Trouble with RightStart C

[Marie131]

My 8 y/o ds began RS C last year after easily breezing through B in 6 months.  We have been working through it for more than a year now and are only half-way and are really struggling.  I am finding we are spending forever on a lesson learning a concept and when we finally move on and get to a review page all the previous learning is forgotten.  I really like RS and have the next level (though we are nowhere near ready for it) but are there any suggestions for how we can make this more enjoyable.  I think we are going to have to spend more time adding in review.  My ds is feeling rather overwhelmed and shutting down with these lessons.

[EmilyGF]

I have a few questions. We're on RS E and we had some retention problems at some points.

 

1. Are you doing lessons daily? 

2. Are you playing games? Did you skimp on games during B?

3. How are the drawing lessons going?

 

I found I needed to give a multi-digit addition and subtraction daily or they were entirely forgotten. I gave up on mastery of Roman Numerals. Who really cares?

 

HTH,

Emily

[EmilyGF]

Finally, is there a lot of background noise during the lesson?

 

Oh, yeah, does your son read along during the lessons? My daughter didn't learn/retain until I let her read the teacher's manual with me.

Emily

[Mom0012]

We dropped RS after level C because at that point I felt like my dd needed more systematic written practice. Yes, I know RS supplies worksheets that you can choose to add in when and where you like, but it wanted something planned out and systematic. We switched to CLE and my dd's test scores skyrocketed. And, honestly, she did not seem to have any trouble with RS C, so I was surprised by what a little written practice could do. I don't regret using RS A - C, though. It was fun and age appropriate and gave my dd a great foundation.

[RoundAbout]

You know, for some reason we got bogged down mid level C, but we persisted and it started to pick up again. Retention was not a problem here, I think it was just kind of dull compared to the rest of the program. I'm glad we stuck with it because I like how they teach fractions so far and there is a lot of fun stuff at the end like tangrams and area.

 

I won't talk you into staying, but if you want to keep with it a bit longer I would:

 

-Give multi digit addition and subtraction problems daily. I picked up a $4 word problem book from Barnes and Noble for this purpose since it gave us practice on 2 skills at once.

 

-Play the games. DS will dawdle like crazy on the multiplication tests, but the games are perfect for practicing times tables.

 

-Give review sheets more often. Since each review sheet has an A and B version you could spread them out more often. What we did was spend a day going through review sheet A together, then give him the B version to do on his own the next day.

 

I also did not worry about perfect mastery in C like I did in B, since several people here have said that level D has a ton of review.

[Haiku]

We found C to be a real disappointment after A and B. I found C scattered and really lacking in much forward progress. Waaaaay too much time was spent on pointless drawing lessons. There was not nearly enough focused work on any of the main concepts. We bailed after C for my dd, and I never even started my son in it. My suggestion would be to visit http://www.worksheetworks.com/ to print off worksheets for the skills you are working on in RS. Skip the drawing lessons. We derived zero benefit and much frustration from them, and they require far more physical dexterity than most kids that age possess. In each lesson, focus on the main concept and skip the peripheral material. 

 

The only thing dd learned from C was how to subtract multi-digit numbers with that weird underlining method that drives me nuts. She scolds me every time I do subtraction for "doing it wrong," even though I have told her multiple times that the way I learned and the way she learned are just different. RS C was, truly, a wasted math year for us.

 

Just a warning ... level D doesn't start division until over 100 lessons in. My dd was horrified when she saw that and begged me to switch from RS.

[RoundAbout]

I would guess the drawing lessons are a YMMV thing. My son loved the geometric drawing and had no problems with it despite being young. I was impressed with some of the conclusions he came to on his own. I think their subtraction algorithm is brilliant, and a main strength of this level.

 

Multiplication was the real weakness with this level for us. Lots of repetitive skip counting and drill, which is very unlike most of RS. I'm still undecided about level D, would love more reviews if anyone has them.

[Marie131]

Thank you for the tips.  I do want to stick with it, I think the program is solid.  We just seem to have hit a rut.

 

I think I need to a) play more games b.) do more review - great idea about using both review sheets spread out and c) worry less about completing each and every little thing.  It is ok to skip through some stuff....right?

[Tonia]

We're in level E now and I will just chime in too! :)

 

I agree with the other posters - more review, whether a workbook, or printing out some math drill pages for mutli-digit addition and subtraction were essential for us. I love the way concepts were taught (and I actually love the way they taught mutli-digit subtraction) but there was just not enough daily practice after a new concept was introduced so I had to add that in.

 

Even though they didn't match up exactly, I really liked Horizons math for this. I just used it about 1/2 year behind so we could get to the concept in RS first and then use Horizons just for the math drill. They worked well together.

 

We skipped a lot of the drawing lessons. Instead I would do the warm-up section, a practice sheet and play a game.