College Textbooks with 12 Year Old

[Guest maytesmart]

Hi everybody:

 

Has anybody used a college textbook with middle grades? My son loves Oceanography, and even though his reading ability is quite advanced, I am not sure he is understanding the review questions well enough to answer them.

 

So, I was wondering if anybody has used and adjusted high level textbooks with their children, and if so, how did you do so to make sure they understand the content? Also, how did you base their tests?

 

I can see that he can memorize tremendous amounts of facts, but I am not sure that his brain is mature enough to synthesize the main ideas.

 

I hope this makes sense, and thank you so much for your help.

 

Sophia :confused:

[Storm Bay]

If he's not ready for the theory, I'd skip the college level texts, unless you're interested in letting him have higher input than output. That can be fine, too. I don't know if there are any oceanography texts for that age group, so this could be a good solution for you.

[Dmmetler]

I brought home paleontology books from the college library for my DD when she was 4-5 years old. I don't know how much she really understood, but she enjoyed all the details and facts that were absent in the kids and more popular library books. I'd say try it-I'm guessing oceanography is another area where there's a lot of kids level books (and adult level books with the same level of content in most cases) and books designed for serious professionals, without a lot in between.

[higginszoo]

If he's not getting all of it, I wouldn't count it as his regular schooling for now ... not to say that I'd take it away from him, just that I'd revisit it when he's able to synthesize and extrapolate, and then count it at school at that time.

[Embassy]

If he enjoys reading it I would let him continue and discontinue the review section. Find another way to determine his comprehension of the material.

[2smartones]

Keep the information. Toss the assessments. Come up with a 12 year old appropriate assessment and call it a middle school course, but pull the material from the college level text. No one would expect a 12 year old to retain and comprehend all that a 21 year old would, but you can tailor it to work.

[Bang!Zoom!]

Read the assessment question in a new way for him.

 

Might try mind mapping notes & vocabulary work with it as well.

 

Having conversation while reading it together will really change his reading skill for that type of text.

[lewelma]

My ds(11) currently using Tarbuck's Earth Science (College level). He can read the material and enjoys it, but he cannot do the entire course independently. My goal this year is to teach him how to learn effectively from a textbook. Here are a few things to consider:

 

Answering review questions is something that you teach a child how to do in middle school, which is why so many middle school science texts directly teach study skills. For me, half of the goal of doing Tarbuck is to teach my ds how to answer the review questions. For the first 2 months, we discussed the review questions, and then I wrote down the answers. For the 2nd 2 months, we discussed the review questions and then we took turns writing down the answers. For the next 2 months, we will discuss the review questions and he will write down the answers. For the last 3 months, I hope he will be able to do it independently. I might also add that last year we worked for 4 months on answering the review questions in an AP level Biology text. This process takes a lot of one-on-one time.

 

Also, a middle school student will probably be able to do only 1/2 of a college level text book in a 9 month school year. So pick and choose and drop the rest.

 

Finally, I only orally assess. I expect my son to be able to answer any of the review questions for all the chapters studied for an end of term oral assessment. My real goal however, is not the content, but rather the study skills. I want ds to keep a schedule for reading, pre-read and outline the text, and answer review questions. Next year, I hope that all of this work will come to fruition with a more independent, confident student.

 

Good luck,

 

Ruth in NZ

Edited November 19, 2011 by lewelma

[dm379]

My dd10 is currently working out of a religion college textbook. We read a section together, discuss it and she notebooks it the same as she does history and science. We're going at her pace so I'm not sure how long it will take her to get through it but she enjoys it.

[Ester Maria]

Doable, but do not underestimate the difficulty. The more "sciency" the textbook, the more difficult it is because children will typically, even if advanced by that age, lack solid math skills to proceed, lack inferences from other fields and even have vocabulary confusions - which means that your benefits will be limited, there are possible frustrations, etc.

 

One of my daughters has studied biochemistry this young and it definitely did not go smoothly all the time, but her interest prevailed. It took her over two years to get through the standard introductory part, with the help of the dad and his colleagues from the field. She encountered situations such as having to work with negative logorhitms at the point where she had barely encountered them in math, lacking some previous science knowledge to get some of the content, etc., but overall, a positive experience. A hobby, not a "school" thing for us.

We left it completely up to her, and pace-wise, knowing that "for school" she does not need to do any of that, but only pass general exams on "watered down" middle school science to call it a day. We treated it as an outside interest and got her a lot of support where we could. She was not working very consistently on it and had a very loose schedule.

 

You may decide that you wish to study it "as a tourist", not for credit, and see how it goes.

Edited November 19, 2011 by Ester Maria

[merylvdm]

I coach our homeschool Science Olympiad team and the middle school kids all have to use high school or college texts to prepare for their events. They all manage - and most of the kids are not 'gifted'. They just work hard and parents come alongside them to help with anything they have trouble with. They seldom need to go through the whole textbook though for an event, though my own son did do an entire college level textbook for Meteorology.