Math does not come naturally to student - which curriculum to use?

[teachingtowheads]

I think I want to try a new math curriculum with my daughter (age 7 - 2nd grade). We are using Christian Light Education and Addition/Subtraction Facts That Stick. I like CLE and have used it with my older son for years. Math comes naturally to him and I barely have to teach the CLE, he just gets it. Math does not come as naturally to my daughter. It seems she needs more instruction than CLE offers (or CLE tells me to do). Even skipping problems, the lessons take a long time for her and we add in math facts on top of that. What elementary math do you recommend for a student that is not super mathy? Something that is simple, clear, still with lots of practice and review but doesn't take too long. Thanks!

[Kiara.I]

What about Rightstart?

[SilverMoon]

Rod and Staff and Math U See were the best fits for my math struggler. 

[Not_a_Number]

Are the addition and subtraction facts sticking? 🙂 

[Little Green Leaves]

I use Miquon with my daughter, who's also 7. She's not especially mathy but she really enjoys it. It's beautifully planned out and it almost feels like the math equivalent of a language immersion program, if that makes sense.

[lewelma]

I was just coming to say Miquon, so agreeing with Little Green. 

But also, YOU as the teacher is going to be critical.  The curriculum is not very important, but you are. 

[Not_a_Number]

43 minutes ago, lewelma said:

I was just coming to say Miquon, so agreeing with Little Green. 

But also, YOU as the teacher is going to be critical.  The curriculum is not very important, but you are. 

I've really liked what I've seen of Miquon. But also, I very much agree with the bolded. 

[Ellie]

4 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

I've really liked what I've seen of Miquon. But also, I very much agree with the bolded. 

I like Miquon in general, but not all children need manipulatives to be successful in math, only those children who are highly kinesthetic. My children would not have liked it at all, nor would I. 🙂

For children who don't need manipulatives, my favorite is Rod and Staff Publishers. For the first three levels, you spend about 10 minutes actually teaching, then you give your dc the seatwork to do independently, which reinforces what you just taught.

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, Ellie said:

I like Miquon in general, but not all children need manipulatives to be successful in math, only those children who are highly kinesthetic. My children would not have liked it at all, nor would I. 🙂

For children who don't need manipulatives, my favorite is Rod and Staff Publishers. For the first three levels, you spend about 10 minutes actually teaching, then you give your dc the seatwork to do independently, which reinforces what you just taught.

I wouldn't agree with the statement that the kids that need manipulatives are highly kinesthetic. Sometimes, manipulatives are just a way to demonstrate the concept and make it somewhat less abstract... most of the kids in my homeschool classes benefited from them. 

That being said, DD8 doesn't particularly like manipulatives. She's certainly ABLE to use them -- she just doesn't need them. Which brings me to the question of whether not liking manipulatives would mean one didn't like Miquon? I haven't used the program myself, since I don't use programs, so I can't answer that question. 

[PeterPan]

If things really aren't clicking, Ronit Bird is what you need. It's meant for dyscalculia, math disability. LOVE Ronit Bird and it has been the bomb for ds. If it's clicking but slowly, I agree with the R&S/MUS suggestions. 

[Melissa in Australia]

My twins have interlectual disabilities and are very slow at learning

What we are doing is Saxon plus something I have labled as fun math, basically it is math from several different sources that I have printed out and stapled into books. It is below their level, so like review. It takes them only 5 minutes and they get a sense of achieving success. It include mathematical reasoning from critical thinking co, Fitzroy math, some free worksheets from the good and the Beutiful, some number dot to dots and whatever I come across online. 

 

My goal for them is to be able to get them to have some level of functional math for everyday life. At the moment they are still at a level of adding and subtracting numbers under 10,  Learning very basic place value,  one still has trouble recognising numbers up to 10

Edited October 13, 2020 by Melissa in Australia

[Ellie]

4 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

I wouldn't agree with the statement that the kids that need manipulatives are highly kinesthetic. Sometimes, manipulatives are just a way to demonstrate the concept and make it somewhat less abstract... most of the kids in my homeschool classes benefited from them. 

That being said, DD8 doesn't particularly like manipulatives. She's certainly ABLE to use them -- she just doesn't need them. Which brings me to the question of whether not liking manipulatives would mean one didn't like Miquon? I haven't used the program myself, since I don't use programs, so I can't answer that question. 

My first statement has to do with using a process math--one which requires manipulatives--as the sole, primary source of all math instruction, not for isolated, occasional use.

Since most instruction/learning in Miquon involves using Cuisenaire rods, then yes, it would mean that a child who is not strongly kinesthetic would most likely not like Miquon. Of course, I know that people will now share why they disagreed with that statement and share all their examples, and that's fine; I would still not recommend it for children who are not strongly kinesthetic.

[Not_a_Number]

8 minutes ago, Ellie said:

My first statement has to do with using a process math--one which requires manipulatives--as the sole, primary source of all math instruction, not for isolated, occasional use.

Since most instruction/learning in Miquon involves using Cuisenaire rods, then yes, it would mean that a child who is not strongly kinesthetic would most likely not like Miquon. Of course, I know that people will now share why they disagreed with that statement and share all their examples, and that's fine; I would still not recommend it for children who are not strongly kinesthetic.

I’d be interested whether that’s most people’s experience. As I said, I don’t really think of things like C-rods as mainly kinesthetic... I think of manipulatives in a computer in much the same way, and they don’t involve physical touch.

But we never did use manipulatives much with DD8 🙂 . We used pictures. 

[Lori D.]

20 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

I’d be interested whether that’s most people’s experience. As I said, I don’t really think of things like C-rods as mainly kinesthetic... I think of manipulatives in a computer in much the same way, and they don’t involve physical touch.

But we never did use manipulatives much with DD8 🙂 . We used pictures. 

Our experience was more what you describe here. ^^^

DS#1 was a strongly auditory-sequential learner -- so NOT kinesthetic at ALL, but strongly auditory-based. He also did well with abstract --so he did NOT need concrete visual or hands-on to make abstract ideas clear. And he loved Miquon. It appealed to his natural math-mindedness, and built on his own naturally-strong discovery-based learning of math connections and concepts.

DS#2 is a strongly visual-spatial learner -- so very much needed concrete of visuals or hands-on to visualize abstract. He struggled with math especially hard up to about age 10, but of the many things we tried, he did best with Miquon -- the discovery aspect of Miquon matched up with his  VSL strength of whole-to-parts and seeing patterns. He also did well with Hands-On Equations, which helped him concretely see the concept of balanced equations and solving for X. He also did well with MUS, again because it concretely showed the abstract concepts at work. He did not need the kinesthetic aspect of actually touching and manipulating in order to understand, and in fact, with MUS, he really didn't hands-on/kinestheically touch the blocks much at all -- it was the seeing of the concepts made concrete through the manipulative, whether on the video, or with me recreating the lesson on the table in front of him with the MUS blocks, that helped him click -- he really wasn't that "into" those math manipulative (other than building space ships and other creations out of the cusienair rods, MUS rods, multi-link cubes, etc., lol)

ETA:
Rather than the angle Ellie is coming at it (that Miquon is not likely to be a match for a non-kinesthetic learner), I would suggest that Miquon is probably not the best fit for a child who is not *discovery-based* in the learning of math -- but who instead is more comfortable with first learning algorithms and then branching out from there -- which is not Miquon's primary method.

Just speaking from my own experience of 2 radically different learning style DSs, neither of whom was kinesthetic in learning style (how one best/most naturally takes in information), but both were more discovery-based in math.

Edited October 13, 2020 by Lori D.

[Not_a_Number]

9 minutes ago, Lori D. said:

Rather than the angle Ellie is coming at it (that Miquon is not likely to be a match for a non-kinesthetic learner), I would suggest that Miquon is probably not the best fit for a child who is not *discovery-based* in the learning of math -- but who instead is more comfortable with first learning algorithms and then branching out from there -- which is not Miquon's primary method.

And as I far prefer discovery-based learning for math for most kids, I like Miquon 😉 .

[Lori D.]

Just now, Not_a_Number said:

And as I far prefer discovery-based learning for math for most kids, I like Miquon 😉 .

We all loved it here, too. But I've read enough posts over the years to know that discovery-based learning is NOT a fit for every child, and that Miquon just isn't a fit for every child. (Or parent! 😉 ) And that's okay -- many math programs from many perspectives are available, so something for everyone. 😉

 

[Carol in Cal.]

I hated Saxon but it worked great for my non-mathy kid because it had so much review built in.

I found it helpful not to call it math or arithmetic like it was just one thing.  No, in our house we had calendar time, facts practice, math lesson time, math ‘homework’ time, and arithmetic meeting.  I literally used those names so that we could check of the many sub boxes instead of facing the big enormous mass/morass.  That made a BIG difference in how it was received, and it made it easier to break it up at times.

Also, I did not always do all the math meeting stuff.  Once DD learned skip counting cold, we didn’t review it quite as often as the curriculum called for, for instance.  And at some point we started to use a computer program for facts practice instead of the Saxon worksheets to reduce the pencil allergy issue and provide instant feedback.

[Ellie]

14 minutes ago, Lori D. said:

We all loved it here, too. But I've read enough posts over the years to know that discovery-based learning is NOT a fit for every child, and that Miquon just isn't a fit for every child. (Or parent! 😉 ) And that's okay -- many math programs from many perspectives are available, so something for everyone. 😉

 

I used Miquon in the little one-room school where I was the only teacher, with several children first through fourth. Long story on why I did Miquon. 🙂 It was fine, the children enjoyed it, but *I* was so fried by the end of our Miquon time. I had to have something afterwards that they could work on independently so that I could recharge, or do it right before lunch. I suspect that both of my dc would not have liked that whole discovery thing, either.

[Lori D.]

1 minute ago, Ellie said:

I used Miquon in the little one-room school where I was the only teacher, with several children first through fourth. Long story on why I did Miquon. 🙂 It was fine, the children enjoyed it, but *I* was so fried by the end of our Miquon time. I had to have something afterwards that they could work on independently so that I could recharge, or do it right before lunch. I suspect that both of my dc would not have liked that whole discovery thing, either.

I would also guess that is why your family did well with Saxon. 😉 Glad you found what worked best for you all. 😄 

[Not_a_Number]

6 hours ago, Lori D. said:

We all loved it here, too. But I've read enough posts over the years to know that discovery-based learning is NOT a fit for every child, and that Miquon just isn't a fit for every child. (Or parent! 😉 ) And that's okay -- many math programs from many perspectives are available, so something for everyone. 😉

 

I guess I think that if done in a way to match the child, it’s a good idea for far more kids than we currently use it for 🙂  . Not all kids, of course, since nothing works for all kids!!

Edited October 13, 2020 by Not_a_Number

[Little Green Leaves]

12 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

I wouldn't agree with the statement that the kids that need manipulatives are highly kinesthetic. Sometimes, manipulatives are just a way to demonstrate the concept and make it somewhat less abstract... most of the kids in my homeschool classes benefited from them. 

That being said, DD8 doesn't particularly like manipulatives. She's certainly ABLE to use them -- she just doesn't need them. Which brings me to the question of whether not liking manipulatives would mean one didn't like Miquon? I haven't used the program myself, since I don't use programs, so I can't answer that question. 

Yeah, I wonder about this too! My son disliked Miquon when I tried it with him. He found all the clapping, the number lines, etc in the beginning level really annoying and he was much happier with Singapore math. I think maybe because he already had his own way of thinking about numbers?

My daughter responds really well to it. And it's not just the manipulatives, because we haven't used those much in a while. It's the whole structure of the program. (Obviously I agree with everyone that the teaching is the most important part and a program on it's own can't do it all.)

[Not_a_Number]

16 minutes ago, Little Green Leaves said:

Yeah, I wonder about this too! My son disliked Miquon when I tried it with him. He found all the clapping, the number lines, etc in the beginning level really annoying and he was much happier with Singapore math. I think maybe because he already had his own way of thinking about numbers?

My daughter responds really well to it. And it's not just the manipulatives, because we haven't used those much in a while. It's the whole structure of the program. (Obviously I agree with everyone that the teaching is the most important part and a program on it's own can't do it all.)

Super interesting! Yeah, it probably does depend on the mental model a kid already has. It's definitely the case that different kinds of problems inspire different kids. I was a very puzzle-oriented kid when I was little, and I kind of expected my kids to be... and then DD8 was not 🙂 . You definitely do have to teach the child in front of you. 

Edited October 13, 2020 by Not_a_Number

[Lori D.]

2 hours ago, Little Green Leaves said:

Yeah, I wonder about this too! My son disliked Miquon when I tried it with him. He found all the clapping, the number lines, etc in the beginning level really annoying and he was much happier with Singapore math. I think maybe because he already had his own way of thinking about numbers?

My daughter responds really well to it. And it's not just the manipulatives, because we haven't used those much in a while. It's the whole structure of the program. (Obviously I agree with everyone that the teaching is the most important part and a program on it's own can't do it all.)

Hmmm... there is no clapping in Miquon, and there are only 4 pages on number lines in the first workbook of Miquon, which has over 100 pages... perhaps that was another program??

Edited October 13, 2020 by Lori D.

[Little Green Leaves]

34 minutes ago, Lori D. said:

Hmmm... there is no clapping in Miquon, and there are only 4 pages on number lines in the first workbook of Miquon, which has over 100 pages... perhaps that was another program??

You made me doubt my own memory! 🙂

I just double checked in the my book of lab sheet annotations. At the first grade level, they suggest that students clap and tap out patterns -- I agree that it'd not a huge part of the program and you can take it or leave it. There is a fair amount of number line work. I don't see that as a bad thing at all -- it really helped my daughter with her number sense. 

[Ellie]

10 hours ago, Lori D. said:

I would also guess that is why your family did well with Saxon. 😉 Glad you found what worked best for you all. 😄 

Oh, we didn't get through most Saxon texts, because we were hsing before they were invented. 🙂 The first copy of Math 76 that I owned was a box of photocopies of handwritten pages. 😉 What we were able to use, we loved (but only Math 54 and above; the primary levels are definitely not our style).

[Lori D.]

33 minutes ago, Little Green Leaves said:

You made me doubt my own memory! 🙂

I just double checked in the my book of lab sheet annotations. At the first grade level, they suggest that students clap and tap out patterns -- I agree that it'd not a huge part of the program and you can take it or leave it. There is a fair amount of number line work. I don't see that as a bad thing at all -- it really helped my daughter with her number sense. 

That explains it -- I didn't use the Lab Annotations book much at all, and rather than doing all of the first workbook and then moving to the next workbook, we tended to use Miquon in a more "mastery" way  -- pick a topic and follow it from workbook to workbook until DC either hit a wall or was done and wanted a different topic, and then we'd back up to the first workbook, pick a topic and follow it through the workbooks... rinse... repeat.

Edited October 13, 2020 by Lori D.

[Ellie]

33 minutes ago, Lori D. said:

That explains it -- I didn't use the Lab Annotations book much at all, and rather than doing all of the first workbook and then moving to the next workbook, we tended to use Miquon in a more "mastery" way  -- pick a topic and follow it from workbook to workbook until DC either hit a wall or was done and wanted a different topic, and then we'd back up to the first workbook, pick a topic and follow it through the workbooks... rinse... repeat.

And that's one of the ways that the Lab Notations suggests doing the books. 🙂

[Roadrunner]

Loved, loved, loved the rods! My kids? They used to look at me with disdain and roll their eyes at me that I could be so exited over colored sticks and that something so simple as arithmetic needed prompts. I even did algebra with it. They couldn’t be persuaded. Alas, I gifted my set away. 
 

so yes, manipulatives are kid dependent. 
 

I would try MUS. 

Edited October 13, 2020 by Roadrunner

[Not_a_Number]

30 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

Loved, loved, loved the rods! My kids? They used to look at me with disdain and roll their eyes at me that I could be so exited over colored sticks and that something so simple as arithmetic needed prompts. I even did algebra with it. They couldn’t be persuaded. Alas, I gifted my set away. 
 

so yes, manipulatives are kid dependent. 
 

I would try MUS. 

Hahahaha, I don’t think my kids would like the rods either, actually. But I do love poker chips 😉 .

[PeterPan]

23 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

Hahahaha, I don’t think my kids would like the rods either, actually. But I do love poker chips 😉 .

Just wanna push your buttons on this. I totally resisted the c-rods when we started Ronit Bird stuff. I actually wrote her and gave her a hard time, pointing out that she was making the math HARDER that it needed to be, hehe. I was like you're telling my ds this yellow rod is Fred and the blue rod is George and the red rod is Camilla. The math number names meant NOTHING to him and they were just a pain to make happen, a waste.

Well fast forward a few years, and here we are, still plugging along with our stupid rods. He actually IDENTIFIES with them. To him they're this solid, steady thing. Five is always five, red is always 2, very dependable. And we're going through multiplication facts (at 12) with nitpickyiness that those early years of naming the stupid rods and sticking with the stupid rods set us up to be able to do.

So now he can look at a stack of 5 rods and 2 rods and SEE and visualize and understand that 7X6=42. He gets it in a deep way, not a memorized way, because the component approach with the rods allowed him to tackle the most foundational issue of his math disability, subitization and understanding of parts in the whole. It's actually brilliant.

Would *I* need it? No. But it makes him think super hard and gets at this core difficulty in a concise way that is consistent across instruction over the years. And it's easy to generalize to other areas, as he gets it so well.

But I'm just messing with you here. I agree, kids who do not need things to visualize their math should not be required to. Even my ds, who needs them, uses them very briefly. With his attention issues, it's more fun to throw rods than use them, lol. But they've WORKED. Embrace the rods. Be one with the Yoda Bird.

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, PeterPan said:

Just wanna push your buttons on this. I totally resisted the c-rods when we started Ronit Bird stuff. I actually wrote her and gave her a hard time, pointing out that she was making the math HARDER that it needed to be, hehe. I was like you're telling my ds this yellow rod is Fred and the blue rod is George and the red rod is Camilla. The math number names meant NOTHING to him and they were just a pain to make happen, a waste.

Well fast forward a few years, and here we are, still plugging along with our stupid rods. He actually IDENTIFIES with them. To him they're this solid, steady thing. Five is always five, red is always 2, very dependable. And we're going through multiplication facts (at 12) with nitpickyiness that those early years of naming the stupid rods and sticking with the stupid rods set us up to be able to do.

So now he can look at a stack of 5 rods and 2 rods and SEE and visualize and understand that 7X6=42. He gets it in a deep way, not a memorized way, because the component approach with the rods allowed him to tackle the most foundational issue of his math disability, subitization and understanding of parts in the whole. It's actually brilliant.

Would *I* need it? No. But it makes him think super hard and gets at this core difficulty in a concise way that is consistent across instruction over the years. And it's easy to generalize to other areas, as he gets it so well.

But I'm just messing with you here. I agree, kids who do not need things to visualize their math should not be required to. Even my ds, who needs them, uses them very briefly. With his attention issues, it's more fun to throw rods than use them, lol. But they've WORKED. Embrace the rods. Be one with the Yoda Bird.

Oh, I LOVE visualizing. I just like the visualizations to be countable for small numbers. So I prefer dice patterns/ ten frames. But I have no idea if they work as well for dyscalculia.

[PeterPan]

1 minute ago, Not_a_Number said:

Oh, I LOVE visualizing. I just like the visualizations to be countable for small numbers. So I prefer dice patterns/ ten frames. But I have no idea if they work as well for dyscalculia.

Yeah, RB has a whole book on dice. I literally own HUNDREDS of dice, I kid you not. She goes bananas with dice, modifying them. You can use white out and sharpies on them, buy blank dice, fraction dice. Oh my. I have big ones, funky ones, double ones. It's crazy.

The c-rods are still different, because they allow you to make an array that both represents your quantity AND has visualized subitized components. If I use the RightStart abacus (which I also have several of and like), I'm limited in my representations. The beads slide, and you don't have this fixed, immediate quantity. So then you've got a kid with dyscalculia having to look at 2 beads or 3 beads to recognize them as 2 or 3 AND look at colors AND see if the set is full. So many steps. With the rods, you're just there, boom.

I like all the tools. I've just been surprised how elegant the c-rods can be. I think they're a more primitive tool in that sense, more basic. For someone like my ds, trying to recognize the full quantity when shown an array on the abacus would take time, where with the c-rods it would be very fast. So the c-rods become the basic instruction tool and then the abacus, money, etc. become your harder generalization steps.

[Not_a_Number]

4 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

Yeah, RB has a whole book on dice. I literally own HUNDREDS of dice, I kid you not. She goes bananas with dice, modifying them. You can use white out and sharpies on them, buy blank dice, fraction dice. Oh my. I have big ones, funky ones, double ones. It's crazy.

The c-rods are still different, because they allow you to make an array that both represents your quantity AND has visualized subitized components. If I use the RightStart abacus (which I also have several of and like), I'm limited in my representations. The beads slide, and you don't have this fixed, immediate quantity. So then you've got a kid with dyscalculia having to look at 2 beads or 3 beads to recognize them as 2 or 3 AND look at colors AND see if the set is full. So many steps. With the rods, you're just there, boom.

I like all the tools. I've just been surprised how elegant the c-rods can be. I think they're a more primitive tool in that sense, more basic. For someone like my ds, trying to recognize the full quantity when shown an array on the abacus would take time, where with the c-rods it would be very fast. So the c-rods become the basic instruction tool and then the abacus, money, etc. become your harder generalization steps.

It’s the generalizing I worry about with leaving things uncountable to start with. But I do see your point. It’s a firm model of number for someone who may not have a firm model naturally.

[Not_a_Number]

@PeterPan — so then something like *** would be cognitive load for your son to interpret, correct? And a C-rod is not?

[PeterPan]

11 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

It’s the generalizing I worry about with leaving things uncountable to start with. But I do see your point. It’s a firm model of number for someone who may not have a firm model naturally.

Sorry it's getting late and my brain is swizzling. So you're saying you have reservations about the c-rods because they are uncountable? That's actually the POINT. A person with dyscalculia (ds) tends to count, count, count. We don't want that. We want them to be able to think in terms of chunked quantities. Subitization is seeing the chunks of quantities within a larger quantity. It's the literal, most basic hurdle of his disability. We spent obscene amounts of time playing games like "do you see the 1 in the 3?" I kid you not. He was 6 and we were putting out a field of say 3 glass beads and asking him to find 1 bead or 2 beads. It was Einstein level rocket science for him. 

11 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

@PeterPan — so then something like *** would be cognitive load for your son to interpret, correct? And a C-rod is not?

Sometimes I don't get in his brain very well, lol. 

Back in the old days when I was using RightStart, this woman wrote this whole post on the evils of C-rods and why the abacus was better. And I LOVE my Right Start abacuses, definitely! But something happens to my ds when he's trying to use that vs the fixed beads. I haven't had it out in a while. I use EVERYTHING. I literally have an entire book shelf (plastic, multiple shelves) with bins of nothing but math manipulatives and math junk right by our table. So once I get a click with the rods, I'll carry a concept over to something else. 

So in our house, the abacus is a step, a later step, and the c rods, as they are fixed, are an easier teaching tool. But that's a prettynasty disability, not run of the mill, lol. Gifted IQ and we're working for a month on seeing 1s and 2s in the number 3. For real. 

[Not_a_Number]

3 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

We want them to be able to think in terms of chunked quantities.

I worry about what that does to applying it to problems, I guess. I do believe in subitizing, I just like it when it’s clear it’s THE SAME as counting.

But again — no experience with dyscalculia. So I have no clue about whether the uncountability is essential or not.

[domestic_engineer]

8 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

But again — no experience with dyscalculia. So I have no clue about whether the uncountability is essential or not.

Number, I know you like to problem solve, so I bet you’d find it interesting to teach math to a kiddo with dyscalculia or dyslexia. It’ll make you rethink everything!  Then once you’ve taught one kid with learning challenges, find another one to teach.   It will be a whole new set of challenges!

[domestic_engineer]

@PeterPan I had never stopped to think about WHY the abacus was so difficult with one of my kiddos but c-rods (or dice) were magical. But what you’re saying makes so much sense!  Thanks for taking the time to write it out. 

[Not_a_Number]

9 minutes ago, domestic_engineer said:

Number, I know you like to problem solve, so I bet you’d find it interesting to teach math to a kiddo with dyscalculia or dyslexia. It’ll make you rethink everything!  Then once you’ve taught one kid with learning challenges, find another one to teach.   It will be a whole new set of challenges!

I actually don't think it WILL make me rethink everything, although I'll probably need different tools than I do now! But what I've seen of Ronit Bird's stuff, I've found very intuitive and has corresponded well with my experiences with other kids. I am generally a HUGE fan of not leaving conceptual gaps, even with strong kids, and I have found that it pays real dividends. 

But yes, I bet I would enjoy learning how to teach kids with dyscalculia. 

[domestic_engineer]

2 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

 

But yes, I bet I would enjoy learning how to teach kids with dyscalculia. 

There you go; I bet there’s a market for that ....😉

[Not_a_Number]

4 minutes ago, domestic_engineer said:

There you go; I bet there’s a market for that ....😉

Almost certainly!! I’ve thought about getting into tutoring. But I have too many projects 😉 

[fourisenough]

My natural math student used Math Mammoth (with occasional enrichments) then moved into the Dolciani/Jurgenson/Dolciani/Larson sequence for Alg 1-PreCalc.

My math struggler is using CLE (currently age 11 in 6th grade booklets). It’s slow and steady, but she’s feeling confident and capable as a math student. 
 

I’ll agree with previous posters to say that you as the teacher is more important than the curriculum. Jumping from one to another is likely to cause more problems than it solves.