Is Math-U-See for us?

[Staci in FL]

My daughter has some learning issues. She auditory sense is HIGHLY developed, which means that I read EVERYTHING aloud to her. For Math, I did Saxon 1- 7/6 sitting next to her, reading every question aloud to her so that she could write it down. Sounds weird, but it got the work done. Her math standardized tests came back and the scores were not good.

 

So, I bought TT6 and we started at the beginning. It seems to be a pretty good fit for her because she gets to hear the lecture and hear the question read aloud. However, I'm thinking that she may have some conceptual problems that need addressing and I'm wondering if a manipulative based program might solve that. For you experienced MUS users, does MUS sound like a fit for us?

 

Staci

[Paintedlady]

My dyslexic dd is doing both MUS and TT, and they seem to be a nice complement for each other. You might consider it.

 

MUS gives us the solid mastery foundation, taugt in a way that really appeals to her, with the added manipulatives when needed, and TT gives her the more constant repetition she needs so she doesn't forget.

[Pat in MI]

The question that jumped out at me is: Did you read the questions to your dd during the standardized test? If not, then maybe that is why she scored low and not necessary the math program. I would say that if she needs the questions read to her than TT is going to be better than MUS. Mr. Demme (MUS) teaches the lesson on video, but then the student does the problems on their own. My kids never used the manipulatives much, only a little in Alpha and Beta, then a little in Epsilon for the fractions. HTH

Blessings,

Pat

[serendipitous journey]

I don't know if this will be helpful ... DS doesn't have a particular learning challenge, but he was interested in numbers when he was 3 and he wouldn't paint, draw, do play-doh, etc. so I just got MUS primer for him and started working him through it; since then we've worked through Alpha, Beta, and Delta. All through I've done the reading to him, and in the beginning I did the writing too; we adapted Mr. Demme's suggestion of 1" graph paper when we hit multiple-digit problems; we added Zaner-Bloser K Handwriting (which he loves) esp. to help with his math writing; and we often work only a subset of the problems for a given day. Another important tactic is adapting the word problems to include people he knows working with familiar objects (we recently substituted a baseball team problem with his best friend and nine pieces of candy). The point is that I've been able to fairly easily adapt this program to a non-reader with the attention span and sitting capacity of your average small boy (which is why I picked MUS in the first place).

 

If you are willing/able (not everyone has the time) to adapt the materials, and esp. if you read the teacher manual for each chapter as you go (it often has useful suggestions for adapting the materials) it may work quite well. Steve Demme suggests that a good measure of the child's mastery is her ability to teach the material back to you; following that advice, instead of administering any tests to my son I sometimes ask him to teach a concept to a grossly ignorant doll/puppet :) and use that to guide my lesson plans. As we've moved along I have incorporated regular math fact review (okay, flash cards; 10 at a time, delivered sometimes orally but usually my DS prefers looking at them) into our daily routine and keep old workbooks with unused sheets for review.

 

best of luck ...

Edited May 21, 2011 by serendipitous journey