If I am going to accelerate young DS with Singapore...

[Esse Quam Videri]

How should I go about it? He is currently 6 working through 1B text, work, and IP. He's not the best writer so sometimes his workbook pages take a long time for him to complete, but if he does the math orally and I write for him he zips through it. His sister is in 3A and he can often orally do her work. I'm just not sure where to go from here? The plan this year was to get through 1B and 2A at a normal pace, just working through the Intensive Practice to give him more difficulty and practice, and also use xtramath for facts. But I'm wondering if I'm holding him back. Should I move through 1B concepts quicker, maybe just doing either the workbook or the IP? For those of you with "mathy" kids, how did you accelerate while still covering everything?

[Crimson Wife]

My kids do textbook, IP, and CWP for Primary Mathematics and if they get the concept, I skip the first pages in each section for the IP. Oldest DD is now in Discovering Mathematics 1 and I am having her do both the textbook & the workbook because I'm trying to spread out pre-algebra over two years. Boy, I'm getting complaints over making her do all of it. She skips ahead to the harder sections and it's like pulling teeth to get her to complete the "basic practice" section :glare:

[naturalmom]

I skipped the workbook, too. We went through the textbook to show the concept, and usually didn't do the Practices in there. We went straight to IP, and if it still seemed too easy, then ds would do just a few problems from each page (the hardest ones).

 

All of our math was done orally for a couple of years, and I still copy over many of the problems for ds out of AOPS Algebra - unless they are word problems. He doesn't really need that, but I know he will get through more without feeling taxed if I've copied them down. Oh, and he does every problem now, which took some getting used to!

[serendipitous journey]

... we actually often skip the textbook and do the workbook for sections that come easily to Button, because he generally does better with uncluttered pages and lots of whitespace. So which you fall back on for the "easy" sections may depend on what sort of pages your child prefers.

 

Button HATED the CWP, and I don't want him to hate his math, so at the moment we're zooming through the texts and workbooks; also, we switched to SM at about 4a so he knows much of the arithmetic already from our other program (MUS) and has done a lot of practice. I do many of the problems with him orally.

 

When we hit SM5 I am going to make him do the IP & CWP before we move on. I think we may do the text/workbooks first, then come back and do the IP/CWP after.

 

Looking more carefully at the OP, I'd say that Singapore is nice for accelerating b/c you'll cycle back to topics in later years/semesters, so if you gloss something now you will hit it again. I also sometimes present things during our oral drills -- he's gotten some negative number practice that way, for example. In terms of letting the child move ahead, I do think you can let him go as quickly as he can. One strategy is to give him the test for a section before he does it, then note what he knows already; what he is okay at but needs reinforcement for; and what he needs to be taught. Teach accordingly; then post-test him or move him on. In higher years of Singapore we have gotten stuck a bit in one section (this happened with decimal math last month) and in that case, you can skip to the next topic (for us, geometry) and keep him moving through that while you hammer out the sticky part a bit at a time. Fur us, this meant doing some decimals from Key to Decimals in the AM and geometry in the PM, and by the time we'd finished the Geometry section he was ready to hit the Singapore section on decimals. So: you can keep him moving quickly through fun or easy topics when he is having trouble in another topic, which keeps things fun. This is a strong benefit of Singapore IMHO.

Edited September 22, 2012 by serendipitous journey

[Embassy]

I'm attempting to compact and accelerate Singapore this year for both of my boys. My oldest isn't ahead and I've probably gone a little slow the past few years making I covered everything. The last few months I've gone to using the textbook one-on-one and doing things orally and on a whiteboard. If he understands the concepts and knows how to do the problems I give him a couple of the more difficult ones and move on. If he needs more practice we go through all the problems. I don't use the workbook or IP anymore. I do have my son do problems out of CWP though.

 

My younger son is more mathy, but I'm not as confident moving quickly with him. He is bored though. He is ahead of schedule in Singapore and does well with concepts and problems, but is still learning most math facts. I'm also doing the textbook one-on-one with him in the same way as his older brother. He is also doing some problems in CWP independently. I recently started having him do a couple workbook pages each math day, but I am using a math book that is at least a half year behind the textbook he is using. This gives him some review, independent practice, and slows him down a little. He was on schedule to finish 5B by the end of 3rd grade, but would not be ready to tackle anything like AOPS independently.

 

We are doing a couple topics concurrently (i.e. Geometry and Decimals).

[Esse Quam Videri]

Thanks so much for all the replies. It sounds like the majority of people who accelerate give up one or more parts of the program. For some reason I've been nervous about doing that, but if he's ready to move on, he's ready to move on. Have any of you seen gaps later on that you wish you'd covered more in depth in younger years?

[Esse Quam Videri]

We compacted by omitting exercises that added no value. That meant selected IP problems for concepts he had down, then just wkbk and IP for new material. We again compacted, doing much orally and skipping problems that were repetitive. Most of the acceleration comes from the rapid acquisition of the concept and the good memory. We did not use cwp as the majority of the problems were similar to the wkbk in difficulty.

 

You might find Susan Assouline's book Developing Math Talent to be of value.

 

Thanks for the recommendation! I'll check it out.

[Esse Quam Videri]

Also, for those of you who've done things orally, do you think it hinders DC's ability to work independently in later years?

[Embassy]

Also, for those of you who've done things orally, do you think it hinders DC's ability to work independently in later years?

 

For my one son - yes. This is why I introduced independent work with a workbook. It might take him an extra 6-8 months to complete Singapore through 5B, but he will be in a better position and more mature to handle more independence later.

 

My other son has a totally different personality and working independently comes easy for him so I'd say it depends on the kid.

[serendipitous journey]

We compacted by omitting exercises that added no value. That meant selected IP problems for concepts he had down, then just wkbk and IP for new material. We again compacted, doing much orally and skipping problems that were repetitive. Most of the acceleration comes from the rapid acquisition of the concept and the good memory. We did not use cwp as the majority of the problems were similar to the wkbk in difficulty.

 

You might find Susan Assouline's book Developing Math Talent to be of value.

 

I'm glad to know this RE CWP ... the Developing Math Talent book is a good thing to read, but once I read it I haven't gone back to it -- it is good to have read, but not really a reference: it is quick and easy going. However the bits I took from it have been incredibly valuable so I certainly do recommend it, just try a library first. On consideration, I don't think I'll end up reading my copy again -- if you'd like it, PM me with your address and I'll send it to you.

 

Also, for those of you who've done things orally, do you think it hinders DC's ability to work independently in later years?

 

Not here, but Button does some oral and some independent. But he's just turned 7, is incredibly sensitive and temperamental; I don't expect sustained independent work from him. In Singapore I find we do orally the problems which come in bunches of 6-12 and are very computationally simple -- they are essentially meant to be done out loud. If I think the main struggle with a 6+ block of problems will be the writing he does, I often do those orally. But he gets some written work every day, and if the toddler is Having a Moment sometimes Button ends up writing out the tedious sections too.

 

I will say we are doing SM in short-ish chunks lately. A day's work, as measured by the HIG, often gets put into 4-6 chunks, spread btw. text and workbook: I try to show him in the morning what the total work is, and we tackle it in bits. I don't often have Button do more than a day's worth of work in terms of pure amount of work, but since we skip things he's mastered and aren't testing right now he covers the material faster than scheduled.

Edited September 22, 2012 by serendipitous journey

[Crimson Wife]

Thanks so much for all the replies. It sounds like the majority of people who accelerate give up one or more parts of the program. For some reason I've been nervous about doing that, but if he's ready to move on, he's ready to move on. Have any of you seen gaps later on that you wish you'd covered more in depth in younger years?

 

Not so far and DD is in pre-algebra. One of the reasons why I'm spreading pre-algebra out over two years using both Singapore Discovering Math 1 and Horizons is because I want to make sure that she is 100% rock solid before we move on to secondary school math.

[boscopup]

I do things a bit differently... I go over the textbook orally and have my son do the workbook exercises. We only use IP and CWP for the challenging sections, not the regular sections. I skip sections that my son doesn't need to do at all, though I haven't skipped as much since we started Singapore (we did most of our accelerating with Math Mammoth, which is a whole lot cheaper to accelerate through!). We're in 5A now, and this week I did skip some sections on fractions and had him just do the Practice sections of the textbook instead of the workbook exercises inbetween. He's been doing Life of Fred Fractions, so he's covered all of what SM 5A is teaching there. Plus he finds fractions easy. So we're still working with them to give him practice, but I'm skipping the workbook exercises, as they're clearly unnecessary.

 

My son is writing phobic, but Singapore exercises are so short that it hasn't been a problem for him to do one exercise himself. In 4B, I started having him do the Practice sections on separate paper (teaching him HOW to do math on separate paper - like writing the number down on the left side of the red line, working out the problem right next to that, not in the middle of the page, circling the answer, etc.). Between that and doing Life of Fred (which is all on separate paper), I feel pretty confident that he'll be fine doing prealgebra from a textbook. There was nothing physical stopping him from being able to do this. He just needed me to push him into it a bit. At age 6, I did sometimes do the writing for him - I'd have him do an amount I thought was acceptable for a typical 6 year old, then I'd scribe the rest. We gradually phased out my scribing last year, and by mid-year, he was on his own. No more scribing. So that was age 7.5. I'm glad I pushed for a bit more writing. It got him over that hump and made things easier for both of us. He has no physical limitations on writing, of course - no dysgraphia or anything (maybe some low tone, but not enough to cause a huge problem, and his hand doesn't hurt).

 

My current 5 year old can write one exercise in 1A on his own. I wouldn't ask more than that of him. He isn't accelerating like he *could* right now, as I'm keeping things easy for his K year. Next year, I'll probably start skipping more, as I find that he knows things. With DS1, I gave chapter tests in Math Mammoth to determine if skipping was the right thing to do - every time I did that, he passed the test with flying colors. We even skipped all of MM 2B except one little section on fractions that he hadn't had yet. I gave him the end of year test for grade 2 and he passed it no problem, so I knew I had made the right choice.

 

Accelerating math is scary, but just keep in mind that if you are skipping something, you're doing so because your child ALREADY KNOWS that material. If they don't know it, you don't need to be skipping it. Test your child in some way (having them do a handful of problems), then move on if it's clear that they are proficient in that topic. Place value is one that I always have to skip every year. It's at the beginning of each A book, and my son understands place value forward and backward. I don't need to go over it again with a new place. He understood each place back when hundreds were introduced. That's pretty common for gifted kids to extrapolate things like that. Same thing happened when adding/subtracting with regrouping. They start with 2-digit, and once we had done that, he could do 5+ digit problems very easily. The curriculum will teach 3-digit then 4-digit then 5-digit. That's why I skipped MM 2B. It was 3-digit addition/subtraction with regrouping. We didn't need to spend time on that because he had learned it when doing 2-digit. Again, very common for a gifted kid. So that's the type of thing you often end up skipping - those repetitive things where they're just adding a new place value to a concept already learned. Again, I do have my son practice the material to review, but I don't spend time doing all the exercises or all the problems. He already knows how to do it and can demonstrate that knowledge.

[LMD]

When my DD whinges and whines about singapore being 'too easy' I skip to the chapter revision/test and if she can ace it then we move on. We also recently ditched the workbook in favour of only the IP/CWP books and she's been much happier. We were finding the textbook/workbook combo too boring. I also feel more calm using another maths curriculum along side, so that she's getting plenty of maths to practice with (we're using beast academy)

[crazyforlatin]

Also, for those of you who've done things orally, do you think it hinders DC's ability to work independently in later years?

 

No, I don't think so, but DD just turned 7, so I don't have as much experience to share. We've done many problems orally, including decimals in 5B recently. She tends to be active, so when I go through the textbook problems, she tumbles around while answering. Then, with the workbook or other math exercises, she sits on her own to do them, albeit listening to an audiobook. I've always hoped that DD could "see" numbers in her mind as if on paper, and it seemed taking an oral approach at an early age, may have helped her. I never received this type of training in parochial school, but I often wonder what the results would be if there were more oral exercises done in schools.

[Esse Quam Videri]

Wow, it's so great to hear how many people have done this before... successfully :). I'm still a little unsure about how to actually walk this out. So I did a little experiment with DS today. We were going to start the multiplication section of 1B on Monday. I went through and explained the concept, then asked him all of the questions in Exercises 30-33 orally, with him looking at the page and me writing his answers. He didn't get any of these wrong, but it does take him anywhere from 5-20 seconds to do the figuring (he hasn't started memorizing multiplication facts yet). I then had him do about 2/3 of the problems in Exercises 34 & 35 on his own, and that took quite a bit longer because he was distracted every other problem with something else that crossed his mind. This is what I scheduled to cover all next week, then the week after all of the problems in the IP. Is that how you would accelerate in my position? Or should I have skipped exercises since he didn't have trouble with the concept? And should I still go through the IP problems, or just the Word Problem and Take the Challenge sections? It's difficult because I don't quite know what "mastery" should look like. Each time he does a problem, he is mentally making the connection to the math fact (ie 3x5=15) so it's not complete useless for him to do all these.

 

I know that's a lot, but I'd love to hear your thoughts.

[SnegurochkaL]

Also, for those of you who've done things orally, do you think it hinders DC's ability to work independently in later years?

 

My son who is 5, can work independently. Since he doesn't always like writing, it takes him so long to finish some several operation math problems. When we are working together, he moves through topics at a fast pace. Doing a lot of math orally helps to accelerate quicker avoiding the boredom of hand writing.

My oldest daughter studies independently and prefers writing the answers to the problems while working the solution in her head. If she is approaching a challenging problem, she writes the important steps down to keep track of her thinking process.

Edited September 23, 2012 by SneguochkaL

[serendipitous journey]

...

Since the little fella is six, I'd move to multliplication war for fact retention once he has the strategy for each fact family down if at the end of the unit he doesn't have it memorized. I'd also cut the written work down, so he doesn't get distracted and the total time on task including working with teacher is 30 min. - less if his attention skills aren't there yet.

...

 

:iagree:

At that age -- and still -- I found it helpful to do several shorter chunks of work, 5-10 min. each. If the child is distracted, Simply Charlotte Mason suggested having them do a quick physical break -- run around the house, throw balls into a basket, do a couple tumbles, whatever works -- then get back to it. I find this idea VERY useful; I already did running around after every few problems when he seems drowsy or unfocused.

 

Very much seconding the usefulness of cementing math facts, however you choose. We liked Wrap-ups, WITH the CD, for the mult. facts. But there are lots of options, and Button's game-averse so the usual games were not something I could do.

 

Regarding your plan, if it works that is excellent! You will know it is working if the child is challenged, progressing, and generally well; and you are not going nuts with the keeping it all together. I think :).

[Greenmama2]

... we actually often skip the textbook and do the workbook for sections that come easily to Button, because he generally does better with uncluttered pages and lots of whitespace. So which you fall back on for the "easy" sections may depend on what sort of pages your child prefers.

 

This. DD likes the plain black and white pages much better. We actually often just use the workbooks until we hit a glich, then I dig out the HIG for me. Sometimes we then use the text before going back to the wb and other times just an activity or game from the HIG clears it up.

[Esse Quam Videri]

Thanks again for all the advice. We shall see how it all pans out but I think we're starting to figure it out.

[Esse Quam Videri]

Wanted to just say thank you again for the advice. Doing about half of the work orally and skipping a few sections of repetition, DS is now done with 1B and moving into 2A. I'm thinking we are going to try just the IP and textbook instead of all three, but we'll see how it goes.