Math: both spiral and mastery?

[charlotteb]

Does any such program exist? I have younger DD in Saxon 8/7 and planned to move her to their Algebra 1 program next school year. I love the spiral aspect of Saxon, but it's becoming obvious that she needs more time for mastery. Years ago, I had DS in math-u-see, as he is a lot like this DD. But I eventually founded it to be too much mastery and not enough review. Is there a program that is a good mix between the two? Maybe half the problems from every lesson to be from new material and half from review? And a slower pace than one new concept a day like Saxon?

Edited March 31, 2017 by charlotteb

[OneStepAtATime]

I found I had to combine systems for both spiral and mastery.  I didn't find a program that did both in the way I liked.  The kids have done much better using CLE for the spiral but coupling it with CTC math for mastery.  I love CLE. Love it.  But sometimes my kids need to really stick with a particular topic for a bit to get it to solidify.  Strictly mastery, though, and they lose everything else.  They need very tight spiral that stretches out for a long time with each topic.  It was hard to find a good balance for that.  I pulled in CTC and found a pretty good match.

 

CTC lets you do short math lessons on any topic as often as needed since the problems generate new ones each time.  It is organized into clearly laid out categories and subcategories at each level so it is easy to move around in the program and target one specific topic at any level.  And you can print out the results, not just the answers but the solutions as well, so you can see where you may be mucking up a bit.  And with CTC the kids have access to math from Kindergarten through Calculus.  One payment for the year and you can add as many family members as you like so we all have accounts at no additional cost.  It has allowed me to try and keep up or get ahead of the kids.  CTC can also be used as a spiral program for review.  If we were to switch to MUS or another mastery based program I would probably still keep CTC around and use it for spiral review.  It is usually for sale at Homeschool Buyer's Coop.

 

https://www.homeschoolbuyersco-op.org/ctc-math/

[EKS]

Both Jacobs and Foerster (at least his Algebra II does, and I assume that the Algebra I has the same format) have a mini-review set at the beginning of each problem set.

 

Lial has a long cumulative review set at the end of each chapter that you could spread out.

 

 

[historymatters]

Benefits of the CTC math ( cost) better than the Khan Academy (free) option?

 

Thx

[OneStepAtATime]

Benefits of the CTC math ( cost) better than the Khan Academy (free) option?

 

Thx

I love Khan Academy and I think it works really well for many.  However, my kids and I found that CTC's format/organization was waaaaaayyyy easier to navigate and the kids liked the presentation/look of the electronic page much better.  They also love that I can print out the explanation page (clear and simply laid out) to put in their math notebooks for reference later and if they struggle with anything we can print out the math problems and their answers from that lesson so they can review a paper copy.  We all have eye sight issues, though, so that is definitely a factor and may be why Khan was not as popular here.  

 

With Khan we weren't really getting stuff done, TBH.  With CTC the kids rarely ever argue about doing a lesson and frequently just end up doing more just because they feel like it.  DD loves that she can easily redo and redo lessons as many times as she wishes to get to what she feels is a good point of mastery since the lessons generate new problems each time but she isn't having to fight the system. Also, if she really wants to work on an area of weakness she loves that she can extremely easily select a lesson from that exact topic at a lower level then just keep moving forward until she gets where she wants to go.  Same with topics that she is strong in.  She can move forward in that specific topic just to try out how far she can get.  Very easy to navigate and find that specific lesson.  She found Khan more confusing to try and do this with.  With Khan it would kind of judge for her and move her on to something else whether she felt ready or not.

 

Honestly, I think both are really well done as a supplement (I know some people have successfully used both as a primary but I haven't done that so I can't really comment on that aspect).  I just found that in actual practice we used CTC much more than Khan.  I had a 30 day free trial so we got to test it out before purchasing.  One year later the kids asked if we could renew the subscription.  They still like it best.  If Khan works fine, though, I don't see a reason why Khan wouldn't serve the same purpose that we use CTC for.

[historymatters]

I love Khan Academy and I think it works really well for many. However, my kids and I found that CTC's format/organization was waaaaaayyyy easier to navigate and the kids liked the presentation/look of the electronic page much better. They also love that I can print out the explanation page (clear and simply laid out) to put in their math notebooks for reference later and if they struggle with anything we can print out the math problems and their answers from that lesson so they can review a paper copy. We all have eye sight issues, though, so that is definitely a factor and may be why Khan was not as popular here.

 

With Khan we weren't really getting stuff done, TBH. With CTC the kids rarely ever argue about doing a lesson and frequently just end up doing more just because they feel like it. DD loves that she can easily redo and redo lessons as many times as she wishes to get to what she feels is a good point of mastery since the lessons generate new problems each time but she isn't having to fight the system. Also, if she really wants to work on an area of weakness she loves that she can extremely easily select a lesson from that exact topic at a lower level then just keep moving forward until she gets where she wants to go. Same with topics that she is strong in. She can move forward in that specific topic just to try out how far she can get. Very easy to navigate and find that specific lesson. She found Khan more confusing to try and do this with. With Khan it would kind of judge for her and move her on to something else whether she felt ready or not.

 

Honestly, I think both are really well done as a supplement (I know some people have successfully used both as a primary but I haven't done that so I can't really comment on that aspect). I just found that in actual practice we used CTC much more than Khan. I had a 30 day free trial so we got to test it out before purchasing. One year later the kids asked if we could renew the subscription. They still like it best. If Khan works fine, though, I don't see a reason why Khan wouldn't serve the same purpose that we use CTC for.

Thank you. This would be supplementation only. Dd uses CLE, but with LDs, she has to pull back and sit on a subject with more explanation for a while.

My son just needs more practice problems sometimes.

My son gets migraines I don't want dd on the computer more than is absolutely necessary, so being able to print out is good.

Redoing concepts with new problems is good.

I need something organized for me already, not something that requires searching and finding. Things are too stressful as it is. I'm trying to simplify for all our sakes.

Edited March 31, 2017 by historymatters