From BA to AoPS or Derek Owens, Dyslexia

[zarabellesmom]

Hi there. I need math advice.  🙂  I have an 11 YO who is almost finished with BA5 and I'm trying to decide where to go next. I have the AoPS prealgebra text and have worked through it with my oldest child. I love the method and the instruction is excellent. My youngest is a great math student (maybe better than the oldest) but is dyslexic. She's reads well now, but slowly and while her comprehension is good reading literature and she has no problem reading and understanding BA, I'm not sure how her comprehension would be working through the AoPS text. That said, I expect I would sit with her and we'd work through it buddy math style so maybe the reading wouldn't be SUCH a big deal.  I really don't know.

My other though would be switching to Derek Owens. My oldest moved to Derek Owens Algebra after going through about half of the AoPS Intro to Algebra book because she was starting to cry every day. (Ugh, the drama.) Anyway, the instruction isn't AoPS obviously, but I've sat through it and it's not bad. The instruction is video based (and yes, I've watched the AoPS videos and I think they're great, but they aren't the full curriculum) and having the notes printed for my youngest so that she can easily follow along with the videos might be nice. But if we did start with DO, would we do the prealgebra course or just start with Algebra 1. I wouldn't jump from BA5 to AoPS intro to Algebra, but I'm tempted to skip DO prealgebra since BA5 seems like preparation enough there.

Help!

 

[daijobu]

My students aren't dyslexic, but we used AoPS "buddy style"  (love that term).  I read the text out loud and worked through the problems on paper as described in the book.  My daughters did not study the AoPS textbooks independently of me.  

[Miss Tick]

My dd is finishing BA5D in a few weeks. I'm planning to have her start AOPS Pre-A and work through it over the subsequent 14 months, or until she finishes. Judging by what her brother did, I plan to shift her to DO for Algebra and beyond. If she surprises me and loves AOPS, I can adjust my plan. My thought is that I would rather have her beyond solid on all the arithmetic, and I'm not in a rush to start the high school sequence, so what better way to spend 6th grade.

[alpacawalker]

We did DO prealgebra and then moved on to AOPS prealgebra.  My dd found the DO preA to be be too basic. He started each concept as if the student had not encountered it before, which you will have if you finished BA 5. DO thoroughly explained everything and the way the notes were set up was really nice, but it wasn't as in depth as AOPS preA. I ended up skipping a lot of DO because I felt like it wasn't enough and I knew we would cover it and more in AOPS.  We didn't do DO Algebra 1, but my guess is she would be ready for it after finishing BA 5 if you don't want to do AOPS preA.

[EKS]

If you think your daughter would do well with AoPS, I'd use that, giving support where needed.

That said, I also think that DO is excellent.  I used his prealgebra with my younger son when he was 9/10yo since he wasn't on board with moving directly into algebra.  We've also used his geometry, Algebra 2, precalculus, calculus, and physics courses here.  They are thorough and conceptual and tend to take things a bit beyond the standard presentation, though nowhere near the level of AoPS.