Dreambox Math...some excercises too "fast" for DS?

[Gingerbread Mama]

I signed up for the free trial on Dreambox for DS8, this is my child who is struggling with reading and math. At first, it seemed wonderful. One big plus was that it allowed him to work on math without worrying about reading for the moment. I love that it has audio instructions. Quickly, though, our experience started downhill. First, there are these excercises where it "flashes" a card at you and you have to recreate the pattern or click on "how many" from memory. The flash is so fast, even I have a hard time. You can look at it twice more, but the flashes are so gosh darn FAST! It seems like there are many of these excercises as well. It's very frustrating for him, and for me.

 

Another issue is those backpacks that pop up with prizes. Sometimes it's a coin or card, and that is fine. A few times, though, it's been the "jewel" or "egg" that we were "looking for to complete the story". Well, once we found the item it would close out that part of the lesson. For instance, DS had completed three excercises, but there were still three he hadn't done, the backpack with the emerald appeared and, when he clicked on it, it closed that portion of the lesson. We couldn't go back and finish the other excercises. I can't see how that is beneficial, am I missing something? Does it, perhaps, only do that on the free trial and allows you to go back on a paid subscription?

 

I'm really floundering here. We do Reading Eggs and he does well with it, for the most part, I'm looking for something kind of like that, but math based. I do other things with him, but he struggles so with handwriting that it just seems that adding in a user friendly computer program makes our lessons go more smoothly. I've tried just using the manipulatives ourselves, Dreambox style, but he HATES manipulative excercises, as well. At least on the computer I can say "You have to finish 3 excercises", if we are doing manipulatives he takes every opportunity to wander off or get off track. He doesn't love Dreambox, in fact he says "I hate this" every time we start it....but....he also says that about everything we do. I really think, at this point, it's more reflex. If it's learning/educational, his first knee jerk reaction is "this stinks". He will complain about Reading Eggs when we first start it, but once he's into the lesson, he sails right through without further complaint.

 

I love the counting mat/abacus excercises on Dreambox. I love the verbal instructions. I love the gentle correction when he misses one. I just DON'T love the whole warp-speed timed excercise concept on half the excercises. ARGH! It's just a little too expensive to use when you only like 1/3 to 1/2 the program. Sigh. Any recommendations? Would a paid subscription to Dreambox be any better, would it allow me to "tweak" so he wouldn't do the flashcard ones yet? Is there another, similar, site to check out that would be better geared to what I need? He isn't ready to be shown "4+4", or the like, yet. I want something that SHOWS the number value, like Dreambox does. FWIW, I do sit with him as he does it, and I explain "You had five red beads to start, then you ADDED 2 white beads, let's count them.... how many beads do you have now? Seven? So 5+2=7!" That can also hurt him on the game, because sometimes it will say "Can you do it faster?" I'm not worried about faster at this point, I just want him to GET it, KWIM?

 

I should add that basically ALL I ask him to do is Reading and Math. We do Reading Eggs and use a FIAR type approach to doing a book each week. I have an activity to go with the book each day and we add it to his lapbook. He does seem to enjoy the lapbook, but does not enjoy DOING much of what goes in it (doesn't complain but doesn't get into it, says things like "Can you cut this out?" or "I don't want to color it.") The only thing I've found that he WAS excited about was when we sewed a Corduroy out of felt last week. We will be doing a mouse next week. We are doing super easy books like Corduroy and Goodnight Moon. It isn't over his head and I'm finding many times he can read most of the words on the page to me, but he will usually say "I don't want to read, you read it." Anyway, my point is that he isn't overloaded on work. We don't even do history or science, unless it's something that happens to come up within the story, so I can't see where I could cut back further. Surely 30-45 min a day on reading and math (each, so an hour to an hour and a half total) isn't too much? I've printed some worksheets but those often turn into a struggle with getting him to complete even a short one. He holds his pencil loosely, doesn't press down hard enough to leave much of a mark, and balks at everything on the page. I'm sick of fighting with him about it, and I'm waiting to get in to have him evaluated so I hate to keep pushing and then find out at the eval that this was due to some delay he has and wasn't just him being, for lack of a better word, a pissant (LOL) Oh, and this isn't new to homeschool - he didn't necessarily balk at the work but every paper I got home from PS looked like a two year old had scribbled on it. I don't even know how his teacher graded them.

Edited February 15, 2012 by Gingerbread Mama

[rafiki]

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[Paige]

We've done dreambox and I don't recall any flash card type exercises. I've had kids working in just about every grade on there. What is it in? My 7yr olds don't do well with timers and I'm sure they would have had a meltdown with what you are describing. They get uptight about the frog races with a timer but that at least gives them 10-15seconds. There have been a few areas where the instruction is not enough for them and I've had to work the concept out with them on our own before going back to it in dreambox.

 

I also have not seen them give a reward before all the exercises have been completed. My DD was looking for kittens, for instance, and she didn't get any kittens until she had done everything in the pet module. Once she got the kitten, everything in the pet area changed and she has a new set of lessons to find the next kitten. You might want to contact dreambox and describe what it going on because it doesn't sound normal based on what we've done.

 

One problem we did have w/dreambox, is that they want to take the girls' manipulatives away too soon. They would be fine with the abacus and sorting boxes, and then it asks if they can do it without. And...no. No, they can't. The only way to get around that was to click on the button that said it was too hard or go do something else and come back to it later. I think they should have a way to bring back the tool box whenever you want it.

Edited February 15, 2012 by Paige

[MomatHWTK]

My DD is not fast on her math facts and she's enjoying the math drills on JumpStart. I've not tried DreamBox. On the JumpStart game, the facts start slow and then come faster. You earn points for each correct answer and when it gets to fast for you to answer, the game ends.

 

For a game that wouldn't require timed responses you might try Katsuko. It asks the child to come up with combinations of adjoining numbers to create the target number. You can probably trial a free version of it for an hour. Full disclosure: I purchased the game because I thought it might work for my slow processing speed guy but he doesn't like it and won't play it. (He rather do a worksheet- go figure.) For reading, take a look at Starfall.

[Gingerbread Mama]

We've done dreambox and I don't recall any flash card type exercises. I've had kids working in just about every grade on there. What is it in?

 

He is in K math, I believe. I looked at the parent dashboard yesterday, pretty sure that is what it said. What we have open to us, in the trial version, are pets/pixies/pirates/dinosaurs. When you play it, it has a card at the top that flips "reallyreallyfast" and either an abacus or counting mat below it. It will either ask you to recreate what you've seen on the flash, or to pick a card that hold the same value (but is distributed differently.) I've found them in all four sections.

 

Today, when we went to play, there were no excercises that weren't flashcard style :glare:

 

There have been a few areas where the instruction is not enough for them and I've had to work the concept out with them on our own before going back to it in dreambox.

 

There is instruction?! That is what I spend all my time DOING while he plays, instructing. I haven't seen anything that explains the concept or teaches anything before play. We click on, say dinosaurs, and it takes us to a page that has a bunch of circles to click. Each one goes to an excercise, but when you get there you just start playing. I've yet to see it explain that by moving two white beads over with the red beads you have, in effect, added 2 to 5, thus getting 7 beads. It just shows the abacus or mat and asks him to recreate what he sees above, some activities it is what is on the flashcard and others it is just a picture at the top that you can refer to (but doesn't change or flip.) Instruction would be FABULOUS, if it's there where do you find it?

 

I also have not seen them give a reward before all the exercises have been completed. My DD was looking for kittens, for instance, and she didn't get any kittens until she had done everything in the pet module. Once she got the kitten, everything in the pet area changed and she has a new set of lessons to find the next kitten. You might want to contact dreambox and describe what it going on because it doesn't sound normal based on what we've done.

 

Maybe it awards the prizes in the trial more quickly to move you along and give you a feel of the whole program? I don't know. I looked at the parent FAQ and thought I saw that they were randomly awarded when a child had completed anywhere from 3-5 (or was it 7?) excercises on a page. I just want to do them ALL before he gets anything and is locked out. Do you find that you can go back to a page after they've found the prize? We can't. I'd really like to be able to go back and re-visit excercises.

 

I'm going to email them basically what I wrote above. If nothing else, it'll let them know that it isn't working for everyone.

 

One problem we did have w/dreambox, is that they want to take the girls' manipulatives away too soon. They would be fine with the abacus and sorting boxes, and then it asks if they can do it without. And...no. No, they can't. The only way to get around that was to click on the button that said it was too hard or go do something else and come back to it later. I think they should have a way to bring back the tool box whenever you want it.

 

That's a good point. It hasn't removed our manipulatives yet, so I didn't know that. I agree, you ought to be able to use them as long as you need them. I've backed out of ALL the flashcard ones but now that's all I see. In the FAQ it said that backing out would give inaccurate feedback to whatever they use to plan your excercises. I'm wondering if it spit out ALL flashcards today because I kept telling it they were too hard and it thinks he needs to work on it. Very frustrating. I don't mean it's too hard *right now*, I mean it's flat too hard LOL I'm a fairly quick study but I have to use all three flashes each time.

 

I hate those flash card exercises too. They should allow you to flip them over as many times as you want, then only allow 2 flips further on in the game.

 

I'm glad I'm not the only one who hates them :001_smile:

 

What I ended up doing was (slowly) teaching DS how to look at the cards:

He counts how many white ones on top and bottom were moved over. If there are white ones moved, then 5 red ones have to be moved. If there are no white ones, then he flips it over again and counts how many red ones were left/moved. It took him a while to get the hang of it; I ended up sitting with him on a lot of lessons.

 

I don't think he's even at the point that I can teach him how to read them, sadly. He is very slow (like actually just physically slow) when it comes to academics. I just don't think he can get the laser focus going on that we need to master those things. Your idea of checking to see if whites were moved and then knowing that (if they were) you had 5 red ones is good. Unfortunately I can't get across to him that there are 5 red and 5 white each time. He counts them starting with one. Every. Time. He is slowly getting better at recognizing a group of 2, 3, or 5 but it is sloooow progress.

 

Sometimes, it just isn't worth it, and we've pressed the "Too hard" button a few times :)

 

I hear you, me, too.

 

Also, when I hear them say "Can you do it in fewer moves?" I help him with those. I don't care about speed, and I'm not into teaching him about math efficiency at this point.

 

I've had to help with that, too. I can understand why they are teaching it but, since he tested in on the very beginning level, you'd think that would be something a long time off. It's sort of like public school to me. Rather than have them master the concept and then build up work speed and efficiency, they try to do it all from the get go. Maybe that works for some, but we need baby steps.

 

FWIW, Reading Eggs seems to be working very well for him. I just threw that in at the end to demonstrate that he really doesn't think he enjoys learning at this point (or maybe he really doesn't, I'm just not ready to concede that yet LOL) Anyway, while he will say he doesn't want to do RE, once we are in the game he's fine and finshes with little to no assistance. The difference I'm finding with DB is that he complains bitterly the whole way through rather than settling in and doing the work like he does on RE. My theory is that he is actually capable of working on the level where RE has him placed, so once he sees he can do it he's fine. DB, however, is over his head (what we've seen of the trial anyway) so he just genuinely hates it.

 

We have a few days left on the trial. I'm going to email them about my concerns and see what they say. I just wondered if others had the same experiences with not being able to re-do an area where a prize has been found and if anyone had figured out a way to put off the flashcards ;)

 

I'm not looking to put him on a program and leave him to go do anything else. I've been sitting with him on DB, and likely will for anything else, simply because I've found that oftentimes they don't teach they just test via the excercise. That's fine but someone has to tell them WHY they are doing something so they know WHAT they are doing (as in the abacus, I still can't get over that it has never explained how to work one, what it represents, etc..)

 

I tried doing math first today, and that did lessen some of the resistance to it. When we finished, however, he assumed his day was over (we usually do math last) and THAT was a nasty bit of fit pitching when he realized that, no, he still had reading left. :001_huh:

[Paige]

I see now. I only have one in the K level and I don't think she does flashcards. She mostly just plays the carnival games and I don't care to make her do more in the adventure park because she's only 4. Who knows- maybe she does the flashcards and I don't know. She doesn't care if she gets things wrong.

 

You are right, though. If you skip something too much, eventually it will be the only choice you can do anywhere except the carnival. I think they do that because they don't think you can move on until you've mastered it. That's when we've had to take a break and do it on the floor. If you think he'll never get it, you might just go in and do it for him to get past it if you think he knows the material and is just slow. In the higher grades they give a little tutorial for how to do the problems and why. If you go to your room, then you can practice playing with the manipulatives and figure out how to work them. The paid version is exactly like the trial. If you don't like it now, you won't want to pay for it.

[Gingerbread Mama]

Ok, good. I mean, good because I was starting to wonder if I was even on the same site LOL I had to laugh about you saying she doesn't care if she gets it wrong, neither does he. If I weren't sitting with him and making him slow down and try to work out the answers, he'd be clicking away on whatever and moving right along. :tongue_smilie:

 

I'm going to email them and see what they have to say. I certainly don't want to pay for it if this is all I can expect. Do you like it for your older children? I have a DD 4th who is learning multiplication tables. They taught them at the beginning of the year in PS (we started HS at Christmas), but have moved on to division. In trying to teach her division I found that she didn't not have the times facts down cold, so we are going back and working on the 6-9 tables. How does it handle multiplication? If I could use it for *one* kid and the others could just piddle on it, I'd even be okay with that. I really like the site, maybe I just need to buy myself a subscription :lol: