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Tutoring 18 year old in Arithmetic/PreAlgebra...


Rosie
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Anyone had experience with this? I'm looking for suggestions for free online resources that aren't too "young" for an 18 year old who is struggling with the basics (from multiplication and fractions on up). Any other thoughts/ideas are welcome, too! Her mom would like her to be ready to take the ACT at the end of the school year.

 

I own Math Mammoth Blue series 4th-6th, Beast Academy Guides, Singapore 4, CWP 2&3, Primary Grade Challenge Math, and Miquon. I'll pull from all of those, I'm sure. I also have Lial's Prealgebra and Foerster Algebra 1 on the shelf but haven't ever used them with anyone yet. Their family owns Math-U-See blocks, so I'll use those to teach what I can.

 

I know about Khan Academy. My kids like Prodigy for practice but that's going to be too "young" for her. Alcumus will be too difficult. I'm trying to figure out what to give her for homework each week. Suggestions welcome.

 

If you've done something like this before, I'm very interested in hearing about your experience! Thank you!

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Those are all good resources.  If you get him set up on Kahn, he can follow up with that at home for homework.

 

I would try Lial's basic college math for the basics, older editions are very reasonable:

 

https://www.amazon.com/Basic-College-Mathematics-Margaret-Lial/dp/0321557123/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1503600850&sr=8-1&keywords=lial+basic+college+math

 

Edited by ElizabethB
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Is that very different from Lial's PreAlgebra?

 

I don't have Lial's PreAlgebra, but I think so.  It goes back to the basics, even back to basic addition and multiplication and fractions and decimals basics.  It eventually covers a bit of higher level stuff but does an excellent job reviewing basics in an adult manner.

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Another vote for Basic College Math.  It has a basic arithmetic review but the text really starts after long division has been mastered (without decimals).

It goes back through fractions, decimals and percents (and other topics) from the beginning.  It does not look like an elementary text so this is a bonus at this age!

 

If your student is 'neurotypical' then there is a chance you can go from BCM into Introductory Algebra (Algebra 1) in one year (but it would be a FULL year)

--you could skip the Pre-Algebra text (even though it is an awesome text!).

 

Most 18 yr olds who are still struggling with the basics have some sort of dyscalculia and may not be able to move into high school maths.

 

Good luck-- I wish you and her the best!

 

***  wanted to add that the Pre-Algebra text is similar but starts out with negatives and basic equation solving (multi-step) and then reviews fractions, decimals, percents... but has negatives and variables in those chapters too... the text has quite a bit of basic algebra.  Struggling students may have a hard time with the multi-step and abstract problems...  Most of my students work the BCM text before the Lial Pre-Algebra text.

Edited by Jann in TX
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I tutored a young man (I think he was maybe 23 at the time) who needed help with word problems.  We used the Singapore Challenging Word Problems books (grades 3-4 mostly).  He was so motivated that he didn't care about the juvenile looking pictures all over them.

 

If I was going to tutor an adult in arithmetic/prealgebra, I'd use Lial's Basic College Mathematics as a spine and a repository of problems, but I would do all the teaching myself (so I wouldn't just hand her the book).  I would have her try to do each example problem.  If she can do it easily, then I'd immediately move on to the next problem.  If she can do it with a little prodding, I'd assign one or two problems as homework.  If she needs a lot of explanation and practice to do the problem, then I would assign several problems as homework.  I would bring in other resources/approaches when we got to whatever is hanging her up conceptually--MUS blocks, the Singapore model method for word problems, etc.  BCM will take you through a bit of prealgebra and pregeometry.  I've used Lial this way, and it works like a charm (it was with Intermediate Algebra, though, and not BCM).

 

If you have all levels of MUS available, you could also do what I described above with that (and I did--I went through Beta-Zeta with my son in about 6 months--you'd probably want to condense that into 2-3 months).

 

I would not waste time on Lial's Prealgebra.  If you just want to get through the basics of algebra and geometry quickly, you could use MUS.

 

How far you get is going to depend on how motivated she is to learn.  Unfortunately, a major thing the ACT is testing is fluency, and it takes time to develop that.

 

 

 

 

Edited by EKS
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Anyone had experience with this? I'm looking for suggestions for free online resources that aren't too "young" for an 18 year old who is struggling with the basics (from multiplication and fractions on up). 

 

This program looks quite good, incorporates video instruction and could be used to self-teach: Developmental Math - An Open Program: Arithmetic, Geometry, and Statistics

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For homework, see if she's willing to do about 15 minutes+ day of Khan Academy for homework. I would start at the 3/4th grade level. Create a coach account and you can watch her progression. If she knows fractions then start at 5th. Hopefully she will gain some confidence and move through the lessons fairly quickly. If she gets stuck, can you load her Khan in your tutoring sessions and help her with those lessons she's struggling with. 

 

As far as tutoring, I kind of use Lial's to get problems from.  I don't give the students the books. If we are working on adding and subtracting, I write problems on notebook paper and my students solve the problems. If I need some word problems I will pull some from Lial's or other appropriate textbook that I own and we practice those. 

 

You can even look at Khan's scope and sequence to determine what skills you may want to teach in each grade level. So, if she's working on 3 or 4 for homework (independently for the most part) then you can start teaching 5th grade skills (review +-x/ and progress from there. 

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Another vote for Basic College Math.  It has a basic arithmetic review but the text really starts after long division has been mastered (without decimals).

It goes back through fractions, decimals and percents (and other topics) from the beginning.  It does not look like an elementary text so this is a bonus at this age!

 

If your student is 'neurotypical' then there is a chance you can go from BCM into Introductory Algebra (Algebra 1) in one year (but it would be a FULL year)

--you could skip the Pre-Algebra text (even though it is an awesome text!).

 

Most 18 yr olds who are still struggling with the basics have some sort of dyscalculia and may not be able to move into high school maths.

 

Good luck-- I wish you and her the best!

 

***  wanted to add that the Pre-Algebra text is similar but starts out with negatives and basic equation solving (multi-step) and then reviews fractions, decimals, percents... but has negatives and variables in those chapters too... the text has quite a bit of basic algebra.  Struggling students may have a hard time with the multi-step and abstract problems...  Most of my students work the BCM text before the Lial Pre-Algebra text.

 

Thank you! This is helpful. I'm going to buy BCM.

 

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I tutored a young man (I think he was maybe 23 at the time) who needed help with word problems.  We used the Singapore Challenging Word Problems books (grades 3-4 mostly).  He was so motivated that he didn't care about the juvenile looking pictures all over them.

 

If I was going to tutor an adult in arithmetic/prealgebra, I'd use Lial's Basic College Mathematics as a spine and a repository of problems, but I would do all the teaching myself (so I wouldn't just hand her the book).  I would have her try to do each example problem.  If she can do it easily, then I'd immediately move on to the next problem.  If she can do it with a little prodding, I'd assign one or two problems as homework.  If she needs a lot of explanation and practice to do the problem, then I would assign several problems as homework.  I would bring in other resources/approaches when we got to whatever is hanging her up conceptually--MUS blocks, the Singapore model method for word problems, etc.  BCM will take you through a bit of prealgebra and pregeometry.  I've used Lial this way, and it works like a charm (it was with Intermediate Algebra, though, and not BCM).

 

I like this idea. It would give convenient problem sets when I need them.

 

If you have all levels of MUS available, you could also do what I described above with that (and I did--I went through Beta-Zeta with my son in about 6 months--you'd probably want to condense that into 2-3 months).

 

I don't have any of MUS, though I do have the blocks and she's used MUS up through multiplication (mom said it got confusing then so they switched to LoF) so I'm going to teach the way I've always taught with Cuisenaire rods, but using MUS blocks instead.

 

I would not waste time on Lial's Prealgebra.  If you just want to get through the basics of algebra and geometry quickly, you could use MUS.

 

How far you get is going to depend on how motivated she is to learn.  Unfortunately, a major thing the ACT is testing is fluency, and it takes time to develop that.

 

Yeah, I'm prepared to tell them that it's going to take more time than they'd hoped for. I still haven't met with her, though, so I'm waiting to see exactly where she's at and how quickly she picks things up before I make any judgments.

 

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For homework, see if she's willing to do about 15 minutes+ day of Khan Academy for homework. I would start at the 3/4th grade level. Create a coach account and you can watch her progression. If she knows fractions then start at 5th. Hopefully she will gain some confidence and move through the lessons fairly quickly. If she gets stuck, can you load her Khan in your tutoring sessions and help her with those lessons she's struggling with. 

 

As far as tutoring, I kind of use Lial's to get problems from.  I don't give the students the books. If we are working on adding and subtracting, I write problems on notebook paper and my students solve the problems. If I need some word problems I will pull some from Lial's or other appropriate textbook that I own and we practice those. 

 

You can even look at Khan's scope and sequence to determine what skills you may want to teach in each grade level. So, if she's working on 3 or 4 for homework (independently for the most part) then you can start teaching 5th grade skills (review +-x/ and progress from there. 

 

I was thinking of having her do 1-1.5 hours per day of some type of homework. I'm not sure if she'd make much progress with just 15 minutes per day. I like the idea of using Khan, too, though. And teaching ahead of what she's practicing.

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I was thinking of having her do 1-1.5 hours per day of some type of homework. I'm not sure if she'd make much progress with just 15 minutes per day. I like the idea of using Khan, too, though. And teaching ahead of what she's practicing.

I would have her work in 2 or 3 thirty minute blocks, you get more out of it that way than one big chunk.

Edited by ElizabethB
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Hey everybody, does it matter which edition of BCM I get?

 

EDIT: Looked it up on the forums. I ordered the 7th edition plus solution manual.

 

7th edition is perfect. That's what I have used. 

 

eta At 18 90 minutes of math per day is a reasonable expectation. She can decide if she needs breaks. 

Edited by Momto2Ns
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