Right Start and memorizing facts

[AngelAnnie]

For those of you who have used Right Start..... We are finishing C with my daughter right now and just starting C with my son. We have purposely (and sometimes lazily) taken the slow route with my daughter, but she seems to solidly understand and we have no doubt she can be up to speed by the time she hits high school. The one area she really struggles in is knowing the math facts. We did not play the games as much as we should, but I just don't have the time to devote to that. Even though I only have two kids they both still require almost all subjects be done with me.

 

So, I am wondering what you who have used the program would suggest for getting her facts down. We do Xtra Math once a day, but I know she needs more. She also really struggles with subtraction. Any ideas to help with that.

 

I appreciate any ideas you may have.

Thanks,

Angel

[mskelly]

We just finished B. I was getting concerned that my DS didn't memorize the facts even though all kinds of research and other moms told me not to worry about it. So, what I did was put the put book away for one whole month. Our math consisted of ONLY playing the games. It started clicking for him about the 4th week.

[AngelAnnie]

So does he know them well and QUICK! See our problem is that my kids know how to figure them out in their heads and large numbers even. But she is now at the point she just needs to have them memorized and be able to say/write the answer quickly. It's only going to get harder and if she doesn't know the basics by heart she is going to take more time to do a problem because she is still figuring out the answers to those simple facts.

 

I know Right Start is so opposite of public school and how kids just seem to memorize... I totally agree with them understanding the concept first, but we are now at the point where they understand the concepts and it just needs to be second nature. In order to move on and not become more work. You know?

 

Hope that makes sense. :) Thanks

[d.g.]

Well, if you're finishing C with one, and starting C with the other, why not just have them play the basic games together as part of math time?

 

DS and I (he's in early-middle of RS C) play one of the games a couple times a week at least. Right now, it's the Skip Counting Memory game, which takes us no more than 10 minutes a round. When we were doing corners (for review on adding 5, 10, 15, 20) it took us about 15 minutes to score 100 points each. Other games have occasionally taken as long as 20-30 minutes to start with, but they have gotten faster as we mastered them. Really, the games are really where it's at with RS, or at least I've found that is the case with my wiggly, visual-kinesthetic DS.

 

All that said, I did supplement a few things in B -- time and money, for example, because DS needed more hands-on practice, not just card games. Now that we're in C, which has the scheduled review lessons, I just pull in some of our "fun" math... Menu Math, for example, and the Algebra Readiness books from Scholastic. That way he's practicing his facts and math skills but still doing something "different".

 

I also just play with DS with polyhedral dice (multi-sided dice, known to gamers as dX, where "X" is the number of sides on the die :D ). You can easily practice basic sums with two d6s or a d6 and a d4, then once those sums are mastered, start using the larger dice (d10, d12, d20). Just roll and see who can add the two numbers fastest. Or take turns, whatever works better. For subtraction, use a d10 or d20 and a smaller die, roll, and subtract the smaller number from the larger.

 

Hope that helps!

Edited April 12, 2012 by d.g.