Talk to be about Right Start E....

[siloam]

Why is it not well liked? We aren't there yet, but will be in less than a year (most likely). Right now I am considering going with LOF instead. I just want to try to wrap my mind around why.

 

BTW my oldest loves all the games, finds the worksheets way to easy and boring, but does them without complaint. She HATED the drawing portions in level C. :001_huh: If that gives you any clue as to weather E would work here.

 

Thanks!

 

Heather

[partyof5]

We enjoyed RS E and have always appreciated the variety of activities in each level. Mine is packed away right now but I'm not remembering quite as much drawing board work in that level as in others.

 

I'm not sure why people don't like it so much so I can't respond to that but I will tell you what I know...

 

I posted last week about BJU math which is what we use now and Oh Elizabeth shared some insights about RS that I have only JUST been realizing as we move into this other curriculum.

 

What my dd 10 did not get with RS math is enough repetitive practice. The worksheets were easy & boring for us too but worth it. Now, she knows the answers to any problem but is not fluent enough to make longer problems seem easy and quick. SO, I highly recommend that you keep up with the additional practice sheets and games! Do not let up on these and I think you'll enjoy level E as much as the others.

 

SInce last week's thread (which I don't know how to link here for you) I have been working on additional practice/speed drills and I'm finding that she DOES know her facts but we really should have done this more to make it all easier for her now that BJU has many problems per lesson and it shouldn't take her so long.

 

ANyway, we like RS and are not sorry we stuck with it through the end.

Wishing you the best,

[buddhabelly]

I felt the same as you do....concerned that we were planning to do "E" and nobody else seemed to like it. We are a few weeks into it now and both ds and I think it's just fine. Not sure what the problem is. I do supplement with Singapore so I can be sure my ds is not "behind" other 4th graders.

 

:bigear: I'll be interested to hear the answers you get.

[susie in tx]

I don't really know. It's still somewhat time consuming for the parent. I'm on my second time around with Level D and mid-way through Level E. We don't always do the calculator stuff, nor do we do all of the geometry. I've been very pleased with how decimals, fractions and percents have been introduced. We find that there is plenty of practice with the practice sheets recommended in many, if not most, of the lessons.

 

FWIW, we're going through this at almost double time and my dd is doing well.

[prairiegirl]

I have been wondering this myself. We are more than halfway through D and we love it. I love the variety. We will be ready for E probably by Jan. I have gone back and forth between getting E or not but I have decided not to listen to anyone else and find out for myself if it is going to work or not.

[partyof5]

I went forward with level E after reading some negative posts here, and I'm not sorry that I did. I agree that sometimes have to just try things for yourself, especially with math.

 

I also think that is a teacher-intensive program but I am okay with that as I plan around it in other subject areas. Also, it allows me to be completely plugged in to how the program works and confident in my ability to explain a strategy, review, remediate, etc.

 

Trust your guy and know that it has a fairly high resale value should you find it doesn't work. ;)

[Mama Lynx]

I was nearly talked out of E by negative posts here. However, we did it anyway. We just finished, and I think it was a very good decision. We were pleased.

 

My son hated all the drawing bits too, and frankly, we just skipped all those lessons :D

[PeterPan]

Ahhh, well you see what a loss it is that some of the veterans from the other board are gone! (Pensguys, MagicWand, etc.) GVA always puts things so much more nicely than I do, but I'll give it a shot.

 

I own RS E but decided not to use it right now with dd. There are certain things I really like about it and certain things I was not happy with. I'm not saying my little lists here are cummulative or culminating or complete or anything, but they're the biggest things that come to my mind.

 

Like:

-the warm-ups. RS E has the absolutely coolest warm-ups, and one day I'll probably take some time and do them with dd. I love the way it gets them thinking through equations, exponents, square roots, etc. Very cool, very worthwhile. There are some exercises in the challenge pages of BJU that approach these skills, but not in quite as advanced a way. Like I said, I like them a lot and consider them worth doing.

 

Dislike:

-Well, basically everything that piled up on us by level D remained issues in E. It's not in color, approaches things only one way on the worksheets (no themes, fun, puzzles, games, color, sophisticated problem-solving situations to sort through, etc. etc. like BJU). It doesn't have the type or quantity of work to build proficiency that my dd needs. It is especially going to be difficult for a younger, mildly advanced dc because the conceptual age is older. It's like there ought to be a book BETWEEN RS D and E. Or definitely between E and G? Actually that's what Dr. Cotter had hoped to write one day. In any case, the thought process is more sophisticated in level E, more on par with a 5th grade book (personal opinion), but you didn't bridge the computation practice to get there. You'll notice that the people who are happiest with E are those using it with kids at the upper end of the ages, not early. Oh sure, some whiz kids are going to do great with it early, but you and I don't have that, hehe.

 

So in truth, when push came to shove and I opened my level E and the E workbook and looked at them and looked at them, the ONLY thing I thought that was really great and not to be missed was the warm-ups, which is what you see in my likes. In every other respect, for us, BJU turned out to be better. We needed color, more independence, more computation and contextualized, interesting practice, more interesting pages with a student text for my visual learner. We just plain needed it to build up gradually and let her get really good at these difficult things, not just take a huge leap.

 

Nobody is saying E is bad or does a poor job. I haven't met anybody who completed E and regretted it or hated it. But what you are seeing is: 1) people found their dc was one of the percentage for whom the approach didn't have enough practice; 2) a need to move on with style, approach, etc. due to changing life situations or maturing of the dc (wanting to work more independently); or 3) a realization that E, while good, wasn't as unique and amazing, nay unskippable, as earlier levels had been. Would my world be the same if we had never done subtraction the RS way? Absolutely not! RS's approach is the coolest thing ever and I'd do it that way again in a heartbeat. But E hasn't seemed so unskippable to some people.

 

So my opinion is this. If you're finding your mix good, don't mess with it. If your dc is happy, thriving, doing the math, and getting enough practice to be as fast as they should be, then continue what you're doing. Don't fix what isn't broken, kwim? For us, RS B had a few issues, RS C had a lot, and by RS D we fell apart. We NEEDED to move on. People who need to move on, people for whom RS E isn't going to be a good fit, can see that writing on the wall, kwim? But if there's no writing on the wall for you, no hand in the sky, no warning signals, nothing coming from your kid or you that you need a change, then I say proceed and enjoy. I think you'll be fine. And even if you aren't and want to change at some point, I wouldn't go into LoF. Not that I don't like LoF, because I do. But I would go into a very standard sequence with plenty of practice (my preference being BJU, no surprise there), just to make sure you've really got a good, traditional foundation going forward. It's not enough to have covered the concepts. There has to also be enough speed and practice to develop proficiency. People have gone from RS E into BJU5 or 6 (depending on the age of the dc and their comfort level) quite happily. That would give a really good, solid foundation for then going into the pre-algebra and algebra sequence of your choice.

[Mama Lynx]

I agree with your comments about the more advanced conceptual age of the books. I used E with a 10 year old 5th grader (we finished the book a month into 5th grade).

 

We also use Singapore, so when there is a conceptual age bridge to gap, we take a break from Right Start and play with Singapore for awhile, until the child is ready to move on.

[G5052]

I need to pack for co-op, but basically we found it more disjointed than the previous versions and for us at least, not as clear. I would agree that it was more conceptual, and that was probably a factor in our case. I was doing E with a young 9 y.o. boy. We switched to CLE math in January of that year. At the same time, my then 4th grader was seemingly ready for more independent work, so it was a good move overall. I continued to use RightStart with my younger one that year, but sold my books that summer and switched her to CLE as well that fall because I was working more and DH was home quite a bit with medical problems.

 

I still like RightStart as a curriculum. Both of my children have a very good grasp of place value and the meaning of the various number operations, but we hit a wall with RightStart E. It just wasn't working at all for all for my 9 y.o. and I, and the time was right for independent work for both of my children.

[prairiegirl]

OhElizabeth, thank you for stating your reasons for ditching E in detail. This all makes sense to me. The reasons that RS didn't work for you are the reasons that it does work for us. I believe that my dd has dyscalculia. She likes the black and white pages and the unbusyness of its setup because it does not distract her. The pages are set up very simply and this is what she needs. When we do come upon a page that has lots of things happening, she starts to hyperventilate. The same thing with computational drill. The amount of practise offered by RS is enough for my dd. I read in another thread that BJU has 4 pages of drill (don't know if I read that accurately or not.) My dd would be curled up in a fetal position if she had to do this every day. She is not getting her answers quick but I don't think she would regardless of what program we are using. The fact that she is at least getting the answers is enough for me right now.

 

Now, my ds is a math whiz but he seems to be doing well with RS. Although, I have noticed that he wants more drill practise. I have been filling this gap by just making drill sheets for him on my own and this has satisfied him for now.

 

I am thinking out loud here. Sorry. But I have always wondered why people diss RS so much. The replies in this thread have made it clear to me that the things that the people don't like about RS are the things that we do like about it. So I feel much better in my decision to stick with it.

[PeterPan]

Julia, you explained the issues really well, and that's great that it's working out so well for you! And that's what it's wonderful that we have so many good options. I personally think any of the major math curricula (horizons, BJU, RS, SM, etc.) can be very good when done consistently, to the end, and when they fit the dc. Like you say, it's the nuances between them that sometimes make one program fit a particular dc or situation better than another. Just for clarity, BJU, Horizons, and others do have multiple pages of math prescribed a day, but they each get there in their own way. Horizons does it as one long, straight lesson, which really does put my dd in a spasm. BJU gets to the same place but breaks it up into separate assignments, each with its own theme, etc. And the abeka drill we do is the same way, breaking up a whole page of work into 4 smaller chunks. Takes a lot of work to finally see all the differences in these programs and realize what will fit your particular dc exactly. I'm really glad RS is working out so well for you! :)

 

BTW, my dd always adored the drawing in RS, and I have RS Geo saved up to use with her at some point.

Edited October 2, 2008 by OhElizabeth

[Karie]

I used E for my older son and will use it for my younger son. I did skip some of the drawing portions with ds because he hated doing them and I didn't think some of them were very beneficial for him at the time (he did E in 3rd grade). I also did Singapore 4A and 4B alongside level E. It provided more practice for him. Then, over the summer, he did Life of Fred Fractions. It all flowed very well together.

[siloam]

I used E for my older son and will use it for my younger son. I did skip some of the drawing portions with ds because he hated doing them and I didn't think some of them were very beneficial for him at the time (he did E in 3rd grade). I also did Singapore 4A and 4B alongside level E. It provided more practice for him. Then, over the summer, he did Life of Fred Fractions. It all flowed very well together.

 

Karie,

 

Ohhh, I want to pick your brain. :D

 

My oldest is actually doing Singapore 4B right now, and finishing up RS C. I have D on the way, which she will probably double the lessons on. She doesn't need RS and would have been fine just doing Singapore, but since doing RS she has developed a better understanding of math.

 

I was perfectly willing to do level E, but in researching upper level math programs I have narrowed it down to using either NEM or Foerster's with LOF as a supplement. Now that LOF is a given I realized that they have texts that covered the same material as RS E and I began to listen to the criticisms of RS level E for the first time.

 

Can you tell me a little about the differences between the two. I know RS will be more hands on and LOF will be story problems. My oldest is an auditory learner and voracious reader, so I lean towards LOF for her learning style. I guess I am just concerned that it won't cover the concepts as well as RS.

 

Heather

[Karie]

Heather,

 

I've never had a problem with RS E. Part of the reason we did Singapore was because the plan was to go to Singapore 5 after RS E which we have done. So far, I've found Singapore 5 rather easy. We've added in Challenging Word Problems and Intensive Practice. But, you wanted a comparison of E and LOF. I would not say that LOF is all word problems, in fact, most of them aren't word problems. Yes, there is a lot of reading, but that doesn't equal word problems. My son loved LOF fractions, and we are continuing with LOF percents and decimals added in with Singapore. He loved LOF because of the stories leading up to the problems. I personally won't do LOF (the first 2 books anyways) by themselves. They have been a great supplement and are fun reading, but it isn't NEARLY enough practice. I've found that Singapore and LOF are a good fit.

 

I really don't think you can compare E and LOF, they are 2 totally different programs. I know some have given up on RS E, but it worked perfectly for my son-I have another one doing E next year when he hits 3rd grade.

 

I'm not sure if I answered your question, though. If I didn't answer your question sufficiently, just post again, and I'll check!

 

Karie

[siloam]

Heather,

 

I've never had a problem with RS E. Part of the reason we did Singapore was because the plan was to go to Singapore 5 after RS E which we have done. So far, I've found Singapore 5 rather easy. We've added in Challenging Word Problems and Intensive Practice. But, you wanted a comparison of E and LOF. I would not say that LOF is all word problems, in fact, most of them aren't word problems. Yes, there is a lot of reading, but that doesn't equal word problems. My son loved LOF fractions, and we are continuing with LOF percents and decimals added in with Singapore. He loved LOF because of the stories leading up to the problems. I personally won't do LOF (the first 2 books anyways) by themselves. They have been a great supplement and are fun reading, but it isn't NEARLY enough practice. I've found that Singapore and LOF are a good fit.

 

I really don't think you can compare E and LOF, they are 2 totally different programs. I know some have given up on RS E, but it worked perfectly for my son-I have another one doing E next year when he hits 3rd grade.

 

I'm not sure if I answered your question, though. If I didn't answer your question sufficiently, just post again, and I'll check!

 

Karie

 

Karie,

 

Thanks!

 

I think for right now I am going to plan to do RS E with Sweat Pea, my oldest. She will continue Singapore either way though level 6. Then I will decide weather to start LOF with Algebra or go ahead and do Decimals and Fractions first. If RS E and it doesn't work, then she can just jump ship for LOF early. Pumpkin, my 2nd dd, is extremely hands on and will need RS E either way, so it won't really matter if Sweat Pea jumps ship on it.

 

Heather

 

[siloam]

It's not in color,approaches things only one way on the worksheets (no themes, fun, puzzles, games, color, sophisticated problem-solving situations to sort through, etc. etc. like BJU)

 

Ok those aren't issues here, because Singapore has all that. The way RS demonstrates base concepts just clicks here and that is what I am after. The better understanding of WHY.

Actually that's what Dr. Cotter had hoped to write one day. In any case, the thought process is more sophisticated in level E, more on par with a 5th grade book (personal opinion), but you didn't bridge the computation practice to get there. You'll notice that the people who are happiest with E are those using it with kids at the upper end of the ages, not early. Oh sure, some whiz kids are going to do great with it early, but you and I don't have that, hehe.

 

Nope, LOL! But Sweet Pea will be approaching 6th grade by the time we get to it, so that won't be an issue.

 

She is already covering fractions in RS and does well with them. Shhhh she does better than I do. I often second guess myself and work the problems out long hand to verify my answers where she just "gets it" and puts down the right answer. :glare: I am the math lover here. It isn't fair!!

 

By the time all is said and done she will have done RS A-E (assuming we do E) and Singapore EB-6B WITH World Problems 1-6 and Intensive Practice 1-6B. It probalby still doesn't equal the amount of practice in BJU but she is getting a lot. Her test scores have been great and this is another required testing year, so we will see how she does this spring. If something is off I will correct then, but I really doubt it will be.

 

Moving into Algebra I get stumped. I love Singapore methods and would like to do NEM. I also love the idea of doing two column proofs in Foerster's texts, but I am afraid it will be a little dry for her. She won't be a math major but will be a science major so math is important. LOF I will probalby add because I think she will love it, but given we hs year around I can't see it working as a main program. She would move through it too quickly. But I really do have almost two years to figure it out. :D

 

Praying you have that baby SOON!

 

Heather

 

[siloam]

I really appreciate everyone's input. It has given me the comfort level to go ahead with level E and at lest see if it will work for Sweat Pea. If it doesn't then I will worry about things.

 

Thanks!

 

Heather