Post-Beast options for mathy 2e 12yo

[Sycamore]

DS 11 (almost 12)/6th grader is finishing up Beast Academy. He likes the program and interface. He’s quite good at math, and it’s his favorite subject. Complicating factors—dyslexia/dysgraphia, slow processing speed, attention and executive funcitoning challenges.

I'm not sure where to go from here with this guy. I want next year to be delightful, fun, and low-stress for math (planning to tackle some other challenges with writing, executive funcioining, social/self-management)—but also interesting enough intellectually that he’s not bored and that he progresses and learns. 

He learns really well with video and from one-on-one teaching. Self-teaching from a text wouldn’t work. I often end up scribing/direct teaching (when he’s stuck) with BA and enjoy math and teaching. However, two of my three kids have learning differences, and I have to carefully budget my support and accommodation time.

I’ve thought of just starting Jacobs Algebra with him (I’ve taught it twice and like it) over two years and adding in challenge problems (Real World Algebra? Alcumus?) and math documentaries/great courses (James Tanton?) Also looking into a mathcounts competition team, which could provide the creativity/challenge. But I’m afraid I’d be swamping *myself* with too much teaching/admin work?

Maybe a self-paced video course in pre-Alg or Alg (suggestions?) with me doing challenge add-ons and for support when he's stuck? He would need it to be efficient and catchy--not long and laborious or boring. (He loves humor.) 

I do think he’d game the system with Thinkwell’s multiple choice. (He already figures out how to do that with BA in some cases.) Derek Owens seems to require a lot of “listen while simultaneously writing," which would short-circuit him. AoPS self-paced is $$ plus chat-bot/text based (and do you have to learn a separate programming language to input answers?!), and I worry that the hard-for-the-sake-of-hard could demand too much energy in a year when his challenges will lie elsewhere. 

Also--how important is it for him to start in one program for pre-alg or alg (depending on the program he might be ready for either) and stick with it all the way through? My olders haven't done that, but they're not as mathy and/or interested in pursuing math-related endeavors.

Thank you so much! This kid is so interesting and fun to teach but it's SO hard to find a match for his disparate abilities/challenges.

[Shoeless]

If I had it to do over again, I would have moved from BA to Algebra 1 and simply moved as slowly as needed for my student. Instead, we fiddled around with Math Mammoth, Jousting Armadillos (too many errors in the answer key), and the first 4 or 5 chapters of AOPS pre-A. Oh, and some of Mathematics A Human Endeavor. 

Math Without Borders uses Foerster's Algebra and has a video series to go along with the text. I have not used the video series, so I can't say how much humor is in there.

[Malam]

6 hours ago, Sycamore said:

I do think he’d game the system with Thinkwell’s multiple choice

This is a shame given that it seems like he'd love the format and Dr. Burger's sense of humor. What do you mean by "gaming the system"?

FYI AoPS does have free videos for prealgebra and (an expensive) online option that isn't text based. WTMA also has an AoPS prealgebra course.

[EKS]

10 hours ago, Sycamore said:

Derek Owens seems to require a lot of “listen while simultaneously writing," which would short-circuit him.

You absolutely don't have to do DO this way. 

I would (and did) watch the videos with him and take notes myself (modeling). When possible have him do the example problems orally with you (then check the answers by fast fowarding through the video.  Then have him do the practice problems either orally or independently.  He can do the quizzes (called "homework") and tests on his own.

Regarding the Berger videos--you can get textbooks that align with the Thinkwell videos.  I am not a fan of the Thinkwell exercises.

That said, if I were you I'd use Jacobs because it's awesome!

 

[Nm.]

Wow you described my ds9 to a T.  What about mathusee’s new algebra?

[Sycamore]

@Shoeless Thank you so much for this perspective! Reinforcing my inclination...

@Malam Re: "Gaming the system," he will figure out how to do the least amount of work possible. He does this on Beast Academy when he can narrow things down and use the two tries to eliminate one answer. On one hand, I am totally impressed with his logic and efficiency, and this is a good test-taking approach. However, if it means he ends up skipping doing the work on lots of problems over time, it could affect his engagement/learning. But I will look into a sample Thinkwell vid. if they have some to see if it's a good fit for him. I do think interface is key for him. And humor is a plus!

@EKS I love Jacobs too! If I'm going to be next to him for all of Derek Owens, I might as well do Jacobs with him... Maybe in couple years he'd be more ready for more independence with Derek Owens. My oldest daughter is going to do precalc with his program next year, so I can get more of a sense of it.

@Nm. It's nice to know there's someone else out there who gets it! I will check out the MathUSee. Have you used it? Do you like it? I'd heard it was a little "light" but if he's going right into Algebra and the interface works, it could be just the thing!

Thank you everyone!

[rebcoola]

Jousting amadillos is the most fun but Pre A is really not nesscery after Beast unless you maye you are doing AOPs.  I Wish they would do a beast version of at least Algebra and Geometry for the super advanced kid my middle was definitely not ready for a boring math book emotionally yet.  We used aleks because that’s what our charter offers HS credit for but it is easy to game with few explanations we supplemented with Math is fun.  

If mine hadnt been planning to go to public high school and using the charter I would have used Shormann interactive math.

Edited May 29, 2023 by rebcoola

[lewelma]

With my very mathy, but dygraphic boy, we did a year with Mathematics: a human endeavour (written by Jacobs, of Jacob's Algebra fame). It is an inspired, well-respected book full of deep thinking on a multitude of topics. It is engaging and fascinating.  I found with dysgraphia that my ds had a serious problem with *encoding* math ideas into written language. Dysgraphia is a encoding problem after all. So our focus was not on 'showing your work' (because it was badly muddled) but on me training him what proper workings look like. This book gave us the opportunity to do a sideways move out of both preAlgebra and Algebra to give me interesting content to be able to train his brain to think logically and linearly about math.  It was a very good choice.

Edited May 27, 2023 by lewelma

[lewelma]

I will also say that you never know how the mind works when you are looking in from outside. I could never understand why my ds was so SLOW when he was clearly highly gifted at mathematics and had no processing speed issues. He was constantly thinking and studying numbers.  I was like, you know what to do, would you please just do it!  Only much later, like when he was 14, did I find out that he has synesthesia with numbers. Numbers for him have both different colors and personalities. So he was spending so much time thinking about problems that were easy, because he was looking for patterns in the colors. Why would a green 6 and a yellow 2, add up to a red 8. That is not how paint works.  Why was it that evil negative numbers always win over virtuous positive numbers when multiplying (they always turn evil), whereas when adding, the relationship is not consistent. Graphing was a serious problem because the different quadrants were diffferent colours and personalities so graphs were just odd and confusing to him. Things like parabolas would go in and out of color and personality depending on the reflection and translation. He would just study and study and study looking for patterns. He did not know that what he saw was highly unusual, so never thought to ask. I never discussed it, so he never discussed it. The different was, of course, that I never discussed it because I didn't see it!  That situation really opened my eyes to differences in how the brain works. Once I realised what was going on, I was simply flabbergasted.  

Edited May 27, 2023 by lewelma

[EKS]

3 hours ago, lewelma said:

Numbers for him have both different colors and personalities.

Yes!  I understand this.  I started to ignore it pretty early on when it comes to how things go together, but I still use the color of a number (or day of the week or month or whatever) to help me remember things.  I also associate letters with colors.

I'm pretty sure I've told this story before, but my son has similar proclivities, and once when he was about 15 he suddenly exclaimed "I just realized why I always confuse Saturday and Sunday.  They're both red!"  

Edited May 28, 2023 by EKS

[Nm.]

I haven’t used it. It’s revised and much more expanded than their previous light version.  I wouldn’t hesitate to use it with mine if I needed videos, manipulatives, clean layout, fewer problems etc (which I think I will).