math test results: do I need to do anything differently?

[Five More Minutes]

DD7 is LA-advanced. Lately she's been surprising me with some idiosyncrasies in math, so we decided to have her do the ADAM test for more information. It was helpful in many ways, but of course raised some questions.

 

I was surprised that she tested two grades above her current math level in almost every area, and her "lowest" area was 1.5 grades above her level. We're using Singapore as her main math, so it simply that Singapore 2 (which she just completed) is equivalent to early Gr. 5 for the standards that test is normed against?

 

Or is it possible that we may need to ramp up the pace a bit for her in math? She has been begging for math more lately, describing herself as a "math" girl (which has made us smile, given her intense love of language and literature), and announcing that she wants to be a math teacher or scientist when she grows up. I don't want to read too much into a young girl's changing dreams, but I guess I'm wondering if we've been so focused on her book love that we haven't gauged her math capacity very well.

 

Any advice? Just ignore the test results and keep plugging on as we are? Start to accelerate in Singapore? My plan had been to use Beast Academy as her main math next year (this is at her request) with Singapore as a complement. She also devours Life of Fred. This is my perfectionist, intense, and often anxious child.

[Arcadia]

Have you done the placement tests for singapore math? I would let her accelerate through SM, there is plenty of review in the series. My 7 year old is having SM fatigue and we will skip SM6.

[Dana]

Be sure to do IP and CWP in Singapore. Some of the word problems in CWP 6 are definitely algebra 1 level.

Beast looks really good too. So if you did Beast with IP and CWP (and process skills which I know you're doing), that'd be solid.

[Five More Minutes]

Have you done the placement tests for singapore math? I would let her accelerate through SM, there is plenty of review in the series. My 7 year old is having SM fatigue and we will skip SM6.

 

Is there a forehead-slap emoticon? Why didn't I think of this? Thank you! Off to try some of the placement tests.

 

Be sure to do IP and CWP in Singapore. Some of the word problems in CWP 6 are definitely algebra 1 level.

Beast looks really good too. So if you did Beast with IP and CWP (and process skills which I know you're doing), that'd be solid.

 

Dana, thanks so much for this idea. So are you suggesting that I should accelerate by just doing Beast Academy, Singapore IP and CWP (& Process Skils) until she starts to slow down, then start to fold in Singapore HIG/text if needed? I'm a bit nervous now that she's going to outstrip the Beast Academy publishing pace, so I think I want to keep Singapore handy for that time. But maybe doing two+ full programs is leading to a slower pace than she needs right now.

 

Thanks for helping me think this through!

[Dana]

I think Beast is pretty strong.

If you're doing IP and CWP along with it, I don't think you're going to be missing concepts from Singapore.

If you notice a place where she's struggling with IP, then you may want to do more specific teaching with the text and workbook. When you run out of Beast, move back to Singapore as primary.

 

We really haven't accelerated much though. I push for really solid understanding and have done some rabbit trails (with fraction multiplication showing how prime factorization is the same technique for rational expression multiplication for instance). So since I'm insistent on work being shown in certain ways, we've stayed with one book a year. If your child is pushing for acceleration, you may have some other issues I didn't have :).

 

(Not trying to say in any way that people who accelerate aren't pushing solid understanding...)

[Five More Minutes]

I think Beast is pretty strong.

If you're doing IP and CWP along with it, I don't think you're going to be missing concepts from Singapore.

If you notice a place where she's struggling with IP, then you may want to do more specific teaching with the text and workbook. When you run out of Beast, move back to Singapore as primary.

 

We really haven't accelerated much though. I push for really solid understanding and have done some rabbit trails (with fraction multiplication showing how prime factorization is the same technique for rational expression multiplication for instance). So since I'm insistent on work being shown in certain ways, we've stayed with one book a year. If your child is pushing for acceleration, you may have some other issues I didn't have :).

 

(Not trying to say in any way that people who accelerate aren't pushing solid understanding...)

 

 

Dana, you have been so helpful here. Thank you!!!

[Dana]

We've used Standards for text. After finishing 5B, we're doing just CWP and IP and iExcel for 6. Probably using Elements of Math some along with some AoPS. I think after 5, moving on to AoPS prealgebra is fine.

[Five More Minutes]

We've used Standards for text. After finishing 5B, we're doing just CWP and IP and iExcel for 6. Probably using Elements of Math some along with some AoPS. I think after 5, moving on to AoPS prealgebra is fine.

 

 

Thank you -- I was really hoping you'd plan our math progression for me offer this helpful information. :D I'm making notes! I don't want to accelerate with her so much as make sure the various pieces we're using are at the right level. Your recommendation to use Beast as a spine for a bit with the IPs / CWPs / Process Skills makes such good sense. (As I think about it, Beast is a great working level for her at the moment.)

 

I love the idea of doing just the CWP / IP / Process Skills for 6 (and I must Google Elements of Math now!)

 

Thank you, thank you!

[Julie of KY]

I would be careful about skipping too much. I think acceleration is fine. Cover the topics. You can do the problems orally or on paper. The reviews can be skipped and not every problem has to be done if it is easy.

 

There are many options for a spine - I like either SM or Beast. You can add supplemental things such as Zacarro's Primary Challenge Math, logic puzzles, Balance Benders.

 

Have fun and back off if she starts getting frustrated with anything.

 

 

[Five More Minutes]

I would be careful about skipping too much. I think acceleration is fine. Cover the topics. You can do the problems orally or on paper. The reviews can be skipped and not every problem has to be done if it is easy.

 

There are many options for a spine - I like either SM or Beast. You can add supplemental things such as Zacarro's Primary Challenge Math, logic puzzles, Balance Benders.

 

Have fun and back off if she starts getting frustrated with anything.

 

Thank you! We do love supplements here ... Zaccaro, logic puzzles, Life of Fred, Hands-on-Equations. Actually, I think I have a supplement problem. :blushing: I'm suspecting that I've let her main spine to date (Singapore) languish a bit behind where she is working at in other areas. And I am 100% with you -- I don't want to skip so much as to accelerate by being more efficient. Thanks for the reminder that it's okay to skip problems -- dd has a thing about that.

[Julie of KY]

Oops. Double post.

 

[Spy Car]

This is, I think, the natural consequence of having a smart kid who is raised on Miquon (and thereby "gets" math) and follows with Singapore ( and "gets" it too). Not a bad "problem" to have.

 

Personally (since I am in the same boat) I don't bypass the "basic work" in Primary Mathematics. If the child is "accelerated" fine, then I say do 10 or 12, or whatever number of pages you want to do (since it is not "hard" for you), but do it. I guess I'm mean that way.

 

I do try to balance the basic procedural work in Primary Mathematics with "brain-candy." Things like Beast Academy, the Intensive Practice books, Zaccaro, DragonBox, Hands on Equations, selected MEP, selected SMSG (School Mathematics Stugy Group) and other fun stuff.

 

I love BA (and son loves it too). We are almost done with 3D and will order 4A the day it is published. But I would not use it as my "spine" in place of PM, as the latter is so good at being "methodical" and making sure all the bases are covered.

 

I guess I'm looking for that "Third Way" where a child gets the really fun, interesting, and challenging mental work, but also gets a solid procedural competence. Not one, or the other, but both. So we do virtually all of PM. Do I ever get complaints? Yes, but I am generally indifferent to them. You want to accelerate? Work faster!

 

Bill (mean Dad :D)

[Five More Minutes]

This is, I think, the natural consequence of having a smart kid who is raised on Miquon (and thereby "gets" math) and follows with Singapore ( and "gets" it too). Not a bad "problem" to have.

 

Personally (since I am in the same boat) I don't bypass the "basic work" in Primary Mathematics. If the child is "accelerated" fine, then I say do 10 or 12, or whatever number of pages you want to do (since it is not "hard" for you), but do it. I guess I'm mean that way.

 

... Do I ever get complaints? Yes, but I am generally indifferent to them. You want to accelerate? Work faster!

 

Bill (mean Dad :D)

 

Bill, you make me laugh! Thanks so much -- this was helpful. I think I wanted to hear that I'm not messing her up eternally if we've lagged a bit behind her possible level in Singapore. (And that's what I'm taking from your message, although I don't know if you intended that! :001_smile: )

 

I really do not think that this child would fall in the "gifted" group in mathematics, but she is bright and has a huge love for the subject now. (When I compare our early days starting with Saxon to how she is thriving with math now, I am SO GLAD that I bumped into you and others on this board who helped me find Miquon & Singapore. Thank you a thousand times!)

 

Okay, I think that you, Dana & Julie are saying similar things: don't panic and mess up this important foundation by thoughtlessly rushing through anything. That means I'm going to have to get every. single. Singapore book again next year, isn't it? Oh, DH is going to love this ... :lol:

 

Thanks for helping me think this through!

[UrbanSue]

I'm late to the party here. And Bill's son is, I think, older than my kids.

 

But I just wanted to throw out there that my two kids who are old enough for math absolutely shut down if I give them more work to do than they need to master the concept. They shut down in very different ways: ds who is 8 acts kind of dumb and lazy and it took me almost three years to figure out that he just didn't need so much review and I was killing him with math. He is a slow worker but quick to grasp concepts. He needs a well-designed program that challenges him in an efficient way. He internalizes the material (really internalizes--it's like pulling teeth to get him to explain how he knows something sometimes) and then runs with it in his thinking later. BA is really, really ideal for him.

 

My dd6 learns concepts, for the most part, after one or two explanations. If I then assigned her an entire page (or five, or ten) of practice she explodes. She sees it as mindless busy work and I don't really blame her. We just learned addition with renaming. She didn't need to learn it first with two digits, then with three digits but only renaming in the ones, then with three digits with renaming both ones and tens. She figured out how to do it all with one or two example problems.

 

I'm not pushing you to accelerate or skip anything, just throwing out a different approach so you can, maybe, better asses what is going on as you try various things. My dd6 is very intense as well. It can be quite a ride!

[NittanyJen]

I have a kiddo who has gone through four levels of Singapore Primary math in less than two years. He also tests well above grade equivilancy in math (surprise) despite his learning difficulties in certain areas. Here are my thoughts.

 

1. Remember what grade equivilancies on those tests mean. A 5th grade equivilancy for a 2nd grader does not mean your 2nd grader is ready for 5th grade work; it is just a statistical measure that says your daughter performed the same on the test, approximately, as a fifth grader would have if taking taking her test. This is not the same as saying she should be doing fifth grade work. (you did not say this, and may well already know it, but a lot of people do get confused on that point, because it IS confusing, so I thought I would toss that thought out there).

 

2. With my son, we did stick with the traditional Singapore approach-- I did not skip any sections in Singapore's text, and I still introduced it all with concrete methods first, then the pictorial, then the abstract. Sometimes he caught on so fast he was already ahead and writing things down before we were done playing with manipulatives; his brain is NOT linear!! :D. Sometimes we would knock out an entire chapter in a day. We would work through the exercises (except for reviews and some Practices-- this is the US Edition) together on the white board before he would start the workbook. I did NOT make him do every problem in the workbook! As Sue noted above, overdoing the drill with my son would often result in a case of "Well I don't KNOW what 9 + 3 might be!" That was not a need for more drill; it was boredom. If I instead asked him to find the remaining angle inside a trapezoid given an outside angle and an inside angle, he would tell me without lifting a pencil. He certainly did know 9+3 :).

 

3. On really short, fast chapters, I would, despite his protests (I am sometimes really mean, like Bill! :D ) make him do the IP book a day or two or a week later, or a second problem set a day or two or a week later. It's fine that he can bust through a chapter in a day, because he is a smart kid, but retention does require some repetition, even for really smart kids. Review is fine, but that first exposure still requires more than one day of practice, IMHO, and probably separated by a day or so. I dislike spiral, but I think sometimes a concept needs a day or two physically for some neurons to start making connections, and then another strong exposure for those early, tentative connections to firm up instead of withdrawing contact in the brain. We really are creating wiring. Fortunately, Singapore also does continuously review concepts by integrating problem types into their subsequent word problems-- money, measurement, fractions, decimals, geometry, and so forth will all appear in word problems after they have been introduced, so once the foundation is solid, it is constantly reviewed.

 

4. This kid has had a steady diet of Khan Academy, Life of Fred, Penrose, Hands on Equations, and Dragonbox on the side all through levels 2 through 5. With that in mind, and evaluating his abilities in other ways, I am going to allow him to skip level 6 and move straight into Level 7DM and work on LoF: Fractions (he has already begun Fractions; he will start DM7 in the fall, just to wait until he turns 10-- very arbitrary of me). That sixth book just feels like a very incremental step forward to me, and it looks like an increment he can very safely skip; however I would never have skipped any of the prior books. Singapore PM builds in a very logical, deliberate fashion, with quite a lot of thought built into the design. That is not something I am willing to mess with, even with my mathematical background.

 

5. There were many times when we did need to slow things down over the past two years; there were times when I could just sense that we had hit a concept where he needed more time, or where we had perhaps moved a little too quickly past the previous concept. In those cases, we simply slowed down and picked a few more of the review and practice exercises that are available between the book, workbook, and IP book (Singapore is simply LOADED with practice and review; we use the US Edition) to give him a chance to wrap his head around whatever was missing before we moved on. I would always remind him that there was no race to get anywhere; we were simply trying to learn math at his speed-- to keep it interesting and fascinating, but to do it deliberately enough to really understand and be good at it, too.

[SnegurochkaL]

If the child is "accelerated" fine, then I say do 10 or 12, or whatever number of pages you want to do (since it is not "hard" for you), but do it. I guess I'm mean that way.

 

I do try to balance the basic procedural work in Primary Mathematics with "brain-candy." Things like Beast Academy, the Intensive Practice books, Zaccaro, DragonBox, Hands on Equations, selected MEP, selected SMSG (School Mathematics Stugy Group) and other fun stuff.

 

I love BA (and son loves it too). We are almost done with 3D and will order 4A the day it is published. But I would not use it as my "spine" in place of PM, as the latter is so good at being "methodical" and making sure all the bases are covered.

 

I guess I'm looking for that "Third Way" where a child gets the really fun, interesting, and challenging mental work, but also gets a solid procedural competence. Not one, or the other, but both. So we do virtually all of PM. Do I ever get complaints? Yes, but I am generally indifferent to them. You want to accelerate? Work faster!

 

Bill (mean Dad :D)

 

 

I am with you. You know what your child is capable of. I do the same with my daughter. I am mean at some point but she stopped complaining when she turned 7. She gets most of "Challenging problems of IP SM" from her first try and makes stupid mistakes with regular one just because she didn't bother reading them correctly. We are almost done with PM and Russian math6 and continue challenging her mind with Singapore Olympiad assignments and few other things this summer. We really enjoyed tricky MEP problems. I signed her up with Mathletics for next year just to speed up her thinking/reaction process.

 

Currently we are using BA as a supplement to SM2 for my 6 years old son. He likes it a lot . I think they complement each other nicely:)

We also doing visual geometry(Russian book) for 4th grade which deals with 3D shapes, rotations etc. My son had a lot of success with 2nd grade book.

 

Just my opinion:)

[Five More Minutes]

Wow, thank you all so much for the incredibly thoughtful posts here.

 

But I just wanted to throw out there that my two kids who are old enough for math absolutely shut down if I give them more work to do than they need to master the concept. They shut down in very different ways: ds who is 8 acts kind of dumb and lazy and it took me almost three years to figure out that he just didn't need so much review and I was killing him with math. He is a slow worker but quick to grasp concepts. He needs a well-designed program that challenges him in an efficient way. He internalizes the material (really internalizes--it's like pulling teeth to get him to explain how he knows something sometimes) and then runs with it in his thinking later. BA is really, really ideal for him.

 

My dd6 learns concepts, for the most part, after one or two explanations. If I then assigned her an entire page (or five, or ten) of practice she explodes. She sees it as mindless busy work and I don't really blame her. We just learned addition with renaming. She didn't need to learn it first with two digits, then with three digits but only renaming in the ones, then with three digits with renaming both ones and tens. She figured out how to do it all with one or two example problems.

 

 

Thanks for sharing this. You've really got me thinking about the things that do trigger sudden math meltdowns here. Huh. I need to process that more, but thanks for the idea!

 

I have a kiddo who has gone through four levels of Singapore Primary math in less than two years. He also tests well above grade equivilancy in math (surprise) despite his learning difficulties in certain areas. Here are my thoughts.

 

1. Remember what grade equivilancies on those tests mean. A 5th grade equivilancy for a 2nd grader does not mean your 2nd grader is ready for 5th grade work; it is just a statistical measure that says your daughter performed the same on the test, approximately, as a fifth grader would have if taking taking her test. This is not the same as saying she should be doing fifth grade work. (you did not say this, and may well already know it, but a lot of people do get confused on that point, because it IS confusing, so I thought I would toss that thought out there).

 

 

Even if I do know it, I appreciate you reminding me. I often lose sight of that when I sense that she's jumped in other areas, and could very easily do that here.

 

2. With my son, we did stick with the traditional Singapore approach-- I did not skip any sections in Singapore's text, and I still introduced it all with concrete methods first, then the pictorial, then the abstract. ... We would work through the exercises (except for reviews and some Practices-- this is the US Edition) together on the white board before he would start the workbook. I did NOT make him do every problem in the workbook! As Sue noted above, overdoing the drill with my son would often result in a case of "Well I don't KNOW what 9 + 3 might be!"

 

 

This is helpful, too. I need to get better at this, and so does dd. She hates leaving any pages or questions blank in her workbook.

 

4. This kid has had a steady diet of Khan Academy, Life of Fred, Penrose, Hands on Equations, and Dragonbox on the side all through levels 2 through 5. With that in mind, and evaluating his abilities in other ways, I am going to allow him to skip level 6 and move straight into Level 7DM and work on LoF: Fractions ... Singapore PM builds in a very logical, deliberate fashion, with quite a lot of thought built into the design. That is not something I am willing to mess with, even with my mathematical background.

 

This seems to mesh with Dana's suggestion above, of using just CWP6 / IP6 after SM5. Out of curiosity, why are you moving to DM instead of what seems to be the popular AoPS?

 

... We really enjoyed tricky MEP problems. I signed her up with Mathletics for next year just to speed up her thinking/reaction process.

 

Currently we are using BA as a supplement to SM2 for my 6 years old son. He likes it a lot . I think they complement each other nicely:)

We also doing visual geometry(Russian book) for 4th grade which deals with 3D shapes, rotations etc. My son had a lot of success with 2nd grade book.

 

Just my opinion:)

 

 

Thank you! It's good to hear that BA is a good component in a successful math lineup.

[NittanyJen]

 

Out of curiosity, why are you moving to DM instead of what seems to be the popular AoPS?

 

 

 

I'm moving into DM for a couple of reasons.

 

First, and probably most important, Singapore has been such a great fit, why fix what isn't broken?

 

Second, his older brother has done fabulously well in the upper levels of Life of Fred as a primary program; having read through them and evaluated them for myself, I am very impressed with the depth and content of the series at all levels (with the exception of the somewhat nutty leanings in the PreA with Economics book, but we simply discussed our impressions of that with our older child as he went through that volume-- and who knew? Economics is actually his favorite subject now, to work through on his own time). So if DM doesn't work for some reason, LoF will be our second round draft pick for younger DS as well, because we know it is rock solid. Our oldest will continue in Fred; we started homeschooling when he was older and we didn't know about Singapore yet, as we found Fred first, so again in his case, why fix what clearly is not broken?

 

Third, I was very unimpressed with the AoPS PreAlgebra book. It was written after the rest of the program, and I really feel as if they have gone astray a bit in the PreA book, kind of so in love with their challenge model that they made a pretty simple part of the math sequence far harder than it really needed to be, instead of just adding interest and challenge, without actually improving the fundamentals to an equal degree. My math professor husband read the book as well and reached the same conclusion.

 

We both feel there are many options available, of which AoPS is simply one choice among many for gifted, bright, or merely solid students-- there is no reason to think that it is the "must have" curriculum for top math students. It is popular and gets a lot of press on these boards, but if you read the "My favorite" or "biggest bust" threads on these boards, they get pretty funny-- for everybody who loves a particular book or series, somebody else found it a bust to an equal degree, and vice versa! LOL!! I know that for as much as we love Life of Fred and Singapore around here, there are people on these boards who could take them, leave them, or send them off to the recycling center quite merrily! And that's okay, as long as they find something else that works! Who knows; I am looking over the AoPS geometry right now-- we may even give this upper level book a shot for DS, since we'll be doing geometry and Algebra II at the same time, and I think two Fred books at once might be a little confusing. AoPS isn't evil; the PreA book just wasn't our cup of tea.