[MeganW]

It becomes obvious quickly if they aren't ready. Buy it now and try it, and put it aside for a few months if it is too challenging.

 

I started A as my youngest turned 4 and my olders were 5.5. My older kids are a little developmentally delayed, and generally fit in perfectly with kids one year younger.

 

Two of the big kids were the perfect age. 10 lessons in, it was obvious that it was too much for one of my 5.5 year olds and the 4 year old.

[boscopup]

I started with my 4 year old (turned 4 in November). We're only 3 lessons in, and supposedly, if it's too much, I think it's supposed to be after about lesson 10 that it becomes noticeably so? We have a while before we get there, as we're doing half a lesson per day, 2-3 days a week.

 

My son can already add some smaller numbers, so I think the first 10 lessons will certainly be doable. We'll see what happens after that. :) If it becomes too much, we'll stop and do something else. The Singapore Essential Math K book A looks totally doable for him (he could probably start book B, but I'll do A anyway).

 

My 6 year old would have been completely bored by RS A if I'd waited that long. He could have easily done RS A at age 4 if I'd known about it (though it would have been a bad fit, as he doesn't need manipulatives THAT much). He's mathy though. He keeps trying to teach my 4 year old multiplication and adding/subtracting negative numbers, neither of which the 4 year old is at all ready for. :lol:

[ChrisB]

You could start doing a few of the first lessons and break them in to little sections to be done over several days. I agree that you'll know when you come up against a wall.

 

I started DD1 with RS right after she turned 5. Our twins, who are now just 5, began with just the first few lessons sometime when they were 4. It wasn't anything we did every day. They seriously hounded me to do math with them, so I caved and only did the first few lessons, basically numbers 1-10. Once they turned 5, we started doing RS A every day, mostly. I've waited until they are 5 because I want them to be mature enough to really understand when we get to the later parts of A. It has worked for my family so far.

[waa510]

IME, if your kids can handle MEP Reception without issue, then they can jump into RS A soon. I think I'd recommend it for 4.5-5 yrs old to start. The first ~20 lessons are painfully easy for most 4 yr olds (I have friends who use RS and heard that their kids of that age were bored by these lessons, as well as my own kiddo so we sped those up) but there are sections like time or money that my kiddo didn't fly thru..at all! We're doing our second go-thru with A as I'm wanting to wait til dd is closer to 5 before starting B. We should be done in a couple months as she's flying through, again. My dd is 4.5 now and I think this age is perfect. She's grasping much more now than she did last go thru when she was barely 4. She got the info last time, but she's connecting the dots and recognizing the patterns much more easily, sometimes sans teaching the lesson for said concept. She's also starting to visualize the abacus in her mind and beginning to do some mental math, which she wasn't doing before. So I'd say your plan to start at 5 sounds good. I understand the non-counting urgency..but IMO it is not so crucial a concern that one should start their kiddo before they may be ready for some of the more conceptual lessons. JMO! :)