Sticking w/ Singapore vs. Traditional Sequence

[Matryoshka]

For my older two dds, I have switched out of Singapore by Algebra, thinking that if I might send them to high school, I wanted a definite Algebra course on their record so there could be no argument as to what they'd covered. I did do DM1 with one of them, but next year it's Algebra.

 

My younger dd will be in 5th grade this year, but will be doing Singapore 6a/b. I'm thinking she will also do DM1, in 6th. Since she will have plenty of time to finish up through DM3 by 8th, I'm wondering if it would make sense to stick with it. She likes math, but I'm not sure if she'll go for AoPS (which I do have on hand). According to the Singapore site, DM1-3 covers AlgI, II and geometry, and DM4 is "advanced topics" (precalc?) I do like the idea of the integrated math, but I was hesitant to go with it with my olders if I wasn't sure if I could get all the way through it.

 

Do you think if I had her do DM1-3 and then sent her to high school, I could argue that she'd had Alg I, II and Geo, or should I play it safe and jump to the standard sequence (which would also mean that she'd only be getting AlgI and Geo, since I'd be using DM1 like a Prealgebra, even though it does cover part of Alg 1)

 

And for those of you that are familiar with DM, do you think the Singapore website description that DM1-3 covers up through AlgII and all of Geo is a fair assessment?

 

I realize I've got a couple of years, but I like to start mulling things over well in advance. :)

[Candid]

This is what we are doing. Yes, if I had decided to put my now ninth grader into a public school I'm sure I would have had some push back on putting him in a Trig/pre-calculus class in ninth grade, but I had confidence that I could negotiate that AND the worse thing that would happen in my view was that they would put him Algebra II. I could have lived with that.

 

As it turns out, the worse thing will be finding enough upper level math for high school, but there is enough online, cc or private college stuff available where I am to help me out if need be.

 

As for levels, I think you can trust the folks on the Singapore boards, there are a lot of mathy folks who post and I think they know of what they speak.

 

And here's the thing that kept me going. Most folks are aware that Singapore students score very well in math, what they aren't aware is that they make their biggest strides compared to the US in the gap from 4th grade to 8th grade. We fall behind, they get ahead. Guess what? Two of those years they are doing the secondary programs (NEM or DM or something else).

 

I've done NEM so I don't have a lot to tell you about DM, but I will tell you that the first year of NEM I was absolutely enthralled with how they continued algebra while doing geometry by using algebra to solve geometry problems. Maybe they do that now in US programs, but they didn't when I was in school AND we did do proofs, personally I found what the NEM text did to be much more demanding that high school proofs were.

[Matryoshka]

Thanks so much, that kind of confirms what I'm thinking. I showed her the various texts, and she does prefer Singapore - she's always really liked it and done well with it. We looked at the AoPS and she enjoyed going through the first lesson with me, but she thinks it's very wordy. She doesn't like to read a lot, and I have a feeling she'll balk at reading all the lengthy explanations in AoPS, which would somewhat defeat the purpose. She would like to do part of AoPS Number Theory next summer, because her sister liked it so much - that may change her mind or confirm her opinion.

 

Doing DM all the way through DM3 would also mean she could possibly end up accelerated another year (because she wouldn't do a whole year of Prealgebra), which tickles her (she's already only two years behind her sisters, she could end up just one year behind).

 

Then I guess I'll have to worry about what that other poster worried about - running out of math! :tongue_smilie:

 

Has anyone done NEM through NEM3 (I'm thinking that would be roughly equivalent and not many people have gotten that far in DM, it being so new) that could confirm/give feedback as to what level math that would be equivalent to? I'm figuring at worst, it's like PP said, she'd test into AlgII, which is where she'd be at if I did traditional Alg/Geo instead of DM2/3.

[Nan in Mass]

I did NEM1-3 with mine, then sent the middle one off to do pre-calc at the community college. It worked ok. He got a C in precalc. He tested into precalc partway through NEM2 (if I remember correctly). He took two tries to pass calc (different college). Oldest did public school math and then took calc from the same prof at the same college and says that the prof is impossible - just covers the interesting stuff and assumes you've already covered the basics of calc. Oldest passed but is good at math. (I'm actually pretty miffed over the whole thing because it caused oldest to switch his major from a full engineering degree to an engineering techonology degree. Probably won't matter in the long run and he is enjoying the hands-on, practical emphasis of the tech degree, but... Now that oldest is in his senior year, he can see that he actually is good at math and wouldn't have had any trouble with the full engineering degree.) Middle one struggles with math and always has (wired differently), so it is hard to tell how much his problems come from NEM and how much from being a freshman and how much was the prof. He himself had fits when I said I was considering Dolciani (which my husband and I had in school) instead of NEM for the youngest. He says that Singapore is the only thing that let him be able to do math at all. Youngest is wired like oldest. We did NEM (at middle one's insistance) and after NEM3, we did a combo of Blitzer precalc and Dolciani at home for 10th. He placed into calc at CC at the end of 10th grade. He struggled with the Blitzer. He struggled with everything last year. He was completely unmotivated, forgot everything as soon as he learned it, and didn't want to work to figure anything out himself. In my experience, 10th grade is just like that for my children. If he had been able to take precalc at CC, I think it would have been fine, but he went to Japan mid-winter, so that was out. Anyhow, I can tell you at that at the end of 9th (and NEM3) he almost placed out of the first half of precalc. (Test giver suggested he retest - bad idea.)

 

This year (in case you are interested), because math is going to be so critical for him (engineering school) and because he doesn't feel like he absorbed the precalc very well, and because he has never been taught math by anybody but me, he is going to retake precalc at CC, despite placing into calc. The engineering transfer department says they think that is a good idea because he didn't place so far into calc that it would be silly, his math grade is going to be very important for admission into engineering school, and he has never done math in a classroom before. We'll see. It is hard to believe that math placement can be such a fuzzy thing, but apparently it is, since that has been the case for all three of mine. Ug.

 

If you decided to go with Singapore, I would suggest that you cover logs and do extra work with graphing on the coordinate plane - slope/intercept (which by the way is y=mx+BBBBBB in the US and y=mx+CCCCCCC in Singapore) and finding the formula of a line from various combinations of information (2 points, a point and a slope, etc.) and converting from format to format: the standard format (Ax+By+C=0) to m=(y2-y1)/(x2-x1) to y=mx+b, and emphasize how the thing that ties them all together is the definition of a slope. Dolciani algebra 2 has a nice section on all that.

 

And further more (in case anyone is still listening), I found that Dolciani algebra 2 covers about what Blitzer pre-calc covers, but in a more formula-manipulating way, with fewer applications and about a million less words and many fewer problems. Some things the Dolciani just touches on and the Blitzer goes into much more depth with. The Blitzer seems to pick up nicely where NEM3 left off, but my son needed extra work with the slope-intercept stuff which is why we wound up doubling up. And then partway through the year, it was obvious to me that he was less than motivated and just going through the motions and he would be better off working out of the Dolciani, so we abandonned the Blitzer and finished the year with the Dolciani.

 

That probably is way too much detail and way too individualized to be of any help, but just in case it is helpful, I've typed it all out. I remember how much I agonized over whether to continue with NEM with the youngest or switch to Dolciani. I still can't tell you which would have been better.

 

Nan

[Matryoshka]

That probably is way too much detail and way too individualized to be of any help, but just in case it is helpful, I've typed it all out. I remember how much I agonized over whether to continue with NEM with the youngest or switch to Dolciani. I still can't tell you which would have been better.

 

 

That was very helpful, actually. It sounds like Singapore might lack some things (or handle them differently) that are covered in AlgII which might make it hard to transition straight to preCalc. Since my dd will still be so young, maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea at all to just have her take AlgII her freshman year if for no other reason than to get used to the US way of doing things and fill in any gaps. The fact that she may have covered much of it should make it an easy year, but perhaps not a wasted one.

 

I also will have Foersters and Lial's Alg I on hand (what her older sister will have used), so maybe I should have her do the slope/intercept and f(x) chapters from those to familiarize herself more with those patterns.

[Nan in Mass]

That sounds like a good plan. I would just make sure that she does a good algebra 2 program. It seems like with the emphasis having shifted to early algebra for everyone, some curriculums are doing putting off covering some of what used to be in algebra 1 until algebra 2.

 

Singpore did a fairly good job covering functions (I thought). They covered graphing in less of a formula and more of a plotting-the-points way. I can't remember how they did with the relationship between the two. (Dolc. algebra 2 did a good job of that, I thought).

 

Don't forget that you can use Khan academy for any holes. You can look down the list of lessons and see which ones you haven't done (like logs).

 

-Nan