BrillKids Forum

I'm starting this thread for the above titled book; it's one that I read about in an earlier thread here a few months back, but I've just now gotten around to buying the book and reading it.

For those not familiar with it, the book was written last year by a juvenile student at UCLA that began community college courses at the age of 8, and received his AA degree at the age of 11.

The book appears fairly short and lacks the prolix style prose that I've grown accustomed to in non-fiction books. I guess that's perhaps a good thing.

After getting through the first few pages, I wanted to start this thread to document my thoughts before they drown into the sea of additional content that young Kai will most likely discuss.

Many of us on Brillkids have wondered, either to ourselves or to each other, about what comes next. How do you transition from early learning to school learning? What do you do when you find your child is ahead due to purposeful and manufactured precocity?
While "We Can Do" won't answer this, you will read about how his parents dealt with this issue. There's a lot left out during the critical time between 3 and 6 years old where a massive percentage of his learning was taking place. However, I do believe a savvy reader, especially one familiar with Brillkids, will be able to decipher and fill in the blanks nicely.

My first interesting observation of the book is in learning how it all started for young Moshe. It seems that his success can be traced back to a fortuitous result from repetitive interactions with his father. The father would take his newborn baby outside and because they lived adjacent to LAX, there were constant commercial jets flying overhead. Every time a jet flew over, his dad would point up and say the chinese word for "airplane". At 4 months old, little Moshe pointed up and said an abbreviated form of the word all on his own!

The author, Moshe, doesn't go into detail of just how lucky this was, like I would... but I'll do it here for you. Prior to this, there is no mention to purposeful early learning. Once the mother confirmed that her little newborn infant was capable of actually saying a word and saying it in a fashion that illustrated contextual meaning, they went and attempted to foster this precocity.

In my mind, I immediately thought of The Einstein Syndrome. http://einstein-syndrome.com (http://einstein-syndrome.com/einstein-syndrome/)

The proposition is: how would you respond if someone came to you when your baby was born and told you that your child had "Einstein's Syndrome"? Without question, even the most hardened skeptic of early learning might start immersing their child with learning opportunities.

Effectively, and by chance I might add, this is what happened with little Moshe. Had he not spoken until he was 18 months old, maybe the parents wouldn't have reacted the way they did in such a purposeful manner.

His parents then started him on a Doman-like program of self created picture cards. He knew his first word, so they used that as one of the cards. He started with 4 cards, airplane, helicopter (with his unique spelling because baby Moshe was unable to say the multi-syllabic word), momma, and pappa. The difference between their method and Doman's is that theirs was so much less; the reason being they wanted mastery. Along those lines, they only added a card AFTER little Moshe demonstrated that he could say and read his current library. They would add a card once he mastered an existing card.

Effectively, this was sort of a Doman and YBCR method wrapped in one; but truncated by comparison.

The father, at one point down the road, created computerized flash cards and sentences and phrases... sort of like Little Reader!

A few months back, there was an article posted here on Brillkids that mentioned math fluency as being the greatest indicator of grade school success. http://forum.brillkids.com/general-discussion-b5/article-kindergarten-performancemath-linked-to-later-academic-success/ (http://forum.brillkids.com/general-discussion-b5/article-kindergarten-performancemath-linked-to-later-academic-success/)

There was another article posted here a few years back, but after an hour, I cannot find it... regardless, this article was about a young kid that was graduating with an engineering degree. The father emphasized mathematics and that propelled his child through the ranks quite swiftly.

Moshe's parents also emphasized mathematics fairly hard;

I'm seeing a pattern that math might equate to more accelerated movement through the grades more than reading does. Moshe was only superior to his age bracket in reading by the time he was 6 but not on a high school level like he was in mathematics.

I will update the thread with more thoughts as I go.

Interesting, I may read it as well. Somewhere I discovered this site - gifted-spirit.com and have been reading about the founders experience with early learning and after schooling/homeschooling her son who went to college at 13. I keep wondering if she knows about or frequents this forum since there are so many of us teaching early as well. She coaches other parents now. Anyway, it's a good site to check out if you're interested in where an early learner has ended up. I believe her son was also really good at math. She also points out good resources for your children like Stanford's gifted/talented online program that starts with English and math courses as young as Kindergarten.

PokerDad,

Please spill more about that book. I am very, very interested in hearing what the book says.

I first learnt about the book on a thread started on this forum by Ayesha Nicole (http://forum.brillkids.com/general-discussion-b5/article-boy-genius's-book-reveals-life-in-college-at-age-8/msg81703/?topicseen). I then heard Dr Jones quoting extensively from it during one of his Early Learning Seminars. I wanted to buy it, but it was quite expensive, so I gave up. I'm very glad you've read it, so you'll fill me up on what he said. Please spill more about the book; I'm following this thread with keen interest.

P.S.
The engineering boy you talked about, is it this one? (http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/At-age-14-math-whiz-fits-in-well-at-Houston-1772798.php), who later got two degrees at age 16 (http://www.uh.edu/news-events/stories/2011articles/May2011/051011YoungOld.php)

LDSMom,

Ayesha Nicole started a thread on this forum on the boy you talked about: http://forum.brillkids.com/general-discussion-b5/video-story-andgt-12-year-old-genius-goes-to-morehouse-college!/msg79554/#msg79554.
And also on this young girl who was preparing for A level maths exams at age 6: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23980531-the-six-year-old-girl-studying-a-level-maths.do.

This intrigues me. These early learners have been very good in Mathematics too. Could there be a connection? PokerDad, any thoughts?

Another interesting book coming out - sorry for hijacking your thread a bit -

College at 13 tackles early-entry decisions
Posted April 26, 2012  


Great Potential Press announces the release of its newest book, College at 13: Young, Gifted, and Purposeful, written by Razel Solow, Ph.D., and Celeste Rhodes, Ph.D.
This book describes 14 highly gifted young women, now in their 30s, who left home to attend college at age 13 to 16, skipping all or most of high school. The authors describe what these women were like as young college students, the leadership, idealism, and sense of purposefulness they developed, and their lives 10 to 13 years later.
This inspirational book will help educators and parents understand that gifted kids need academic challenge, that there are colleges with specific programs for such students, that it doesn’t harm them to leave home early, and that keeping them interested in learning is vitally important.
The official release date for College at 13 is May 26, 2012, in remembrance of Dr. Rhodes’s death on May 26, 2008. Dr. Rhodes bravely battled cancer over the course of writing College at 13, but passed away before she could see the stories of these incredible young women published.
Parents and educators considering early college admission for their child will benefit from this fascinating look at the world of early college admission as they follow the experiences of fourteen gifted young women who skipped all or most of high school in order to attend college. Through examining the experiences of these women as young college students and looking forward to how those experiences shaped them into the highly successful women they are today, College at 13 demonstrates how early-entry college programs can provide academic challenge and keep gifted youngsters interested in learning, while creating a positive environment for emotional growth. http://augustafreepress.com/2012/04/26/college-at-13-tackles-early-entry-decisions/

I've finished reading the book. It's fairly short, and I have some mixed feelings which I'll share.

As a book for a parent interested in early learning, it's a good book. He doesn't get down into too much detail such as a typical day when he was X years old, but he gives an overall look at what he was doing in various years. This is maybe the books biggest weakness from my point of view.

As I mentioned in my first post above, they really focused on MASTERY. He doesn't mention mastery all that much, but it's apparent if you're familiar with the idea. Mastery just means spending time on fewer things until they're mastered, and then slowly adding to it. It does make some sense that the parents chose this route due to their affinity for martial arts. I can see where the martial arts philosophy played a large role.

When he talks about his flash card program, the things that parents do on Brillkids seems robust in comparison. That may not be bad though - I'm just reporting on what Moshe did.

He didn't say how he went about gaining calculus ability by 7 or 8 years old. He did mention that his parents had a hard time teaching him the concept of numbers at first UNTIL they combined numbers with items he already knew.
Instead of "two" and showing two of whatever.... they took something he knew, let's say a picture of a tiger. They'd show a card with a tiger and say "one tiger", next doubling the picture "two tiger" and next tripling the picture, etc. This caused him to understand that one, two, three were all descriptions of quantity and not a description of the content per se.

We accidentally run into interference without even knowing, and it slows the learning process as the child has to distinguish the interference for themselves. He doesn't speak of this at all, but it's something that stood out in the one, two, three process.

nee1, that was the article! I was looking for the thread for about an hour and couldn't find it, THANK YOU.

A few more thoughts about math and graduating college early.... not sure how profound this will be, but I've given it a lot of thought and believe I understand the formula for how to recreate it.
First, these kids are all early learners. They don't wait for the education system to kick in; doing this would make it basically impossible for early graduation to happen in such a manner - that's not to discount the possibility someone could graduate a year, two, or three early... I'm talking about the remarkable instances of pre-teens graduating or attending college.
As early learners, they will be ahead in reading and have higher vocabularies in general.
Second, their parents stress mathematics. This is the PIVOTAL part of the young college attendee. There's a reason why, but it took me the weekend to really piece it together.

I'm sure it's happened somewhere, but these examples do not include a ten year old (or otherwise super young kid) attending a 4 year university as a Freshman. There's a reason for that!!

THE SHORTCUT THROUGH THE EDUCATION SYSTEM REVEALED

What these kids have in common is that they found the short cut through the education system. That's not to say they didn't work hard; it's to say that they found the quickest path to a bachelor's degree.
In the US, junior colleges exist to benefit the community. That's why they're called community colleges. Any adult can attend a community college. There's no real pre-requisites, but there are pre-requisites for certain classes that are offered. You can't just walk in and take a second year calculus class. This will not be allowed. In fact, any college level (101 or higher) requires that you place into the class.

This means to attend the college as a legit student without restraint, you must first place yourself through an entrance exam. I've only done one community college course and remember the test - don't remember taking an English test, only a mathematics test; anyone with advanced algebra under their belt would most likely pass; if you understand logs and some more pre-calc stuff, you'll place better. When I took the CC entrance test, I passed. A few years later, I took one for the 4 year university and failed! It was because I hadn't used any of that math for so long, but a few tutoring sessions just to remember what I had forgotten, and I passed just fine.

So all colleges and universities will test you before allowing you take 101 math courses.

Moshe had to take an English test as well. This makes sense. In East LA, I would imagine that many in the community aren't very adept at English. Moshe himself was reading at a 9th grade level when he took this test. GOOD ENOUGH!

I'll take a brief moment to add, I can tell that Moshe uses English almost as a second language. He's probably great at reading comprehension, but there's no way he'd ever get an English degree at this point in his life. His writing lacks complexity (as I mentioned in my first post) and frankly he makes grammar and tense mistakes all over the place; it's a style I'd expect from a foreigner. He admits it's a weakness.

Once the Dean allowed Moshe to take the placement tests, the ball was rolling. All he had to do was pass the test, and because he was doing calculus at the time, it was an easy proposition.

The kid that wasn't allowed into public school would experience his first classroom at the college level shortly after being denied public school (he was the age of a first or second grader!)

This shortcut is easily duplicable; well maybe I shouldn't say "easy". It's duplicable, and I'd bet that most of the kids that have done early learning could do it if they spent time gaining ground in math to the degree that they could pass the placement test. Their reading would likely already be good enough to muddle through a text book.

But this brings me to the flip side of the coin. While Moshe received his AA at the age of 11 and is now at UCLA, I'm quite confident in saying that his education is not on par with other seniors at UCLA. There are things that he learned better and stronger than his peers, but there are also things he never learned or learned very weakly. He doesn't discuss this in the book, so I can't tell you what they'd be.

The downside to taking the short cut is that it may cost you that well roundness that is admired of a quality education. The upside is that tick for tick on the age clock, this might be the most productive path possible AND in the current state of the US higher education bubble (where cheap money permeates higher education, causing the costs to rise precipitously) this short cut is also an awesome way to lessen the financial burden on the parent AND the child!

When Moshe became the youngest AA graduate and did so with a 4.0 GPA, he set himself up for a very affordable university experience.

If you or I go out and get our AA and get a 4.0 GPA, we will likely be able to transfer to a school like UCLA but it's not guaranteed. Also not guaranteed (and far, FAR from it) is getting any sort of financial assistance that doesn't need to be paid back.

Moshe, however, is unique in that regard. He was recognized by the California State Legislature, the Governor, the Mayor, etc etc. When someone is capable of graduating that young with such a strong academic performance, schools will begin to salivate at the idea of taking in such a student. Moshe didn't mention which two schools turned him down, but my guess would be Stanford and USC (but I don't know if he applied to USC). Which schools are beside the point though. The important thing to remember is how a school will view such a child - perhaps as a rare gift to human kind; a rare breed of academic superstar that has the potential to change the world. Perhaps this is true of Moshe, but perhaps he'll turn out more ordinary when he's 40 or 50 (though far more educated than most). What I'm saying is that it doesn't mean he's going to cure cancer or win a Nobel prize in physics or any other subject.

The schools, on the other hand, will likely view him in such a way!!!

And for that reason, they will throw money at a child like this, just to make sure he achieves his potential and maybe even so that he'll achieve that potential at their institution.

What am I saying?

I'm saying that for the meager cost of an associates degree at a community college, you could buy your child a top tier degree at a prestigious university. That's a big deal for people.

The flip side is that I think the overall education will lack. If you waited until they're 16 to go the shortcut route, weaving an interesting story line filled with the ideas of unmet super potential just won't have the sizzle that the same story would have with a 12 year old. In my mind, taking this shortcut or not is really a matter of what's important to you and important for your child.

nee1, to give a quick answer to your question about high performance and math - I think reading is the most fundamental skill because it leads to more useful and profound knowledge; and writing correlates well with a productive work life. It's harder to take a short cut in these skills.
In math, if you spent 5 hours per day on it as a home school student, before long you'd wind up many years ahead of your peers. Math is correlated to quality of thinking. If the thinking is strong, learning can be strong as well.

The one thing these kids had in common is their high math achievement. I don't think this is by chance for reasons I stated above. It does help in thinking, and obviously will make it possible to catapult the student through the ranks like no other subject matter can do.

But, there are plenty of educated people that are weak in mathematics. Universities in particular, graduate a massive percentage of students that are effectively innumerate (when judging from a college level that is). There are countless degrees that require very little math to graduate; and the math needed to graduate is not very advanced or difficult. My business degree would fit this. I imagine English degrees or writing or such would require even less!

I can't, in good conscience, say that the people who graduate with low math requirements AREN'T educated; therefore, math and education are not synonymous, even though I can draw a correlation between ability in math and ability in reasoning and logic.

Thank you for that thought-provoking synopsis. I find your ideas on the 'roundedness' or not of early graduaters interesting and it really highlights the need to go for breadth as well as depth when doing EL.

PokerDad,

Thank you so, so much for your summary of the book and the very interesting insights you've shared. I'm very grateful.

I wanted to add a bit about David Levy from Houston, since nee1 posted the article that I couldn't find... several months ago when I first found the thread with the article in it, I'm not sure how I found this (maybe it was in the thread?), but I was looking at saxon math books and discovered that his father had left some reviews on several saxon math books. In reading the comments, I really had a good grasp of what David Levy (the young engineering student from Houston) had done to achieve his college feat (basically graduated with an engineering degree at age of 16).

As my "shortcuts" section highlighted, there's a common theme and one that can be replicated simply by doing early learning in math and reading, and then in the early years (6+ especially) hitting the math really hard! Once you can place into a community college level math course, I don't see how they can stop your child from attending classes... and once you have college experience under your belt, transferring is given. It's fairly difficult for a university to say that your child isn't ready to attend classes, when they already have a successful college record. And so, you shortcut the system... bypassing high school (though this strategy is also used by high schoolers, and perhaps started there around 20 or so years ago when I was in high school).

If you're so inclined, one of the more robust commentaries left by his father can be found here:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R1M1KSMPGFW2G2/ref=cm_cr_pr_cmt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=093979845X&nodeID=&tag=&linkCode=#wasThisHelpful (http://www.amazon.com/review/R1M1KSMPGFW2G2/ref=cm_cr_pr_cmt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=093979845X&nodeID=&tag=&linkCode=#wasThisHelpful)

EDIT: a similarity that I find is that the Levy's also focused on "mastery"... that's what saxon math is about. I think you sort of do daily scheduling, and repetition is built in so that you don't forget how to do older stuff... example, you want to remember that Columbus set sail in 1492.. you would periodically revisit this fact to em blaze the memory. There's a whole thread in here about memorization techniques... this particular idea is spaced repetition, and from what I've read, the early saxon math concept used this idea, by revisiting former concepts periodically so as to serve as refreshers... but in looking at Levy's comments, he had the similar "mastery" approach that Moshe took to.

I agree that mastery is super important when it comes to math.  I think students have a really difficult time learning higher math when their grasp on the basics is limited because math concepts build on each other.  This is a common complaint of high school teachers too. 

I do think that reading may be different though.  Patricia Kuhl from the University of WA talks about how babies "take statistics" of the language they hear around them when learning language.  If you look at learning to read as learning a language (in my view it is), you would want to expose them to lots of language rather than wait for mastery.  For example, we don't wait for babies to be able to produce all sounds of their mother tongue before talking to them or even saying complex sentences to them.  The babies themselves don't wait either.  My son said "dall" instead of "ball" for the longest time.  He didn't care that he couldn't pronounce the "b". 

Doman makes the point that it is better to expose your child to 1000 words and have him learn 50% than to expose him to 20 words and have him learn 100%.  Babies can learn to intuit phonics just like they learn to intuit grammar.  But for this to happen they need a lot of exposure and you can't get a lot of exposure if you are waiting for mastery.  Does that make sense? 

As for mastery of basic math concepts I am first starting early with my son.  When he is a bit older and can play games I think math games are the way to go.  I just bought a game called 7 ate 9 from Amazon for my nephew and I have seen other games you can make up for young kids.  For example, playing bingo by rolling two dice, and adding the sums of the dice.  Making it fun I think is very important, so that they can get a lot of repetition and stoke the fire for learning more. 

@mybabyian,
Yes, what you say makes a lot of sense. I have felt the same way too.

@PokerDad,
Thanks for posting the link to that review of Saxon Math left by Robert Levy. I'd followed some of his reviews AND his comments on other people's reviews on Amazon.com, and realised how and why his son turned out so bright. Check out as many reviews of his as you can find, most especially his comments on other people's reviews, and you'll understand what I mean.

I remember a reviewer on Amazon.com who had given Flesch's best-selling 'Why Johnny Can't Read' a 1-star rating. Robert Levy commented on this review, telling how he had taught his son phonics, leading to him reading Hamlet at age 3. I also remember Levy's positive review of the controversial 'Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother' and his comments on reviewers that had given the book low ratings. So reading his reviews, and especially the comments he leaves on other people's reviews will give you most of the information you need.

And he has a  great sense of humor lol  Have you read this one?: http://www.amazon.com/review/REDQUKUP25PSG/ref=cm_cr_pr_cmt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1565775031&nodeID=&tag=&linkCode=#wasThisHelpful

Thank you nee1 ! I do remember reading that review a few months back, LOL... I won't ever show this to my wife, but I find it absolutely hilarious:

ROFL  lol

You see, my wife is big into "discovery" and yes discovery has merit; I just don't think you have to revolve the entire education around it (FWIW, my wife would agree with the "entire" part of my comment, but she's still big into it; me, not so much.) Here's a math concept I learned from Euclid: the shortest distance between two points is a straight line! Pretty simple. I think straight directive learning will usually be the quickest route (but not necessarily the most engaging, fun, entertaining, memorable, etc)

mybabyian,
I think the part about mastery wasn't that they held back necessarily, or that anyone ought to hold back. Rather, I was commenting on their flash card program. It was really simple at first and built out from there, whereas Doman goes for 10 and then adds in more perpetually while lopping off (so that there's ten in a bunch). I was merely comparing the two. And perhaps my comment about Levy was equivocal in the sense that I sort of changed the definition while using the same word. Still, Moshe definitely seemed to have a "mastery" approach and I think it stemmed from his family's experience with martial arts (which is all about repetition until you get it right)

I do think you make an excellent point. Kids learn to talk just fine through mere exposure (that is repeated constantly though). Never underestimate plasticity I suppose!  :)

this is a very interesting thread. thank you for the inputs.

I think it is interesting in his reviews how he talks about not having to make math fun.  I had posted that you needed to make it fun  lol .  Of course I was referring to my son who is 19 months old and kids not yet in school.  Even for older kids I think if you can make it fun than why not? But, I do understand what he is saying.  Mastering anything to an expert level takes lots of “deliberate practice” to steal a term from the other threads.  This is often hard and painful but there isn’t really anyway to shortcut it.

 I have read that the best predictor of math skill in higher grades is not a child’s math ability in lower grades but rather a child’s ability to focus and self control.  This makes a ton of sense to me because they do need to be able to sit down and pour through very difficult concepts and that takes a lot of self discipline.  Ideally, I hope my son has self discipline and a solid math foundation from a young age. 

Did anyone read the book “Nuture Shock”?  I read it after the other post on the harmful effects of praise.  One of the chapters talks about how children develop “executive function” and self-control through (I forgot the word) purposeful? play.  He talked about the program “Tools of the Mind” based on Vygotskian theory.  I found it so interesting I am now reading the actual book “Tools of the Mind”.  I think I am barely on page 17 but so far I find it very interesting. 
Here is a quote from the book Tools of the Mind, “When children have mental tools, they are no longer reactive learners.  They can take more responsibility for learning on their own because learning becomes a self-directed activity.  The teacher no longer has to take total responsibility for every aspect of the learning process.   Tools relieve teachers of this unnecessary burden, and more important, they can be applied across the curriculum, from reading to math or manipulatives to dramatic play.”

I think this goes along with what the dad is saying.  In other words a teacher does not have to stand on their head to try to make it “fun” because the child has the self discipline to do the work and stick out the painful parts.  For me this is important because truly the thing I want for my son is not to be a super math whiz but to have the capacity to excel at whatever he chooses.  No matter what thing he chooses, he will need to be able to work hard even when it is not fun.
 
With that said, I think even though it may not be “fun” the kid probably did have a great deal of satisfaction for the work he did.  Sticking it out through the difficult can be very rewarding.  I was a swim coach to young kids and every year we had the kids swim a mile for time.  I am talking about kids as young as 8.   I am sure they wouldn’t say this was fun, but they all felt such satisfaction for completing it.  It was always a very emotional and inspiring day.  This is what I want to teach my son. 

That was the bit that got me laughing and laughing and laughing. And I am still laughing. Completely hilarious!

PokerDad, do you know how one could check up all comments made by someone on other people's reviews? I'm trying to check all of Robert Levy's comments on others' reviews. He seems to have a systematic method of doing things.

For example, check out his comments on this review: http://www.amazon.com/review/RPOCVT0UTXR29/ref=cm_cr_pr_cmt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0060913401&nodeID=&tag=&linkCode=#wasThisHelpful. Read the review, then scroll down to the comment section lower down the page, and you’ll see all comments, including his own and that of 'CrazyHorseLady'. Then check the 2nd page of comments, and you’ll see more of what they had to say.

Amazon allows you to check his own reviews but I'm searching for all his comments on others' reviews. Any ideas of how I could check this?

Thanks nee1. I love hearing about how other people have gone about educating their children... I guess that's the whole point of being on a forum like this, eh?

I've looked for a way to specifically look for comments, but it looks like Amazon only indexes user reviews.

However, not all hope is lost. These comments do get spidered, and thus, I present:
http://tinyurl.com/8x38ttp (http://tinyurl.com/8x38ttp)

You will have to wade through them one by one though.

Also, if you go in and reply to one of his comments, it's likely that he subscribes to the thread that he leaves comments on so that he can respond. This means that you can sort of publicly email him on a comment thread LOL. I can't guarantee that he subscribes to the threads he comments on (I don't when I leave a comment) but it's a good guess.

PokerDad, clicking that link takes me to Google's home page i.e., www.google.com. Is there a mistake?

Is that all? there's supposed to be search terms in there.

If it doesn't work, this will work (I know it works, it's a site that condescending people use in forums everyday)  lol
http://bit.ly/KZXiVc

Thanks a lot, PokerDad. The new link works and I'm grateful.

Perhaps someone could invite him over here to the forum to do a little Q & A?  You'd be able to get all of your questions answered directly if he has the time to do so, or at least a couple of them. I'm sure he can respect everyone's dedication to educating their children here and would be flattered by the invitation if he has the time to respond. Just an idea.

PokerDad,

Did you see Levy's review of 'Every Day Math' at http://www.amazon.com/Everyday-Mathematics-Student-Math-Journal/dp/1570398313/ref=pd_sxp_f_pt


and the link he pasted in the comments to his review: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr1qee-bTZI

I watched the video and was completely shocked. Is this what most kids pass through in schools in the name of math discovery? Why not just teach the child standard and well-known algorithms? This video has reinforced my desire to be my kids' first, best,  and continual teacher, even if they enroll in school. Seriously. Lest schools ruin them.

I now understand Levy’s passion: see his comments to the review he posted here http://www.amazon.com/review/R1M1KSMPGFW2G2/ref=cm_cr_dp_cmt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=093979845X&nodeID=283155&store=books#wasThisHelpful.

An excerpt of his comments on that page:
``As to the math wars, I'm with you. As in any political debate, I look at who is lining up on what side. In the case of math, it was conservatives arguing for traditional methods and liberals wanting to do all the whacked-out stuff. At that point I try to make sense of it - and it was easy, the liberals were out to lunch. Over the years, I've tried to make sense out of why they would do so much damage and the only thing that I can come up with (after having read it from them) is that the goal is "equity" among races and genders (i.e., traditional math is biased towards white males - which makes zero sense - but that is what they believe - hence you change it). But whatever the reason, I knew what was going on since college from Dr. Sowell and therefore I knew that no public school would EVER get a chance to ruin my kid's life (and that was long before he was born). That was my motivation with Saxon - I knew that I could keep him a minimum of 2 years ahead of grade level (even though he wound up 8 years ahead at one point), and that no one, no school, or no curriculum, could ever mess him up. And, of course, it worked.’’

Thanks for the post. I've seen the video, and yes... she's describing a discovery method called TERC. I wanted to educate myself on this after my wife told me that they teach "investigations" curriculum at her school. There's been a spat of college students that have a very low grasp of numbers, and this was one way to help solve the problem. If you ask me, it will make things worse. I have a saying... it's like trying to focus on the wet instead of just focusing on the water; if you have water, you'll have the wet. In other words, if you work at math like Moshe Kai or David Levy, you'll have the number sense no problem.

I'm with Mr. Levy and the plethora of accomplished physics doctorates and mathematicians on this one - these methods can severely disable or cripple your child's progress in math.

It's not just math though. After going through Richard Feynman's book, it was clear to me that people that don't know very much are the ones making the decisions regarding education. They might study how to educate, but few making decisions are accomplished enough in the respective field to make a quality decisions (ie, good textbooks)... I imagine the process hasn't improved much in the last 20 years either.

The fact that these two kids could gain such a massive edge in mathematics says just as much about our education system as it does about the kids and their hard work.

Just came across another article - also young college students who are good at math, from the same family: http://milwaukeecourieronline.com/index.php/2012/05/03/prodigy-is-youngest-to-receive-masters-degree-from-oxford/

“Every child is a genius,” says father Imafidon in a British interview. “Once you identify the talent of a child and put them in an environment that will nurture that talent, then the sky is the limit. Look at Tiger Woods or the Williams sisters, they were nurtured. You can never rule anything out with our children.”

Gosh! LDSMom, thank you so much for sharing that link. It's one of the most inspiring articles I've read in a long time. Hurray for early learning! And hurray for the 'growth mindsets' of the kid's parents! Other parents would have claimed their kids were born 'gifted' with 'math genes', that they had never taught their child, they simply woke up one morning to see the child solving calculus!

Hear this growth mindset response of the father:
“Every child is a genius,” says father Imafidon in a British interview. “Once you identify the talent of a child and put them in an environment that will nurture that talent, then the sky is the limit. Look at Tiger Woods or the Williams sisters, they were nurtured. You can never rule anything out with our children.”

The exact thing Doman says all the time!!!

It is an inspiring article! I love too how they say that the parents are not experts in math. 

It does seem like these kids are in college early based on their Math ability. I wonder if there are many early college goers who get there through language arts. I have been hearing a lot lately from my friends "your son will be fine in Kindergarten if he's already reading, they will just give him books at his level and in a few years all of the kids will catch up anyway" - The first part of this statement may be true, and the second part debatable (and perhaps hasn't been thoroughly studied, give it another 5-10 yrs when this new age of early learners get older).

Early college entrance was never my intention, hadn't thought about it until reading through these articles and seeing that common theme. It's making me reevaluate my "plan" if you will.  I've got great schools picked out until middle school, and then what? let him decide, encourage early college, or will we get to that point far earlier as these children have.  I wish I could talk one on one with one of these parents who have been there to hear how they weighed their decision and the experiences they've had.

It also drives home the point to me that while reading is extremely important, we shouldn't forget about Math! The more I read about these kids area of study, the more important I realize Math is in certain degrees that may interest my child. Just because I don't use much Math, doesn't mean that he won't.

When I learned how to read, I loved it and read all of the time, quickly becoming a great reader far above my class level - this had no impact on jumping me up a grade, I simply read well and was always comfortable reading out loud and could sit and read for hours and hours.  Perhaps it's my perception, but with Math, unless a child is extremely interested and finds ways to study on their own, they will pretty much always be near grade level unless encouraged or taught from a parent or older siblings advanced levels of math, or home schooled where they can move ahead at their own pace.

I think for my own part we will do some math as part of our after schooling, not really with the intent of early college (if it happens, it happens) but more so to continue my child's interest in it and keep him interested in learning.

Sorry for the long rambling, just wanted to get some of my thoughts out there.

Thanks! I appreciated the article. Math and IT.... the trend continues. Also...


like I said, stellar grades when aged 17 or 18 is one thing, but when it's 12: discounted education.

This article is very inspiring.  It is definitely comforting to know the parents didn't have a degree in mathematics yet raised children with strong mathematical abilities.  Coming from the low social economic end of the spectrum, it is often my fear that my limited education (first generation graduate of college) will also limit my children.  My question is how did the parents accomplish this without homeschooling as noted in the article?  What techniques are they using to gain such success especially when the parents see every child as a genius??  The information so far on the family is very limited.  Still searching....

@ Pokerdad,

I liked your assessment of how going to college early does leave a child at a disadvantage, because they really are still kids. Yet, it does provide the opportunity for scholarships.

I do want to point out that my friend, who is mortified that I am giving formal lessons to my 2 year old, has produced 3 - that is right 3 - National Merit Scholars. With a grand total of $320,000 in paid college funding to excellent schools. One went to Duke, one went to University of Dallas,. The last one just started there. Of the two oldest, one is getting his Doctorate at Duke and the other is getting his from somewhere else. They have yet to fork over money for college other than for living expenses. Her last son entered college at 19. She held him back in 7th grade so that he could mature and would have a better chance when taking the PSAT exam. Her secret, she believes, is that they followed a classical approach - not necessarily an accelerated one which you will find in many classical curricula. They worked on all things to mastery - be that greek, latin, math or whatever, they schooled year round (because she homeschooled all 8 of her children), and getting them good teachers when the material was above her. She has used ScholarsOnline, Regina Coeli, and the Circe Institute. So it is possible without early entrance. I might add that part of their education was excellence in all things. Her children play piano and compete at the state level. Why? Every educated person should know music - it brings joy to the soul. They run in track and swim. Why? Because a human is not just a mind.

@ cokers4life - this should be an encouragment to you as she also does not have a college degree but she has labored many long hours to learn Latin and Greek. And her children know that excellence is not an option. I know that she hasn't slept much in the last 26 years. She was busy studying.

Ciao,

Thanks for the invite - yes, I am the man of those Amazon reviews, and David is my kid.  My history goes a long way, but to sum it up, I ended up barely doing well (fine now, though, as I'm considered the wiring expert on the International Space Station, something I don't deny), but no thanks to a system designed to fail me.  I swore that would never happen to my kids.  I ended up with one kid (wife couldn't have more due to complications).  He's now at Texas A&M and (hopefully) finishing his Master's in Mechanical Engineering.  He turned 18 earlier this year.

I have to agree, my quote was good and I even got a good laugh reading it again:  "we learned the great names in math, like Pythagoras, Newton, and Euler, who had made great discoveries contributing to the field. I noted that my kid's name was not among them, so I decided that it was probably best to leave the discoveries to those people".

Of all the postings that I've read (so far), none said that I was out to lunch, which is usually the case, particularly when I go political, as I don't think it can be separated from everything else going on.  So thanks, it would be nice if everyone had the same goals for this country and its kids, but, with Everyday Math and Sight Words, I simply don't think that's the case.

By the way, he's not all brain.  He's done everything short of rebuilding an engine and trans in our cars (I kept a couple of old cars for him to learn on), and that includes changing a clutch last summer.  I also made him him help me build a shed in our backyard, using exactly the same framing methods (for hurricane resistance) that we built our house and detached garage with.  He hasn't had a free ride, but when I asked him to rate his childhood from 1 to 10, he gave it an 11, so I was very, very, happy (and surprised).  He's seen his friends struggle and is very happy to have that part of the learning curve behind him.

Robert,

Thanks for joining us! I'm thinking this might need to be split off to a new thread......

I'm just wondering if you have give us a brief ( lol ) sketch of what you did with David. Betting there willbe a bunch of questions that follow. Don't mean to hijack the thread, PokerDad, just thought since someone mentioned inviting him over I would.

You're welcome.  Basically, I heard an infomercial for the Phonics Game when I was driving through Central California in late 1997.  They used an example of sounding out the word "cat", as in kaa-aaa-taa.  I said, jeeze, I can do that, I don't need their product.  I used a marker board, started with that word.  In 6 weeks, at age 3.5, he read his first book (Walter and the Tug Boat), with help, of course, but he learned every word in it.  A couple of months after he was four (not 3, as someone here stated), I had him read Hamlet.  I made him nail the punctuation and play-act the parts, such as being a female when Ophelia spoke.  It was fun, and once through that, I was done teaching him reading.  He wound up being a great writer and great speller, which I have to attribute to phonics at a young age.  So that was reading.

Math started as me giving him "number sheets" as I had nothing else that I liked.  Every book that I saw was "fun" for the kids.  I didn't want that, I just wanted math.  Then he's in second grade at Christian school (age 6, a year ahead), and the teacher has a 4th grade daughter.  My wife asks her for some stuff to challenge him.  She gives us zerox's of problems (from her daughter's book) that were absolutely remarkable.  Then I figure out that they were from Saxon 5/4.  My life got a million times easier, as John Saxon did all the work of figuring out what he needed to learn.  He then raced through those books, especially the early books.  The work did get harder and take longer later on, so the pace slowed.  We also built a house at that time, and ran the project, so that slowed us down.  It was all good for him - he was simply too far ahead, so it was good that he slowed a bit (maybe a year or two).  As it was, he still took his SAT at Age 10.5 and got an 1190 in the old system (680 Math, 510 Verbal).  With those scores, the community college (San Jacinto) let him enroll (he was 11 by then) and he first took Calc-1, then the AP Exam (just to be able to prove to doubter that he knew his stuff, should there be any), and then two classes, and then he finally dropped out of the Christian school and went full time to San Jac.  After his Associate in Math, it was University of Houston, where he got has BS in Math, and BS in Mechanical Engineering.  Now he's (hopefully) in his last semester at A&M and will be done with school for now with a Master's in ME (no PhD at this point, just a good job).  I'm happy with that path.

Feel free to copy my posts if you want to start a new thread.

Thank you so much for your contribution. I too like math to be math and not full of games too. My son is only 2 so we do use a lot of manipulatives for now. But I think I will be phasing them out in a few years.

My son is currently a sight word reader,  however. I completely agree with the value of phonics. He just isn't getting the blending yet. He can sound out a few words with great difficulty. I know that this is something that will click in time.

I love how you accelerated your son's education by enrolling him into a community college at a young age. I think your method was brilliant. It is something to consider in 10 or so years. I can still teach him content and how to learn, but he may as well be going on and trying for a higher education diploma on the side if he is able.

I finally have a moment to go eat a sandwich and this tread goes EPIC

Great to have Robert here to answer questions...


That easily puts me to shame (when I was several years older), and I was fairly strong in math relative to my peers. I have to go off to bed, but will come back soon with some questions.
Thank you Mr. Levy for your time... you're sort of legend around here, and it's pure pleasure reading your writing!

Here were a few questions off the top of my head... I'm confident that I could triple the list - but there are quite a few questions already, so here we go:

Robert,

Do you believe any parent can accelerate their child in mathematics, or does the parent need to know advanced mathematics themself before imparting to the child?

Did you use Saxson all the way up through Calc 1? If not, at what point did you change texts? Would it be too difficult to give a list of the texts that you used up through Calc 1? I ask because I've already purchased a handful of older 90s Saxson texts and if you feel the higher mathematics Saxson texts are still the best, then I'll get those too (such as Algebra, Trig, Calc)

Did you do after school teaching, or did you at some point do exclusive home schooling?

Could you walk us through a typical day (when you were really hitting the math hard)?

You mentioned David taking the SAT at 10 years old. Was this due to a requirement at the junior college or for some other purpose (such as taking the AP exam just to prove it)?

Along those lines, when did you approach the junior college for admittance and how simple or smooth was the process?

Stated another way, what sort of obstacles, if any, did you encounter in attempting to get David admitted to the junior college?

Does David feel as though he missed out socially by attending college early? If not, how was he able to satisfy the urge to enjoy friendships that typically blossom "in school"?

I met my wife in college. I know many others that also met their spouse in college. I'm by no means saying that college is the only place to meet someone, but I will say that I had spent a few years in the real world prior to college and I found that meeting a like-minded co-ed is far easier to do in a college environment than grinding out hours at work... Do you think attending college at a younger age is, in anyway, disadvantageous to cultivating a satisfying and fruitful domesticated life?

Robert, I am so excited. to see you here. I have a son who recently turned 6 and is working on Saxon 5/4, along with some other math. We came to Saxon through a self teaching mindset and it had been recommended that they know all of their facts automatically (all operations through the 12's) before starting 5/4.

My son has all his facts mastered, but still calculates some out, for example he will skip count occasionally to get to the answer in division.

My question for you is if you required your son to have his facts mastered to automaticity prior to starting 5/4 and if not did you just have him do the recommended 100 warm up problems before each lesson or a more extensive review of all 4 operations? Right now we have Blaise do all flashcards in all operations and/or one hundred timed problems in each operation prior to his lesson. He does them quickly maybe 7-8 minutes a sheet so it's not huge commitment, but I was wondering if the Saxon program alone will get him the math fact automaticity he needs.

I'm still in a state of shock to find people that are actually interested in how I (we) did it, rather than simply smiling and thinking my kid is a freak with a big brain.  So I'm more than happy to know parents like you guys really exist.  I shall try to answer the questions...


"Do you believe any parent can accelerate their child in mathematics, or does the parent need to know advanced mathematics themself before imparting to the child?"

I guess it depends on one's definition of "advanced mathematics".  Being an engineer, I've got the advanced math.  But I basically stopped trying to even teach David any math when he started Calculus...at that point it was just staying on top of him and making sure he was doing what was expected in class (and that he never, ever, missed class).  One thing that was pretty funny was that David got quite popular in his classes, so he rushed to get his homework done early so he could help others (obviously I advised him not to simply give solutions).  But, yes, it probably would have been tougher if I didn't know the materials.  If that were the case, then I'd only be able to tell him if his answers were right or wrong, but not really steer him.  But, again, if you got through even Algebra 2 before finishing high school, you can do wonders.  Starting him in college at Calculus 1 is not necessary, instead starting him with pre-calc is perfectly fine...and to get there, you just need to complete Algebra 2 (at least per Saxon).


Did you use Saxson all the way up through Calc 1? If not, at what point did you change texts? Would it be too difficult to give a list of the texts that you used up through Calc 1? I ask because I've already purchased a handful of older 90s Saxson texts and if you feel the higher mathematics Saxson texts are still the best, then I'll get those too (such as Algebra, Trig, Calc)

Almost.  I stopped after finishing Saxon's "Advanced Mathematics" which is their pre-calc.  That book was a lot of work to get through, and I made him start at the very beginning (earlier, I would skip 20 to 40 chapters, simply because he didn't need the review).  Once done with that book, he was good to go for college Calculus (it is an outstanding book), so I didn't bother with Saxon for Calc. 1 (although I still have the book, along with Physics, which I didn't use much either).  One thing that I did do, which is a bit tricky these days, is come up with Log and Trig tables.  I made him use them instead of calculators (until just about at the very end), which Saxon (unfortunately) starts to use at the higher levels.  I simply don't see a place for calculators in mathematics.


Did you do after school teaching, or did you at some point do exclusive home schooling?

After school.  Home schooling with him was hopeless, we tried one semester, when he had maybe 2 college classes.  We bought Abeka, but our kid was normal, and gamed the system.  My wife tried, but she wasn't born here (Asian), so it wasn't too hard for him to trick her into thinking he was working, when he wasn't.  But that was later.  At the beginning, it was before school (if you can believe that), after school, on weekends, on vacation (but only when there was nothing else to do on long drives).  Overall, his learning of reading and then math took the place of video games and TV.  It was that simple.  Young kids have a lot of time, but they also require near-continuous attention from parents.


Could you walk us through a typical day (when you were really hitting the math hard)?

Wow, I'll try.  I think (but not sure) that I would wake him at about 0700, we'd do one section of (early) Saxon, and then I'd go to work and he'd go to his Christian school.  He'd come home from school, and I'd come home from work a bit later.  We'd try to get through 2 sections in the late afternoon/evening, although 1 was fine for a weekday.  He'd go to sleep at about 2100, he was more than happy to go to bed and was out immediately (a nice benefit of our routine that holds to this day).  At school he was taught to be respectful and keep his hand down most of the time, so as not to hurt the feelings of other kids...but if asked, he'd answer questions.  Never a problem, and did fine making friends.  If he EVER said something to make me think he thought that he was something special, he regretted it, for I raked him over the coals for that.  It was rare, and usually my misunderstanding, but he got the point.  I've always said that if I wrote a book about raising kids, the title would be "You Ain't Shiite", except you can replace that last word with the word you're thinking of.  And believe me, I said that to him a number of times, flat-out.  He got the point, and has never been on one of those "Save the World" kicks that prodigies think they can do.


You mentioned David taking the SAT at 10 years old. Was this due to a requirement at the junior college or for some other purpose (such as taking the AP exam just to prove it)?

The SAT was required.  He needed a 500 in math to take Math classes, and a 500 in Verbal to take other clasessn (he squeaked that one with 510).  I think it's the way that Texas makes sure that little punks wanting to take college course aren't trying to game the system to get out of having to endure the public schools.  In other words, if you want to go to college at a high-school age (or younger, in this case), you need to show that you're college material.  It makes sense to me.


Along those lines, when did you approach the junior college for admittance and how simple or smooth was the process?

That was luck.  It wound up that my wife took some math classes there and then talked to her teacher, who just happened to run the department.  She wound up having to check with the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (and no, I had no clue that they existed) to see if it was ok to have such a young kid.  They never specified a minimum age, so he was good to go, providing he had the SAT scores.  My suggestion to others is to have solid proof that junior is up to it, like SAT scores and be prepared to have junior interviewed to see if he's up to it.


Stated another way, what sort of obstacles, if any, did you encounter in attempting to get David admitted to the junior college?

None...just needed the SAT scores.  But this is Texas.  Overall, I think it's usually doable, if the kid can act mature and has the scores.  The public schools are a different story if you want to accelerate your kid, however, because David would be considered a "distraction" in their line of reasoning.


Does David feel as though he missed out socially by attending college early? If not, how was he able to satisfy the urge to enjoy friendships that typically blossom "in school"?

Not a bit.  He was going to church every week and had (and has) very close same-age friends.  We (wife and I) did all we could to nurture those friendships and he was happy with how it turned out.  Even so, it's tough because he's not in the same classes and lunch rooms as those kids - he only saw them once a week.  But he's keep close to them.  At San Jac. (junior college) he made some friends from their "Gaming Guild" which I never liked but he enjoyed it - you can probably figure out what it was about.  He still stays in touch with them.  At Univ. of Houston, he got very close to a number of people that were ~5 years older than him.  They would go as far as to eat out at a place where he would be admitted, before going off to the real bar scene.  One of them once said, to the effect:  "you seem like a normal college person, which is amazing considering your age".  He related great with them.  As I mentioned earlier, he has zero regrets regarding missing high school and rates his childhood as an 11, on a scale of 1 to 10.  So, in the end, if your kid is taught to respect people that struggle to learn what Saxon taugh him, he will be just fine.


I met my wife in college. I know many others that also met their spouse in college. I'm by no means saying that college is the only place to meet someone, but I will say that I had spent a few years in the real world prior to college and I found that meeting a like-minded co-ed is far easier to do in a college environment than grinding out hours at work... Do you think attending college at a younger age is, in anyway, disadvantageous to cultivating a satisfying and fruitful domesticated life?

Fair question.  I agree, he misses that chance, but he's 18 now and if he's doing good at Exxon (or whereever) in a few years, he won't have a problem finding a wife there.  Women are now the majority of college graduates (although not in engineering).  I suspect that he won't have a problem finding someone.  He also has his church connections.  But right now, he just plays it day to day, and after he graduates, he will work, and then, when the time is right, he'll look for a wife.  In my case, it was hopeless at college...so I'm not going to worry much.

I actually have very few friends that met their spouses  in college. In fact i cant think of any off the top of my head. I have 4 friends that met theirs spouses in HS. The rest met in other ways.

"Robert, I am so excited. to see you here."

Like I've said, I'm happy to (finally) be among parents that seem to actually be willing to do what it takes for their kids to do well, rather than trusting an institution that may or may not have have his best interests in mind.


"I have a son who recently turned 6 and is working on Saxon 5/4, along with some other math. We came to Saxon through a self teaching mindset and it had been recommended that they know all of their facts automatically (all operations through the 12's) before starting 5/4."

Agree and actually we were far beyond that.  I had David dividing fractions and doing huge multiplication problems problems prior (and he hated me for it).  That was more because I had not heard of Saxon, rather than thinking it was needed.  I simply didn't have a plan at first.  But, yes, if you start at 5/4 arithmetic facts must be automatic first.  There's a lot to 5/4 that goes way beyond just number manipulation.  I think the biggest problem is that kids struggle with stuff that they should have learned earlier...which is tragic.  Just teach them that stuff before pushing ahead, and they're never behind.


"My son has all his facts mastered, but still calculates some out, for example he will skip count occasionally to get to the answer in division."

Sorry, don't follow.


"My question for you is if you required your son to have his facts mastered to automaticity prior to starting 5/4 and if not did you just have him do the recommended 100 warm up problems before each lesson or a more extensive review of all 4 operations?"

5/4 does contain the warm-up, but I'd get him through them first.


"Right now we have Blaise do all flashcards in all operations and/or one hundred timed problems in each operation prior to his lesson. He does them quickly maybe 7-8 minutes a sheet so it's not huge commitment, but I was wondering if the Saxon program alone will get him the math fact automaticity he needs."

Maybe the earlier years of Saxon might, but we didn't use them.  I'd recommend that junior be able to do those basic problems first, prior to hitting up 5/4.  But I don't consider myself expert in that area.

"I actually have very few friends that met their spouses  in college. In fact i cant think of any off the top of my head. I have 4 friends that met theirs spouses in HS. The rest met in other ways. "

That was my case.  Indirectly through work.  I had a coworker that moved to another city.  I went to visit him, told him that I was looking for a wife (LOL).  He found me one.  I know one couple that met in high school (maybe earlier), still married.  I know one other in college - long since divorced.  I tend to agree that Mrs. degrees are not what they might have once been.

(whoops, missed this post)

"Thank you so much for your contribution. I too like math to be math and not full of games too. My son is only 2 so we do use a lot of manipulatives for now. But I think I will be phasing them out in a few years."

You're welcome.  We did nothing beyond the alphabet at age 2.  It wasn't until age 3.5 that we started reading.  As far as math, one thing I figured out early was that the kid does not need to know the meaning of what's being taught.  I tried for weeks to teach David that 3 apples plus 2 apples meant 5 apples.  He simply couldn't get it.  I finally gave up and went abstract - I didn't care if he knew what "3" or "2" meant, all I cared about was that 3 plus 2 equaled 5 and that was it.  I figured that he would backfill the meaning of the numbers later.  He did.  It worked great.  As I mentioned earlier, we after-schooled, so I figured his day school would fill in any blanks that I left (like that gaping one).


My son is currently a sight word reader,  however. I completely agree with the value of phonics. He just isn't getting the blending yet. He can sound out a few words with great difficulty. I know that this is something that will click in time.

I'd recommend jettisoning sight-words, completely (since I was invited here for my comments).  I took a very basic Russian-language class at work.  They don't even have letter-names - everything is sounds there.  I think that sight words simply mis-wires the brains of the little guys.  If I wanted to get political (so feel free to ignore), I'd say it's intentional - to assure that the kids never become good readers.  I base that on my understanding that in 3rd (maybe 4th, grade), they then go to phonics.  Sight words almost seem to be designed to delay the onset of actually learning to read, and that is inhumane (in my opinion).  But, at age 2, it probably doesn't hurt - but I strongly recommend you get clear of that approach.


"I love how you accelerated your son's education by enrolling him into a community college at a young age. I think your method was brilliant. It is something to consider in 10 or so years. I can still teach him content and how to learn, but he may as well be going on and trying for a higher education diploma on the side if he is able."

Thanks.  We were also out of options.  At one point he was 8 years ahead of age in math.  He either would have been doing nothing most of the days, so on to college.  One thing we did do, that kept him there a bit longer, was to make sure that he had biology and chemistry, just as if he had been in high school - we didn't want him to miss that stuff, even if he really didn't need it.

I never taught my son letter names at all. I have always only taught him the phonic sound. Letter names are fine for spelling but we are a few year from that. Much to my detriment he does know the letters names from a toy and a few apps that he has played. It confused him for a little bit because he started to sound out some CVCs by saying the letter name. However he has compartmentalised this well. He just is stuck on blending right now, it is very hard for him.  He gets a little better each day, so I have no doubt that he will be a predominantly phonics reader by the time he is 3-3.5.
I don't think whole words will drag him down though. And honestly although being taught phonics at a young age I am now a whole word reader from lots of practice. When I come across an unfamiliar word I read it by pulling out the known whole words. For example, phono/logic/al. I certainly don't do ph/o/n/o/l/o/G/i/c/a/l.

And your input is greatly appreciated. :) you will find that this forum is filled with many parents with different teaching methods. What we have in common is loving our children, exposing them to early learning and respect for differing views.

I figure I'll indulge and put in plug for this bunch, as this was the most amazing thing that I saw when my kid was going to his Christian schools, while I was after-schooling him, and a lot of people can learn from them.
There is an association of Christian schools, called ASCI, that have their own Math Olympics, Spelling Bees, Speech competitions, etc.  David's schools participated, and needless to say, so did David.  David usually won his competitions (he may have lost a few, I don't remember), but this bunch kept popping up, and they were absolutely awesome:
http://imanischool.org/
First, they were absolutely angels regarding behavior, much better than any school.  They came in, sat down, and were quiet - until their one of their own won, and then they would cheer as loud as could be.  And they won a lot...and when they didn't win, they were right up with the best.  There were a lot of schools at these competitions.  David's school, for example, was completely trounced by Imani - only David did well, and no thanks to his school (we never looked at it as anything more than daycare, anyway).
Imani's best area is speech, where they dominated the other schools - in this case 11 other schools.  They wiped them out...
http://imanischool.org/499241.ihtml
My point is that had these kids gone to public schools, or even conventional Christian schools, they would have wound up like most blacks in this country, but instead they dominated.  We're told that quotas are needed for these kids - I was there, there were no quotas - they were spelling the same words and doing the same math problems as well as any "advantaged" group.

Imani uses Kumon Math, which is a lot like Saxon - no fluff, just the basics.  They also teach pure phonics.  With just doing that, they are able to take kids that would otherwise be considered disadvantaged and have them trounce the competition.  That's essentially what I did.  One of the (few) benefits of having an education system designed (in my opinion) to "leave behind" kids is that it is very, very, easy to properly teach an average kid math and reading, and watch him clobber the competition, right through college, as I hope these kids did (although the school only went up to 8th grade).

"Much to my detriment he does know the letters names from a toy and a few apps that he has played"
There's nothing wrong with letter names.  He'll learn them no matter what.

"And honestly although being taught phonics at a young age I am now a whole word reader from lots of practice."
This one you will never, ever, get me to agree with (but you're welcome to ignore me too).  I've had this debate before.  If you ask David whether he sounds out words, he'll tell you he doesn't, and probably hasn't done it since he turned 5.  I don't do it and I don't know any adult that sounds out words (other than hard ones).  But everyone who reads had to learn phonics - they may have forgotten that they did, but try memorizing 100 Russian words by sight (heck, just try learning 10 words), without being able to make a sound out of them, and then consider capitalization, different fonts, etc, and still ask yourself if you can memorize them all.  And then multiply that by 100 times, at least, to have a basic grasp of reading.  I doubt any kid can do that...certainly not mine.

But it's a free country, and you're welcome to disagree with me...

I am in no way arguing that phonics is not essential. I was a huge advocate for it for many many years. My son is the 5th child under the age of 4 that I have taught to read. All of the children i have taught had vary degrees of phonics instruction. More so than my son.
 I just don't believe that whole word reading is detrimental.  I belive it is a limited method but a great stepping stone into higher level reading.   Giving a child a foundation of 300 or so words they can get a jumpstart reading abut 65% of what is printed. Even more so if you cater the words to their young age level interests.


I tutor using the kumon method and frankly I love the worksheets and the mastery method. I used to do math exercises for fun, how some people do the snday crossword 
However I have found that the kids get burn out. And sadly they just flat out refuse to do them. Did you ever have this issue with your son with Saxon? Or was your son doing them at such a young age that the heavy worksheet and drilling was just something that was expected.  Or was it more about your expectations for him in general?
I recently read Amy Chau's Tiger Mom and I see a lot of merit in how she raised her daughters. :)

" I just don't believe that whole word reading is detrimental.  I belive it is a limited method but a great stepping stone into higher level reading.   Giving a child a foundation of 300 or so words they can get a jumpstart reading abut 65% of what is printed."

That's fine...one thing you'll find is parents in my situation have zero respect for what "the experts" believe in.  We've seen these 'experts' systematically destroy education in this country.  People like myself have no training, nothing, in my case just an infomercial, and I had my kid reading fluently by age 4 - we have a tough time being convinced that phonics doesn't work, or that there is any merit at all in other methods.  For "Sight Words", it looks very much like the latest morphing of "Whole Language".  California lost a generation of kids to Whole Language.  You'll see the carnage if you look up in Google:  "California Whole Language Honig".  Bill Honig was the Education Czar and rammed it through in the 1980s, when I lived out there (but before I had kids).  He later, much later, said that he had been tricked by some ideologues under him.

As to your case, with a 2 year old, and with phonics being used - it may not do as much harm.  I'm on this site because I was invited here, and that because my kid did well, so pardon my bragging, but when a kid can get a 510 on his Verbal SAT at age 10.5, and never saw a Sight Word in his life (not to mention winning just about every spelling bee he participated in), any person would have a very difficult time convincing me that anything could improve results.  But my anger regarding Sight Words is not what you're doing and if the schools did the same, the country would be much, much better off.  My anger is the way they are using Sight Words to delay teaching phonics - with the certainty that the kids will never be good readers, unless they're lucky enough to have been taught outside of that system.  Anyway - let's leave it at that - you're being kind, and it's just as well that I stay off of that soap box - because it's very difficult for me to not get worked up.  So on to the next...


"However I have found that the kids get burn out. And sadly they just flat out refuse to do them. Did you ever have this issue with your son with Saxon?"

YOU BET!  He hated it and would scream at me.  He had his toys and he wanted to play with them and not get near reading or math.  Well...reading yes, once he could read, you couldn't separate him from books - but he definitely didn't enjoy the early phonics work...until words started coming into focus - that was pretty neat.  Math he hated all the way through...again, he didn't simply didn't want to learn and saw no practical reason to have to deal with that stuff.

But I made a decision early on - which was that he wasn't going to have a say in what he learned, or on what schedule, when it came to math and reading - it was simply too important for him.  So he had a choice, either do his math when told with a butt that didn't hurt, or do his math when told with a butt that did hurt.  He often picked the latter, probably testing me along the way.  It was tough for me as a parent (and for my wife), being screamed at, particularly with the early phonics, as I didn't even have a clue if it would work...I had nothing to go on, no support group, etc.  For math, at least I had Saxon later on.

As it was, teaching a kid math right up to (but not including Calculus) takes time, obviously.  Reading was a flash - I was done with him in something like 7 months and most of that was him just getting better and better, but math took 5 years, pretty much solid.  But he was rewarded along the way, with a laptop for finishing Algebra 2 and smaller rewards each time he finished any other Saxon book.  I also helped him feel better by explaining that he only needed to learn math once - and then it was over and there was  an end to it (i.e., I'm not able to teach Plasma Physics because I don't understand it and Saxon doesn't cover it)....so that helped.

He was just a very normal kid, and the last thing a kid wants to do at that age (or at just about any age) is sit down with a pen and paper and do numbers.

I agree with you on Tiger Mom, in general.  You can see from above that Ms. Chau and I agreed that the kids are the last ones that should be setting the agenda.  But it wasn't like life was pure hell for David, he had a lot of fun, even sleepovers with friends, did get to play with his toys a lot - but did not have much television - that was where I took his time from.

I think her (Amy's) fixation with music is overkill, and I had to deal with the exact same thing, as my (Asian) wife also insisted that David learn Piano and Violin.  He did, pretty well, but screamed about it...and I, at most, reluctantly supported my wife (to keep the marriage together), but never thought it was worth a dime.  And it wasn't - no one that I've ever interviewed with has cared about whether I can play music (and I can't)...and David had reading and math down-cold well before playing those things - so that rationalization didn't work either.

Mr. Levy,

You will find that many of the parents on here start teaching with sight words, using various means, but similar to the way you taught your child math facts. It serves a purpose when a child is very young. I doubt you will find very many parents on here defending whole language when a child is past 4. Most of us transition to phonics or combination of phonics/sight reading once a child learns the letter sounds and can start blending them. That has proven to be successful for most of the people on this forum. You will discover many parents here whose children are reading from a 4th grade to high school level when entering kindergarten. I'm not sure whole language is the same when applied to little kids (here meaning infants and toddlers). Just as it wasn't important that your child understand 3 apples plus 2 apples. But we certainly wouldn't want that going on in the 1st grade.

Speaking of 2 apples plus 3 apples, it never occurred to me that my son didn't need to understand the concept before I taught him the facts. Hmmmmm - that is something to think about.

I do have a question regarding early graduation from college. I have a child, now 17, that I intentionally did not permit early entrance to college. As you mentioned, the acceleration thing can be done, but it is so difficult to get it done. I did not want to send my child to college early for multiple reasons. Iowa State has a program and seeks young kids (tuition paid) to enter college early through the Belin Blank Center. Iowa State was about 4 hours from me at the time we considered it. We were also too far from a community college to make it feasible. - and it never occurred to me anyway. Plus, they are still children and I wanted my son to have a great books education which would be clipped short if he started college early. There isn't another time in his life that he is going to be free to really engage the best thinking of our ancestors. It does take some maturity to grasp certain things/ideas. I do regret extending my son's childhood/immature years past the age of 16 - he is merely finishing up some reading for me and biding his time. It hasn't been the most productive.  

Do you think your son got a full education? Or better still, if you think he did, how did you go about insuring that it was done? This is important to me now as I also have a 2 year old who is light years ahead of where his brother was at this age. His brother scored post high school on standardized exams since 6th grade.  

Hi Sonya,

Thanks for the info on others here and I agree that I may be overreacting to sight words, in the context that you're speaking of.  My real problem is that they are now used to displace phonics from K through 3rd grade, which is older than Age 4.  I'm not really qualified to make a call on their early use, particularly if combined with real phonics.  So, I'll drop it...as I don't have anything more to say about it.

As to your question, it's an excellent one.  Believe it or not, when I started this adventure, I simply wanted to be the person that taught him the basics, as I had zero confidence in the ability of public schools to teach him, and I wasn't too confident about private schools (I simply cannot bring myself to trust someone that I know hardly anything about, to teach him such important material - I was not going to take chances, even if 99% of other parents don't mind throwing the dice).  So I set a target to keep him 2 years ahead of what he would be taught in school.  That way, if they wanted to do cute stuff like "lattice" multiplication, they were welcome to - but my kid always be able to fake it, do it the right way, and still have the right answer.  But then he started blowing through the Saxon books and that plan was out.  Reading was uncontrollable - I still vividly remember getting annoyed with him regarding the practice we did for the SAT.  I would tell him to read the passages with me.  Then his eyes started wondering - it wound up he was already reading 50% faster than me.

So that leads my answer - it's a really tough call.  If I had to set a criteria, it might be how the kid does with adults.  David never had trouble talking to them.  At one point, David handed me the phone and my mom (his grandmother) said she felt like she was talking to an adult.  He was probably around 6 years old then, but never was shy or withdrawn, or out of place with either older kids or adults.  I think he got that all from my wife, as he certainly didn't get it from me.  Now where it gets interesting is what if his personality was different.  If that was the case, I would have been much more worried about him...and probably would not have had him fully enrolled in college that far ahead a normal age (he was around 12, maybe 13, when he started full-time).  I'll never know...but the most important thing to have a kid who doesn't feel like a freak when he turns 18.  But I also understand the desire to not stall his learning.  It is tough for you - we have community college 8 miles away, and University of Houston 20 miles away.  I didn't want him living out of the house until he was at least 17...he still needed parenting, just to get him to do his homework and study (and he proved that to us one semester when we gave him some slack and nearly flunked his classes...LOL).  We both learned from it.

As to him getting a full education - David probably didn't get that, in your context, of exposure to the great books, as I wasn't much into that either.  He had some, but not much, he didn't like it much and we were more focused on college as a path to a career.  But to that concern, obviously the kid can take a few more classes in college, even if getting a technical degree, and still cover that material - I don't see that as a reason for delaying the start of college.

Oh, wow! I have SO many mixed emotions reading this thread! Especially coming at it from every angle imaginable! ( I graduated HS at just 15 and began Uni, with difficultly...I eventually joined the Army as I needed GUIDANCE!)
First off, Mr. Levy-
Thank you SO much for your valuable insights in this forum! You have managed to do what so many of us in this forum are hoping for...absolutely, accelerating your child mathematically and scientifically beyond high expectations, but instilli in him accountability, work ethic, and the desire to learn more, be more...

My hubby and I are biologists/chemists by nature/trade, and have been teaching our young toddler math for a while ( she is almost 2  yrs 9 mo). We are actually quite heavily into math games, manipulatives, etc., at this point, but have already abandoned many as she progresses, always at her insistence.
She has JUST started requesting worksheets and workbooks for further problems, and I am inclined to
encourage this. We have kept handwriting separate as she is a bit od a perfectionist...she answers math problems with stamps, an abacus, or a lower-case 'l' for a tally mark.

So yes, we already have LOTS of advanced math for her age, (including Saxon materials!) and are not progressing in a strictly linear fashion as she seems to have no problems learning multiplication tables via RB methods, or geography/ trigonometry... I guess my question would be, if you had it all to do again, would you have waited or started even earlier? Especially if homeschooling were on the table :)  also, because of our jobs, our child will have the ability to take/ audit just about any classes needed or wanted, for free, at almost any age!

Thanks so much for joining us here, and we are all incredibly appreciative to have a successful story, by an outstanding father, to encourage, enthrall, and enlighten us.
What a fantastic job you have done, walking that fine line between encouraging/ forcing/teaching/ leading your young son to greatness!  At he VERY least, the parents in this forum realize what a success/ accomplishment/ sacrifice/ ultimate gift of utter joy you managed to bestow upon your child!

keri
could you please tell me more about your math adventure with Alex .  When you say you flew through level A rightstart . Is Alex able at her age to do the math the way rightstart recommend , no counting the beads on the abacus , recognizing them by sight ?? my little boy 3 still want to count and this is keeping us from progressing to new lessons .
Also there is a lot fo talk on the group about saxon math and memorizing arithm facts , equations ,... i am following right start math and we are half way through level B . I wonder if it is wise to just make them memorize the multiplication table as a song now that they are young and able to memorize anything , or i should wait till it comes in rightstart program .
on this subject , i know you got Alex so much math material , do you have anything that can teach skip counting in a fun way ?? songs ?? dvd ?? my kids mastered skip counting by 2 5 and 10 but i like to work on the others .

so is saxon something worth looking at ?? compared to singapore , rightstart and all the others ?
love
viv

woops that was meant to be pm to keri ,yOU ARE ALLvery welcome to comment .
viv

Mr. Levy,

I think you have a point (well not only just a point but you are correct) to make about phonics and I am not asking you to drop the subject. Just clarifying for you the difference in how it might be applied to very young children of say 6-24 months versus a k-4th grader. Developmentally a child isn't able to sound out words when most of us are using whole words to learn reading. The results have been pretty amazing. We'd ask you to check out readingbear.org - created by one of our members. So, you are preaching to the choir here. Which is why we are all here anyway.

This forum has parents from all over the world so many your readers do not experience the same systemic educational failures that the US experiences, especially those from Asian countries.

There are more than a few of us who are quite fond of your snarkiness. Please, do not feel constrained.

"There are more than a few of us who are quite fond of your snarkiness. Please, do not feel constrained."

LOL.   Thanks Sonya, but I've pretty much said as much as I can.  My only experience has been with my kid at age 3.5, and a few others starting a year or so older.  By that age, or certainly by age 4, as you alluded to, it's time for pure phonics.  When they're real little, they may well only be capable of sight words...I simply don't have a basis, or any experience with other kids taught that way.  I would still worry, somewhat, that their little brains get confused by trying to learn reading two entirely different ways...and they are pretty much reading by sight anyway, a year after learning to read by phonics.  The difference being that memorizing the words is subconscious, not something they do one at a time.  Again, my opinions are worth what you pay for them.

Thanks Keri, I'll try to respond to your posting.

I don't really feel qualified to suggest to parents when to start.  You're approach might be best - if the kid is interested then you start moving out.  But you give a deadline and if the kid has no interest (like mine), you move out anyway, and start the process.  I wouldn't delay teaching reading beyond age 4, as I think any delay after that will lead to a less proficient reader (that's why I get so worked up about the way Sight Words are now used by the schools to delay the onset of phonics).  I think that any normal (non-learning disabled) kid can learn to read at that age.  There's not much to it, I think something like 32 letters and combinations thereof. 

Regarding hand-writing, one thing that was funny was that David had absolutely terrible hand writing and I never cared much...then one day, when he was maybe 13 or 14, literally one day, it became perfect (and stayed that way).  I have no idea how that happened, but it was a bit weird, to say the least.

"So yes, we already have LOTS of advanced math for her age, (including Saxon materials!)"
Nice.  I would suggest that when you start Saxon for real, you make sure junior does every single problem (as Saxon says to) and make sure that junior can fully understand each one.  Understanding 95% of the problems means you are missing a weakness in that 1%.  As a teacher of 25 kids, 95% might be excellent - as a parent of 1 (or a few) kids, 95% is an embarrassment.  There is not excuse for not working with junior until he can do every problem.  That's the huge advantage of parent-taught education, you can be that thorough, but you have to forget what is typically considered acceptable.

"I guess my question would be, if you had it all to do again, would you have waited or started even earlier?" It's a good question.  My starting time was determined almost totally due to luck (totally, in the case of reading...I was clueless until I heard that infomercial).  In the end, 8 years ahead in math, at one point, is more than enough (much more).  Having a kid that can (to this day) spell almost perfectly and read as well as he does (and did) was plenty.  So, I just don't see how he could have gained anything by starting earlier.  One other comment regarding reading - his pre-school was doing phonics when he was age 4 (of course he was reading fluently by then, so it didn't matter for him), but I remember that they were sloooowwww, real slow - as in one letter-sound per week.  That was insane, like I said earlier, I had him reading in 6 weeks - so don't be afraid to keep moving when you start - same with Saxon (of course) - no summer breaks for David.

"Thanks so much for joining us here, and we are all incredibly appreciative to have a successful story, by an outstanding father, to encourage, enthrall, and enlighten us.
What a fantastic job you have done, walking that fine line between encouraging/ forcing/teaching/ leading your young son to greatness!  At he VERY least, the parents in this forum realize what a success/ accomplishment/ sacrifice/ ultimate gift of utter joy you managed to bestow upon your child!"

That is really, really, nice, thank you.  The feeling is mutual.  One thing I learned, the hard way, is that most of my peers consider David as a genius that would have done great in any environment, and me as a politically-charged nutcase that simply hates our schools and teachers, who just want the best for the children.  They are partially right...I do have big problems with "the system", because they seem to drop what works, for untested 'experiments' that always fail (I was about to write "almost always fail", but I couldn't think of a success they've had in decades).  But one of the reasons that I bragged as much as I did (early on) was that I really believed that other parents would be interested in how David got to where he was, and would want to do the same for their kids.  But I think their reaction was more like me calling them failures as parents, for not having kids as 'smart' as David, when they actually (generally) did have kids just as smart - it just never crossed my mind that they would think that way of me.  So, once I figured that out, I simply stopped talking about him and now could care less regarding their kids.  It wound up that only one person that I know from work (and I know many people and most of them know David) ever bothered to ask me how I did it - and she was a Russian immigrant.  She's using Saxon for her kids.

So it's really nice to be on this site - you people seem totally different than just about everyone around me.

I understand too well about not talking about your child's sucess. I have upset a few parents who think they have failed their children because they can't read at 2. I feel sad for their insecurities.

And recently I was taking to my son's early intervention teacher about his reading and math success and another parent overheard and said that it was monstrous that I was teaching my son these things so early.
My son loves math. He learnt to read in a fun engaging way as we spent time cuddling together. Monstrous indeed!!

I love coming here to this forum. I love hearing success stories. It is inspiring.

"I understand too well about not talking about your child's sucess. I have upset a few parents who think they have failed their children because they can't read at 2. I feel sad for their insecurities."

I hear you.  My problem was that I wasn't able to tell what was going on.  In the end, who was I?,  compared to the 'experts' that have dedicated their lives and careers to the betterment of children.  What was doubly-bad for me was (and is) that I'm a political animal, and I see political motivation where others simply are unable to (or, more likely, choose not to).  For example, I see the people that run our education system as being driven to 'equalize' things.  First, to equalize the kids in the schools, and then to equalize the country (as compared to other countries).  Most people cannot accept that, but I've read enough Thomas Sowell books, lived in their dorms, read their newspapers (every one I could find) and went to their teach-ins - so I have zero doubt that I'm right.  I'm not saying that everyone in this system has bad intentions, because I don't believe that's so - but I do think that about the ones at the top, the decision makers, the union leaders, virtually to the person, are like that.

So, for parents, to knowingly hand over their kids to this system, after hearing me describe it that way, would be the ultimate act of child neglect.  So it's easier to simply write me off as a nutcase, and instead trust those really sweet teachers, who just love the kids.


"And recently I was talking to my son's early intervention teacher about his reading and math success and another parent overheard and said that it was monstrous that I was teaching my son these things so early."

It was funny.  At work, a older guy, really smart, but with no social skills (simply not liked by our team or anyone else that got near him), tried to convince me that I was "pushing my kid too hard".  I politely brushed him off.  I then tried that on my wife - she wasn't quite as diplomatic as me, LOL.  But even my mom asked the same thing.  Yes, I was "pushing him" as he felt he had better things to do with his time back then.  But, like I said before, your kids don't win in this country by conforming to "the system", and every one of my wife's friends knew that (they're all immigrants from Taiwan) - and every one of their kids were in after-school learning programs, and usually also on Saturdays.  Yes, Asian kids are generally smart, but 95% of why they do better in school is because they are mostly educated outside of "the system".


"My son loves math. He learnt to read in a fun engaging way as we spent time cuddling together. Monstrous indeed!!"

I agree, but in my opinion, your response is somewhat defensive.  I'd suggest going on offense, and asking those parents why they entrust something as important as the education of their kids (at least for reading and math) to a bunch of virtual strangers with strange-sounding college degrees (and course work), who partied their way through college (and believe me, they did, I was there with them), and have very little accountability regarding the outcome of their students (i.e., as long as 'the system' can keep our present education system in place, there will be a steady flow of 'customers', regardless of results).

Consider that, in contrast to how we're ultimately judged as parents - by whether our kids graduate college, and if so, in what field, and whether they go on to have their own families.  That simply doesn't exist for 'Mrs. Williamson', junior's teacher.

Robert, [warning, long political diatribe ahead]

I had been meaning to ask you (though off topic) what Thomas Sowell books you had read. I've gone through Race & Culture and have a few others on audio book that I haven't gotten to yet. I started reading his articles that come out every week or so in Investors Business Daily... mostly since I had read your Amazon review that talked about him.

Sadly, I think you'll find (especially if you look and think about it hard enough) that most of the social structures in the USA as currently in place, are now a mechanism to disable the typical citizen. It's quite disheartening. I don't think it's "one side or the other" that's primarily responsible but perhaps the system itself that enables self-interest at the highest levels. I'll give you an example that is on topic of this thread...

So David will soon graduate with a Masters in Mechanical Engineering. For the typical student (ie, a product of the system), this means they'll be around 24 or 25 years old if they hurry through - they'll likely be a hundred grand or more in debt and will have given up 6 years of prime working age to pursue academics. Higher education is one of those systems that is currently lining the pockets of some members of society while simultaneously robbing the client (the citizens). I've yet to hear a single politician discuss why this is happening, and in fact, only hear solutions that actually feed the problem. Making student loans more affordable (lower interest rates) is not the same as making education affordable - and the two are actually polar opposites.

The result is that you have students coming out of college in excess of 100,000 in debt; often times you have parents that have crippled their financial situation at a time when they could ill-afford it, and this happens in tandem with the monstrous debt or in lieu of it. Coupled with the opportunity costs of gaining traction in a career (especially at a time like this - which by the way - will only get worse in the US) really has made it frequently a stupid choice to pursue education. Three years ago I had to make a personal choice to pursue an advanced degree or not. I really wanted to, but decided to use the cash to buy a house outright. I'd have my doctorate right now, but am reading how the employment in that particular field is so abysmal that it could hardly justify the sacrifice, and that is why I sadly made the choice that I did.

My point is that David does not have to worry about opportunity costs. By the time his peers get their masters in mechanical engineering, David will have SIX full years under his belt. That could prove to be a lifetime in the sense that he might be the guy on the other side of the table in a job interview (okay, I might be overstating, but you get the idea).

It's not inconceivable that your actions saved your son in excess of $400,000 in lost wages and tuition. That's a really sizable chunk of money.

Who does it serve to create a generation of serfs? Hmmm. Sadly, they are not of the age nor wisdom to see how they're being fleeced and robbed blind. Current political polling tells me all I need to know on this matter.

Regarding math in today's school. You really were spot on. They didn't start teaching me until I was in 8th grade!

I remember being in middle school in particular, and hating my math teacher because she seemed so stupid. The specific memory I had was when she was teaching how to calculate cubed volume. This is really simple stuff - and the way she talked down to us, I was so offended. The worst was when she required that we put the measurements for length, width, and height in the "proper order"... which pissed me off to no end because my child logic told me that if you turn the box in any direction, the multiplication problem doesn't change nor does its answer.
This particular school left me in remedial math during my 7th grade year while the kids exposed to a few more concepts had pre-algebra. At the end of that year, they tested EVERYONE on how well they could LEARN math. I scored near the top and placed into algebra for 8th grade.... I remember when I took Algebra 2 in high school... I finished the class in February and sat around twiddling my thumbs for months goofing off while everyone else caught up. This happened because I had a teacher that did worksheets and allowed me to study on my own.

When I look back, I could have learned so much more in mathematics - but the system, geared to teach to the lowest common denominator, failed me.

I remember helping a few of my friends with their math in high school and was shocked at how horrible the teachers were. They made simple concepts difficult, and in turn, the students felt stupid (IMO).

I will not allow my little boy to be processed like this. That's why I'm here. I do have a bit of a hurdle - my wife is one of those educators, and I see fallacious thinking everywhere and beliefs that are proven (via cognitive psychology studies) to be false and yet the system just churns out dogmatic BS which in turn, cripples the populace.

Why does the system allow fully capable children to just sit there like dummies? Just remembering all this stuff has me angry as can be.

I'm with you Robert. Not in my house. I'm specifically here on a early learning forum because I have a few years before he's school aged - and if I can get him off to great start, they won't have the chance to mess him up.
 :)    :D    :biggrin:

Regarding the goal of equality. It will never be achieved. It cannot ever be achieved in education in any form (including equal "opportunity") nor can it ever be achieved as an economic outcome even under the most severe Marxist ideals. The only way you might have some form of equality in education would be to adopt policies of eugenics - and we're not the Third Reich so that won't happen (nor am I saying that it should). Even though there's little we can do, it's not to say that our current system is tenable. Every where I look I see people talking about "it's the middle class stupid" - these people, all the way up to types like Robert Reich, are either liars or imbeciles on the topic; I've yet to hear a single one of these political types mention fractional reserve lending and how it has stripped wealth from the people. Oh well I guess. Not much I can do about it.

But the education system in our country is so misplaced it's not even funny. There is something I can do about that - I can take matters into my own hands the way you did.

I think you've nailed it, so no need for me to continually beat the dead horse while among the choir.

I'm not going to even go into how upset I am at the current state of the public education system in the USA.

Wow, what an amazing thread!  I finally got through all of it.  I too am glad Mr Levy came to visit us.  I agree that the way we are teaching whole-words in the public schools is terrible.  For all intents and purposes, phonics first makes sense.  However, I do want to share my story with my little guy.  When I was starting to teach my oldest, 1, how to read, and told my father-in-law, a public school teacher with his Masters degree, that I planned on using sight words first, he became very concerned.  He told me horror stories of what happens in the public schools, and how it keeps a lot of kids from confidently reading.  He ultimately quit teaching because they wouldn't let him teach phonics to the special-ed kids.  His aids tattled on him, saying they didn't like the way he taught, it wasn't the way they were told to teach kids, and it wasn't the materials that the school board handed out.  It was very stressful for him, affecting his health (almost killing him), and his story had a big impact on me.  So I tried to teach my first through phonics alone.  He knew his ABCs very well at 18 months, and by age two, he could sound out a few rehearsed words and a few sight words like "Mommy" and "Peter".  That was all, and a year later, we hadn't made any progress despite several different techniques and games that I presented to him.  In the meantime, I saw the YouTube videos of other babies reading, and heard the testimonials here on BrillKids and in a yahoo group.  They were all learning to read via the whole-word methods.  Then my husband went to a workshop where they talked about the human memory.  The typical adult can easily remember 7 things in a process easily, but not 8 or more without more practice, and that is why our phone numbers are 7 digits long.  A baby can remember one, then two, and so on as they get older.  That's why a baby's first sentences are one word,  "Mine!"  "Hurt!", etc.  We reasoned that our son couldn't sound out words because in a word like "cat", by the time he sounded out the "t", he had forgotten about the "c"  He was also excited about the letters, and the concept of blending them into words was hard for him to grasp.  So we threw in the towel, and applied ourselves to the whole word method.  Something clicked, and he picked it up very quickly.  I'm sure all of the previous work we had done with him helped, but he still wouldn't have made that connection without that switch.  I have taught whole-word first with my 2nd and 3rd, and they are both doing very well.  Oddly enough, I have never tried to teach my just-turned-2-year-old his ABCs, but he learned them at a much younger age than my older son, and he can read simple books now.  Anyway, that's my perspective on why the whole-word method works for babies, and why phonics doesn't as much.  All of my children have enjoyed the whole-word approach much more.  Phonics were laborious, and required a certain level of testing to progress.  Whole word can be about building vocabulary at the same time.  Children can learn to read a book that they are interested in, and feel a confidence-building measure of success when they finish it.  That has motivated my own children to work harder in their pursuit of reading.

Just my two cents.

Hi PokerDad - here's my reply:

"I had been meaning to ask you (though off topic) what Thomas Sowell books you had read. I've gone through Race & Culture and have a few others on audio book that I haven't gotten to yet. I started reading his articles that come out every week or so in Investors Business Daily... mostly since I had read your Amazon review that talked about him."


I read "Inside American Education" about 15 years ago, and any thought of me sending my kid to public school was quashed - it's that good, and nothing's changed.  He has more footnotes and references than I've ever seen in one place.  No one disputes him, simply because it's not possible.  He's a legend.  I first started reading his columns in college, incredible insights.  I haven't read him much lately, but he does talk about how he grew up as a black in Harlem well before the civil rights movement, and how, back then, kids like him were given expectations, not excuses.  He's certain that he would have ended up as a street thug if he grew up now, in that place.


"Sadly, I think you'll find (especially if you look and think about it hard enough) that most of the social structures in the USA as currently in place, are now a mechanism to disable the typical citizen. It's quite disheartening. I don't think it's "one side or the other" that's primarily responsible but perhaps the system itself that enables self-interest at the highest levels. I'll give you an example that is on topic of this thread"

I do think it's primarily on one side, based on what I've seen since college.  That is very, very, difficult for people to accept - but bad, malicious, people tend to congregate together throughout history, and good, well meaning people, simply allow it, because they cannot bring themselves to accept what these people really want and have in store for them.  For example (without getting too political), when someone says that our country is overpopulated, that scares me, because if they really believe that, then they'll feel compelled to do something about it, if they get power.


"So David will soon graduate with a Masters in Mechanical Engineering. For the typical student (i.e., a product of the system), this means they'll be around 24 or 25 years old if they hurry through - they'll likely be a hundred grand or more in debt and will have given up 6 years of prime working age to pursue academics. Higher education is one of those systems that is currently lining the pockets of some members of society while simultaneously robbing the client (the citizens). I've yet to hear a single politician discuss why this is happening, and in fact, only hear solutions that actually feed the problem. Making student loans more affordable (lower interest rates) is not the same as making education affordable - and the two are actually polar opposites."

I couldn't agree more.  The other interesting aspect of college is that, essentially, it is the only product that I know of which is priced according to one's ability to pay.  That's done through 'financial aid' which includes grants and loans.  If you make less money, you pay less, if you make more, you pay more (up to the insane sticker price of private schools).  Ever see that at Walmart, or buying a car or a house?   That just shows how far out of whack, and maybe even illegal, the pricing system is for colleges.  And yes, if the government gave everyone a voucher for $10,000 for buying a new car, and assuming that production of new cars didn't respond (as colleges generally add capacity very slowly or not at all), then guess what - new cars would cost just about exactly $10,000 more, and the UAW (and auto companies) would be the  ones benefiting, not the buyers.


"The result is that you have students coming out of college in excess of 100,000 in debt; often times you have parents that have crippled their financial situation at a time when they could ill-afford it, and this happens in tandem with the monstrous debt or in lieu of it. Coupled with the opportunity costs of gaining traction in a career (especially at a time like this - which by the way - will only get worse in the US) really has made it frequently a stupid choice to pursue education. Three years ago I had to make a personal choice to pursue an advanced degree or not. I really wanted to, but decided to use the cash to buy a house outright. I'd have my doctorate right now, but am reading how the employment in that particular field is so abysmal that it could hardly justify the sacrifice, and that is why I sadly made the choice that I did."

Good call on your part.  I had some 'debates' with my wife as to whether David should get a PhD also.  I simply didn't see the benefit in it and I remember the nightmares that some people were having in graduate school (I have a Master's in EE) trying to finish their PhD's.  It seemed the university was almost keeping them there as slaves, with some pushing something like 8 years there trying to finish.  The math simply doesn't work out, when you compare it to entering the workforce with a lower degree, at least in engineering.  As it was with David, he doesn't want to go further and he's an adult now, so it's his call.  On broader view - people who work with their hands can make a lot of money, and skip the college game, and, especially the debt.  Heck, I live like a king here in Texas, simply because I've done both - I work as an engineer and virtually no one else (other than David) ever lays a finger on my house or my cars.  There's a lot of money to be made there in the trades, and I've learned them well enough to keep that money to myself...but for others, just learn the stuff well (wiring, plumbing, AC repair, or auto repair, etc.), and the opportunities are endless.


"My point is that David does not have to worry about opportunity costs. By the time his peers get their masters in mechanical engineering, David will have SIX full years under his belt. That could prove to be a lifetime in the sense that he might be the guy on the other side of the table in a job interview (okay, I might be overstating, but you get the idea)."

Thanks, I've thought about that and agree.  He was young, and really couldn't work.  He was also small (not any more, now full-sized), and he struggled to work on cars and bend #12 wiring on to screw terminals.  But that's over, and now he's likely stronger than myself.  In other words, you try to finish off educating the kid before that tradeoff becomes necessary.  Earlier this year, a doctor had done the opportunity cost trade that you mentioned, comparing himself to a UPS driver, who started that job right after high school (it was on the web).  The doctor eventually came out ahead but not until he was almost 50 years old.  He simply took the amount of hours he put into his education and practice and the eventual revenue - and compared it to a UPS driver starting at maybe $12 per hour, working the same number of hours (including OT).  It was amazing - and we're not even talking the trades here.


"It's not inconceivable that your actions saved your son in excess of $400,000 in lost wages and tuition. That's a really sizable chunk of money."

Agree - since David wasn't going to go public school, regardless, the college tuition money would have been spent on high school and junior high school tuition, so that was a push for us.  Texas A&M has a job fair this week, we'll see what (if any, just to cover myself) offers he might get.  Assuming that he actually finishes this semester in good standing, he's done and can start work at age 18.5, with a Master's.  Although it sounds a bit selfish, he could even help us (wife and I)out for a while if my job disappeared (my wife doesn't work), and we lost 3 of 8 power channels on the Space Station last week (we've since recovered 2 of them) - simply because he doesn't have debt or a family to worry about.  But, for now, we don't need his money, so he keeps it.


"Who does it serve to create a generation of serfs? Hmmm. Sadly, they are not of the age nor wisdom to see how they're being fleeced and robbed blind. Current political polling tells me all I need to know on this matter."

Agree.  I even see it with David's friends from UH, who are engineering graduates, in their early 20s.  They're making good money (~80k) in petro-chem, but seem to blow it as fast as it comes in.  I've had some 'discussions' with him regarding meeting up with them and 'going to lunch' as they seem find places that I would never even dream of taking my wife, just due to the cost.  As for debt - that's simply a human weakness - two thirds of people (in my estimation) will simply grab money that's held out in front of them and worry about paying it back later (hence the housing bubble/crisis).  I'll never forget that when we finished building our house and had something like $40k left available in our construction loan (we ran the project), I told the loan officer that I didn't want that money - he was SHOCKED.  No one rejects that kind of money.  And...if I didn't have to pay it back, sure,  I would have taken it too.


"Regarding math in today's school. You really were spot on. They didn't start teaching me until I was in 8th grade!  I remember being in middle school in particular, and hating my math teacher because she seemed so stupid. The specific memory I had was when she was teaching how to calculate cubed volume. This is really simple stuff - and the way she talked down to us, I was so offended. The worst was when she required that we put the measurements for length, width, and height in the "proper order"... which pissed me off to no end because my child logic told me that if you turn the box in any direction, the multiplication problem doesn't change nor does its answer."

Yep, and people blindly trust their kids to that system.  What I remember when I was young was having a great 6th grade math teacher (honor's math)...and then entering junior high where 3 or 4 other schools were folded in.  Guess what, their math teachers were not as good.  So we spent the first 8 months doing arithmetic, and the last month in a very-compressed pre-Algebra - when most of the school year should have been pre-algebra.  I had 100% on every grade in the first 8 months (knew it all inside out).  I collapsed into B's and (mostly) C's once Algebra started, and right through college.  I'll never, ever, forget that.  That was a driver in my life.  The other driver was going bowling with friends before they had automatic scoring machines.  I could add up my score instantly - probably due to bowling twice a week.  The other kids struggled like hell to add up their scores (this is 5th through 8th grade).  I guess the 'improved' math they were teaching did not see a need for arithmetic anymore.  I can give a similar example for reading.  Given all of that, there was no way in hell that I would let a virtual stranger ever teach my kids something that important, never.


"This particular school left me in remedial math during my 7th grade year while the kids exposed to a few more concepts had pre-algebra. At the end of that year, they tested EVERYONE on how well they could LEARN math. I scored near the top and placed into algebra for 8th grade.... I remember when I took Algebra 2 in high school... I finished the class in February and sat around twiddling my thumbs for months goofing off while everyone else caught up. This happened because I had a teacher that did worksheets and allowed me to study on my own."

See, it took you 6 months to finish Algebra 2.  Had 'the system' allowed you to continue at your pace, you would have finished off another year of math (at least if you include the summer).  That was exactly David's pace at the Algebra 2 level - he was nothing special (a nice kid, though), I simply took advantage of the time that was available to him.


"When I look back, I could have learned so much more in mathematics - but the system, geared to teach to the lowest common denominator, failed me."

Yea, that's a given.  Like I've said a number of times, I know the mindset of the people that run the system.  They simply want equalization of results, and they do not care at what level that is.  I once read an article that said credit card companies consider people that pay off their cards every month (like me) to be 'deadbeats', in the sense that we're not helping their bottom-line very much (i.e., no interest or penalty charges).  Likewise smart kids, to the schools, are, essentially, looked at in the same way - as a nuisance that they have to endure.  I really think some of them consider an advanced kid as an abused kid (by their parents) and want to 'save' that kid from further abuse - be ready for that.


"I remember helping a few of my friends with their math in high school and was shocked at how horrible the teachers were. They made simple concepts difficult, and in turn, the students felt stupid (IMO)."

Dr. Sowell is clear that the people that go to the "Schools of Education" are not the brightest in the lot, so that doesn't help to begin with.  Second, these "Schools of Education" spend all of their time in theoretical crap and don't bother teaching their students how to actually teach kids.  And then they politicize the students.  There is absolutely no way that Whole Language and Fuzzy Math could have be where they are today, without teachers actually wanting, badly wanting, those failed approaches - and there are surveys that prove it.


"I will not allow my little boy to be processed like this. That's why I'm here. I do have a bit of a hurdle - my wife is one of those educators, and I see fallacious thinking everywhere and beliefs that are proven (via cognitive psychology studies) to be false and yet the system just churns out dogmatic BS which in turn, cripples the populace."

Sorry about your wife...I can't help much there.


"Why does the system allow fully capable children to just sit there like dummies? Just remembering all this stuff has me angry as can be."

You answered that:  Lowest Common Denominator.  If you randomly grab 20 cars off the street, and have them all drive 500 miles as fast as they can, there will be a lot of drivers waiting around at the end for the race to end.


"I'm with you Robert. Not in my house. I'm specifically here on a early learning forum because I have a few years before he's school aged - and if I can get him off to great start, they won't have the chance to mess him up."

My sample set is limited, but I'm convinced that just about any kid can do this.  Best of luck there, and remember what I always tell parents - make sure that junior knows who's in charge, and it's not subject to negotiation, ever.


"Regarding the goal of equality. It will never be achieved. It cannot ever be achieved in education in any form (including equal "opportunity") nor can it ever be achieved as an economic outcome even under the most severe Marxist ideals. The only way you might have some form of equality in education would be to adopt policies of eugenics - and we're not the Third Reich so that won't happen (nor am I saying that it should). Even though there's little we can do, it's not to say that our current system is tenable. Every where I look I see people talking about "it's the middle class stupid" - these people, all the way up to types like Robert Reich, are either liars or imbeciles on the topic; I've yet to hear a single one of these political types mention fractional reserve lending and how it has stripped wealth from the people. Oh well I guess. Not much I can do about it."

Well stated...that's obvious to us, but not to everyone.


"But the education system in our country is so misplaced it's not even funny. There is something I can do about that - I can take matters into my own hands the way you did."

Exactly.  You don't need to participate on their terms.  That's what I did.  You will get flack, maybe lots of it, so be prepared.  Even family and close friends often think a kid is being abused because you have him do math problems for 3 hours a day, rather than sitting like a zombie in front of a TV screen or 'saving the world' in his video games for those 3 hours (even if he still has other hours to be a zombie).


"I think you've nailed it, so no need for me to continually beat the dead horse while among the choir."

Yes, this was a fun post to reply to.

To Tamsyn,

I've pretty much said what I can on Sight Words.  Like your FIL says, they are a disaster for older kids.  For kids less than 3 years, who knows?  But one thing that I did learn in researching Sight Words, again regarding older kids, was how their brains got confused as to which method to use as they came across words.  It probably would have been better to simply not teach them reading until 3rd or 4th grade, if the alternative is only sight words.  But for super-young kids, I'm simply out of my league...although I can't imagine better results than I got with David, doing phonics-only, starting at age 3.5.

Hey, can you elaborate on what you did with Hamlet?

Sonya,

Regarding Hamlet and reading, I did similar to what I mentioned earlier with basic math, where I gave up on David understanding concepts (i.e., I didn't care if he knew what 2 plus 3 meant in the real world, I just wanted him to say "5"), figuring, correctly, that he would backfill as he got older.

In the case of reading, I only cared, initially, that he could read words.  I didn't care if he had any clue what they meant, or if he stopped at punctuation breaks.  So he, initially, ran right through the end of sentences into the next one.  I figured if he could read easily, then I'd worry about punctuation, rather than hitting him all at once with everything.  But when Hamlet came around, I saw a chance to put an end to that, and used it to have him learn punctuation and role-playing.  By role-playing, all I mean was that he would try to speak with the same voices that the characters have...if female, he would speak with a high voice, if the ghost, he'd speak with a "scary" voice, etc.

By the time he finished the book, I was done teaching him reading.  Also, over the next few years, he back-filled any gaps, so that worked just as good for reading as math...and would probably get me expelled as a teacher anywhere in the country.

Robert,

I've been meaning to ask a few questions on implementation. Did you use student edition, teacher edition, or both? Did David just write in the book as you went or did you have him use paper (such as in school when they want to re-use the book) or did you photocopy? I know these are somewhat insignificant questions, but I'm still curious all the same.

I'm about ten pages into Inside American Education and am loving it already. Will post more questions down the road as I think of them.

Hi Poker Dad,

Sorry for not replying sooner.  I stopped getting comments over Labor Day, and didn't check back after that.

As to your questions:  I was able to get through Math 54 and Math 65 without an solution manual, but after that it was very nice to have.  As to an instructor manual, I never had one, and don't even know if they exist.  The solution manuals worked well enough for me.

We only used the old hardcover books (rather than the newer ones, which are consumable), and no, he never wrote in them.  He just did his work on notebook paper.

Glad you're reading Dr. Sowell.  Two things to note:  (1)  The first is how thoroughly sourced his books are.  He doesn't make up stuff, like The Establishment does, and (2)  you'll see Columbine High School mentioned as a place where brainwashing takes place (Death Education, if you can believe it) - that was about 6 years before the shooting (when the book was first published)...were they messing with the kids' minds - who knows?

(p.s., my kid thinks that I turned people off here by coming out against Sight Words - if so, so be it - I'm not in this to make money or help others make money, I just state my observations, my methods, and my results)

Lol about your son.
I for one am not turned off by others opinions and experiences. :)

And even though my kid is only 2 we are very seriously looking into Saxon one year.

I certainly wasn't put off.  I only shared my story to add a different perspective.  I'm very grateful for everything that you've given us to think about. 

[warning: rant]

What a great post  :)   I've really enjoyed it, especially since I was one of those who couldn't find meaning in a degree (i was already running a business) despite attending a top uni, enrolled in advanced courses, pre-law, pre-med, class president, blah, blah, blah.  result: i never got my degree ... but am now (thanks to EL) heading back to get my phd in *drum roll* education! LOL 

why?  well, the system needs to be reformed, clearly.  and i figure it's easier to do once you're 'in' the system, especially since realizing that the masses really equate letters behind one's name to credibility!  granted, i can get my kids to bypass our wonderful educational system by having them go the early-admission-cc-to-4-yr-uni route with a masters by the time their peers are finishing up high school (yes, i had this plan/goal set since last spring, including considering online classes at the cc in case i feel that they're 'too young' to be left on the campus alone 8) btw: colleges are starting to put minimum age limits here!), but that still leaves my kids living in a country with peers who were severely failed.  and somehow, to me, not doing something about it means that i'm failing my kids, too. 

as adults, my children shouldn't be content throttling in their communities or have to join up with 'strangers' across the globe (as we do on this forum) to find stimulating conversation.  i feel that i should be able to engage in thought-provoking dialogue with anyone in my community (at the grocery store, at the mall, in an elevator), yet society has trained me to steer away from such until i'm certain that 1) said person is capable of thought beyond the basics, and 2) offenses won't be taken, as may be the case for someone not taught to develop a position, defend the position, and openly reflect on changing one's position if presented with new information.  although i think my kids should be capable of discussing common topics, peer dialogue should not be limited to fashion, tv, sports, and work.  nor should the bar of their passions (determined by education/experiences) be set so low that they find little significance in their existence (or worse yet, that they don't even reflect on it!).

not only that, i am one of those 'one person can change the world' sort of people.  where would humanity be without people straying from the social herd and thinking they could make a positive difference?  and while i can garner merit from you bringing your kid to reality, possibly to keep him grounded in the worth of everyone and engaged within his surrounding social structure; i respectfully cringe at my interpretation of you drilling into your child that he isn't brilliant.  i do believe that relating to our peers is crucial.  after all, what's the point of having something to say/contribute, if no one is willing to listen/accept what you have to offer?  interestingly, your proof is in the pudding.  and the pudding gave you an 11!  i don't think it gets much better than that  :biggrin:  and at the risk of embarrassing him, i find it adorable that he came on here to check in and offer you his opinion.  (by the way - i doubt i'm the only one who would LOVE to get his take on some el questions too!). 

rant aside (no offense intended!), i would love to see more kids exposed to accelerated learning.  so many, in fact, that it is no longer considered accelerated and just becomes the norm.  why?  because we're all capable of it!  in earlier posts, children with learning challenges were mentioned, but there are people who have successfully taught down syndrome, autistic, and other 'challenged' children to do more than the 'average' us student is doing in public schools right now. 

i think about a problem arising that could negatively impact my ability to enjoy life with my kids - worst cases: illness, war, natural (more than likely human-inflicted and preventable) disaster.  and then i think about how many people exist who can help prevent it.  my sad reality is that our current system is failing all of us by not producing better thinkers, problem solvers, and people willing to contribute their findings.  even worse, our nation, so far as i see it, is becoming more naive/ignorant with time, more apathetic to the problems that are being seen, and more incapable of correcting such grave errors, probably due to producing generations who are blind to critical thinking/problem solving.  i see reading and math literacy as cures to this ailment, but without creating a system that supports early education, or at least the children that are a product of it, i feel that we have little hope of correcting this course to chaos.  really, i can only speak on my experience here in va.  this forum is international, but even within the us, each state has their own way of handling education.  truthfully, even within the same school, each teacher has their own methods, which i have personally seen result in vast differences from classroom to classroom. so yeah, my two cents.

and as for whether i was offended by your comments: initially, yes, i was put off.  but i kept reading and could clearly understand how your passion was fueled.  i wholeheartedly agree that sight reading should not be practiced in elementary school, that phonics is key at that age.  and i appreciated your acknowledging your lack of information on its application under age 4, as well as your ability to reason that it may work for that age group (it did for my kids  :happy: ).  anyway, thanks so much for sharing your points, and thank you so much for conscientiously raising a capable, confident, young man despite the social obstacles that you faced - the world definitely needs more of them! 

i feel blessed each day for coming across this forum and its participants.  i know that without them, my kids would be that much farther from reaching their natural potential.  welcome, and feel free to share your opinions as they come.  i might add that another failing of our current system seems to be in producing people who no longer know how to respectfully engage in friendly dialogue/debate.  it seems that either people's feelings get too hurt and they quit, or their feelings get too hurt and they start insulting or reacting violently.  shame.  the way i see it, conversation is meant to be engaging, stimulating, and with disagreement at times or else we'd be a nation of non-thinkers (oh wait, are we not there, yet?).  we should get back to teaching actual rhetoric/philosophy in schools.  where i live, i wouldn't be surprised if the majority of the public school kids weren't even familiar with the word. :-/  regardless, i very much appreciated your comments with all of their flavor, and do hope to read more from you thanks, again :-)

Robert, you're not turning anyone off. We are a very open-minded group here. After that is the best way to learn - being open-minded.

As PokerDad mentioned before, you are a legend on this forum. I personally did stalk your amazon.com posts and reviews, in the hopes of learning what you did to produce a high-achieving child. I learnt a lot from those reviews, and I'm learning even more from your posts on this forum. Thank you so much for coming around to share your strategies and insights with us. Very much appreciated.

After all, according to Anders Ericsson’s research on expertise and high-performance, one of the best ways to become very good at anything is to find someone who's already achieved what you're trying to achieve, model your steps after that person, modify where necessary, and very soon you'll pretty much have his same kind of results. In other words, find coaches and mentors (in this case, parents that have raised academically successful children).  See 'The making of an expert' by Ericsson et al published in Harvard Business Review: http://www.uvm.edu/~pdodds/files/papers/others/2007/ericsson2007a.pdf.

So, please keep posting, I enjoy your insights a lot, and I've made modifications to my early learning strategies based on what I've learnt on this thread. And very importantly, you've given me a lot to think about.

Thank you once again.

I live in the UK, so can't say much about the US education system. I went to a grammar school (elite state school) where we were told often that we were "amongst the top 5% of students in the country" and were left with the distinct impression that anything less than an A was a failure... (minor rant alert  :wub: )

YET I distinctly remember sitting through two years of maths and science where I completed the class work and homework in around 10 minutes and spent the next 45 minutes chatting with my equally capable friend. We *begged* our teachers for more work and were refused! We actually got told off for *doing* our homework because the teacher told the class "to continue from where we were in the textbook for 1/2 hour at home" and didn't tell us not to. She was fuming the next lesson when we were massively ahead of the rest of the class...

It was only at A level (I'd guess college level in the US - age 17/18 pre-university specialist courses) that maths became a challenge for me. I didn't follow the teacher's explanations well and was constantly reprimanded for working together with a friend who similarly struggled to figure out the concept. She told us that we couldn't help each other in the exams, conveniently ignoring the fact that we couldn't DO the exam if we didn't understand the concept... Needless to say, pre-A level I breezed through maths with no effort, in two years I was deemed a failure and incapable of doing higher-level maths. I consider this to be down to three things: bad teaching, being given a calculator (I still have to skip-count through some of my times tables :ohmy: ) and wasting two years before being streamed into a group where we worked the full lesson, but still with no real effort and using a calculator for the next two years.

In short, I went to one of the top 20 schools in the country and my high school maths (science, foreign language, literature, English language...) education was a waste of time. I wasn't pushed at all for four years, by which point I was hopelessly lazy and absolutely dependent on a calculator for all but the most basic of sums. It wasn't until years later that I started doing complex arithmetic and algebra for FUN that I realised that I wasn't stupid. I never want my son to feel that way about any aspect of his education!

Robert,

Your opinion and words are highly respected here on this forum by everyone and if anything I feel that you are just being passionate about something that needs to be understood.  I agree with you about the sight words.  I feel that it is sooooooooo much more beneficial to teach phonics first.  If I knew what I know now I would have made phonic flashcards of the blends, digraphs and letters to teach my son their sounds to fit the style of the BrillKids program.   I just taught him with magnets etc. it did not matter becuse he learned phonics before he could speak and from his first word (apple) to now his pronunciation is very good.  Here is a video of Cayden reading a book he has seen probably once or twice last Christmas and has since been collecting dust on the bookshelf. 

Please continue to give us your input here and if you ever have a couple extra minutes and can lend us some helpful information, experiences, tips, etc. on some of the other topics being discussed here on the forum we would be forever grateful.  I was also wondering if you could tell us your top books that you would recommend to help give us more insight.

Thanks
Melanie

Edit *  Video was not posting from ipad
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPJ_93ednh4&feature=plcp

Thanks to you all I have learnt MUCH reading this thread.
Robert THANKYOU so very much for jumping on here with us. I in particular have really enjoyed your contribution.
So although you have answered almost all of my questions, I have one more :)
Did your son find Saxon 5/4 ridiculously easy when you first started? Based on your comments I can assume he had a really good basis in math and was probably pretty quick at basic calculations mentally. I am using 5/4 with my 3rd grade child and she is finding it easy. I skipped ahead to see if it gets harder and really it won't be much of a stretch for her a all. I am considering starting my grade 1 child on saxon 5/4 at a slower pace. Its pretty much at her level now. I am reluctant to skip to the next book as I believe in a solid foundation and she doesn't have any math facts memorized, she is just pretty good at math overall.
Based on your experience I have decided that she can do 2 lessons on most days ( probably one on her gymnastics days) and 6 over the weekend. The book will be finished in under 2 months at that rate so I am thinking we will stick with it. I was only asking her for one lesson ,most days but decided to up the expectations after reading this thread.
I also offered her a reward for the completion of the book. ( don't know why I didn't think of that before!)
in addition to all this I have decided that every time my kids argue or get sent to their rooms they have to complete a lesson in Saxon ( or a page of sums depending othe kid) I will have to carefully balance the rewards and punishments to keep a positive disposition towards math work.  I figure doing it this way they will either grow up to be nice people or smart enough that it won't matter!  lol
Robert any indication of the difficulty level your son experienced at the start would be great.
Oh and it's so refreshing to "chat" with a parent who raised a advanced student with his feet obviously still firmly osolid grouding. Well done!

not to highjack the thread, but ...
@mela - i love the book!! did you create it from scratch or were the pages done and you just had to insert his name and picture before printing?  I would so love to make one for the kids (mostly for kaelie's benefit, but you can imagine what it's like with two close in age). 
@mandabplus3 - i'm relieved that i'm not the only one who uses math & timeout together.  it's new for us, so we're playing it by ear, but lately, j's been able to get out of time out earlier by 'mathing' his way out.  for now, it's pretty much counting backwards from 50 (we started at 20, but are up now).  depending on what he does, sometimes he can't just 'math' his way out of timeout, although i don't stop him from trying lol.  at first, i was concerned about it creating a negative relationship for him with math, but fortunately, since he's using math to get out of a problem (timeout), it seems to be a friend, rather than foe.  as he gets better, i'm thinking about adding math worksheets and such to make time out more productive; and i wouldn't be surprised if it just became 'critical thinking time' where he would eventually have to figure out other issues that may require math, science, etc.  as we progress, i'm sure there will be times where he will be required to reflect on what he's done and maybe even write about it while in time out, but for now, this seems to be working for us.  fyi: for those interested - each timeout session, which doesn't last but a few minutes, if that, is followed by a chat about why he was put in timeout, what's expected to prevent him from going back for that same reason, and confirmation of our love and commitment to him becoming the best version of himself.

back to the thread & robert - in case it wasn't so obvious in my past thread: i'm also so very grateful to have light shed by a 'been there, done that' parent! thanks for sharing and i hope that you (and eventually your 'little one') keep contributing to the forum!!

Scratch!! I wish I had that kind of time... :)   I might use it to sleep though.
I got the books made from shutterfly http://www.shutterfly.com/custom-photo-products/centerstage-products/centerstage-books?c=50502
It is so simple all you do is upload a picture per their instructions, enter a few details about your child so they can incorporate it into the story and about 3 weeks later you have the book.  The site usually has really good sales but these books never go on sale.  The best I have done is to wait for free shipping.

Thank you guys, all is well – appreciate the words.  I’ll reply to some specific comments, below, from the first of the true “rants” (LOL), above.
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To Queriquita,
“…especially since realizing that the masses really equate letters behind one's name to credibility!”
Unfortunately, that is the case in this country.  Yes, there are plenty of ways to be successful without college, but life comes down to a probability game, in the end, and college drastically raises the probability of a comfortable life.  For example, a kid who is good in football in junior high might make to the NFL, and thus make huge bucks, but what are really his odds – maybe 1000 to 1.  Likewise, a kid who is an auto mechanic or plumber may make it big in the business, own a large firm, and be all set, but the odds there are still very stacked – maybe 100 to 1 (or 20 to 1, at best).  My best friend in high school became an electrician, then a contractor, then had his own business.  He was busy as heck, so I told him to hire some high school kids.  He tried, offered twice minimum wage, no one wanted it (heck, I would have paid that, to learn those skills).  He ended up hiring a couple of other people (at different times).  One stole jewelry from a customer, and the other also didn’t work out.  He did that for 30 years, and was as  good as they come – at one point he was charging over $100 per hour.  But the money was in fits and starts, and then the jobs pretty much dried up completely and he, luckily, got himself a job for a big hospital group as their chief electrician.  He does great, loves it, but still only earns half as much as my kid will start out at (assuming he gets a job at market salary). 
But a kid who gets an MD is basically 100% set;  engineering, maybe 90% to 95%, and then it starts to drop for other majors, but their probability of having a comfortable life is still much, much, higher than non-college.  Is that fair, or just?  It depends whose side you’re on.  If I’m an employer and I have a job that requires reading, I’m going to want someone with a 2-year community college degree (minimum), simply because I wouldn’t trust high school graduates to have that skill (at least in a lot of cases).  If they’re expected to do some math, then I’d want to see college-level math completed.   Our schools have created this mess, not the people trying to stay in business, and not society as a whole.
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“granted, i can get my kids to bypass our wonderful educational system by having them go the early-admission-cc-to-4-yr-uni route with a masters by the time their peers are finishing up high schoo…but that still leaves my kids living in a country with peers who were severely failed.”
Yes and no.  You have to define peers.  People say that public schools are good, even for people that are on a high-achieving college track, since you get to understand all types of people, and that’s what’s out there in the real world.  I don’t buy that.  Yes, there are all types out there in the world, but unless I’m at Walmart or at the other end of a gun (or DMV), I don’t have to interact with them.  I don’t have to live in their neighborhoods, and I don’t have to invite them over to my house.  I can if I want, but I don’t have to.  Likewise, beating (figuratively, of course) into my kid that he’s nothing special allows him to not look down at  those Walmart workers, but to respect them for who they are.  At to the country as  whole, yes, it’s depressing to consider all of the young adults aimlessly trying to figure out what to do with their lives, when they spent their entire childhood dreaming of being a video game designer (and therefore trying to master every video game) just to find out that designing video games takes hard work for very few high-paying jobs, and they’re more likely to be a starter in the NFL then to get one of those jobs – but you cannot carry the country’s stupidity on your shoulders and you just have to live with it.  I take a lot of solace because I work with many well-educated, foreign-born people who do well, and keep coming in here and snapping up the good jobs, and really helping out the country.  Without them, we’d be doomed.
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“ and somehow, to me, not doing something about it means that i'm failing my kids, too. “
Other than running for office and then finding out just how well organized and nasty the people are that have given us (and maintain) this system, you can’t do much.  The best you can do is give your kids the tools they need to be successful, regardless of where this country goes.
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“i feel that i should be able to engage in thought-provoking dialogue with anyone in my community…until i'm certain that…offenses won't be taken”
Yep, and sorry.  My kid has some friends from the Middle East.  I warned him to never, ever, talk politics with them, no matter how nice they seem, because you don’t know what will set them off, and what will be the consequences of it (and yes, we found out later, sure enough, some things set them off).  I work with some really great Indians.  They always talk about being Indian, so I made the stupid mistake of also noticing they were Indians and talking.  My boss started investigating to see if I was racist.  Thankfully one of the Indians told me that he defended me when questioned – and to this day I have absolutely no clue what I said or did.  That is our country – the only way that changes is to clean the people out of office who gave us it, and the ones who support it.  Needless to say, a huge task, so don’t even bother thinking you can help there.  What you can do is make darn sure your kids understand the traps out there, particularly if they’re not a protected minority.
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“not only that, i am one of those 'one person can change the world' sort of people.  where would humanity be without people straying from the social herd and thinking they could make a positive difference?”
Yes, definitely, one person can change things.  But no, one little sqirt cannot.  Sorry.  That’s my point about telling my kid he’s nothing, until he earns his way to the level where he can make a difference.  Right now, he’s a kid finishing up college with an oversized head on his shoulders (hopefully not, though).  That’s it.  Maybe 20 years from now he’ll be somebody, or, in very, very rare cases, 10 years (Gates, Zuckerberg, etc.), but not now – he’s just another entry-level worker (hopefully soon) getting his footing.
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“and while i can garner merit from you bringing your kid to reality, possibly to keep him grounded in the worth of everyone and engaged within his surrounding social structure; i respectfully cringe at my interpretation of you drilling into your child that he isn't brilliant.”
Actually, you provided your own reply to the above later on, where you said that most (actually, nearly all) kids can be accelerated.  If that is the case, then there’s really nothing all that different about my kid.  He’s accelerated, not brilliant.  He becomes brilliant when he starts opening up new areas in science and engineering.  My mom knew a lady that won the Nobel Prize, for work she did in medicine at the sub-microscopic level.  She told me that they had to come up with new units of measurements because of her work.  That is groundbreaking and brilliant.  Getting through college 5 or 6 years ahead of others is not.  When I conclude my kid is actually brilliant, he’ll be the first to I know – you have my word.
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“ i do believe that relating to our peers is crucial.  after all, what's the point of having something to say/contribute, if no one is willing to listen/accept what you have to offer?”
Agree.  That’s the whole point of making sure his achievements don’t get to his head.  As long as he understands that there is nothing special about him making him superior to others, he will do fine with others.  I cringe at parents (my turn, but not at you) that think their kids will be scarred for life if they’re not told every day that the world revolves around them.  It doesn’t and it’s better for the kid to enter the world understanding that, then to have later shoved in his face when he’s not ready for it.

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“rant aside (no offense intended!), i would love to see more kids exposed to accelerated learning.  so many, in fact, that it is no longer considered accelerated and just becomes the norm.   why?  because we're all capable of it!”
This is where you answered your (above) question – you’re basically saying that accelerated learning can be the norm.  I too would love to see it – just so there wouldn’t be so many empty lives in this country.
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“and as for whether i was offended by your comments: initially, yes, i was put off.  but i kept reading and could clearly understand how your passion was fueled.”
Thanks, appreciate the feedback, and appreciate that you see where I’m coming from.
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“i feel blessed each day for coming across this forum and its participants.  i know that without them, my kids would be that much farther from reaching their natural potential.”
Like I’ve said earlier, I too am happy to see a forum which respects accelerated learning, rather than thinking it’s just a poor kid who got stuck with a drill-sergeant for a dad.
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“ welcome, and feel free to share your opinions as they come.”
Thanks again, with your kind comments, and the others, I’ll keep replying when it makes sense to.
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To MummyRoo,
“YET I distinctly remember sitting through two years of maths and science where I completed the class work and homework in around 10 minutes and spent the next 45 minutes chatting with my equally capable friend. We *begged* our teachers for more work and were refused! We actually got told off for *doing* our homework because the teacher told the class "to continue from where we were in the textbook for 1/2 hour at home" and didn't tell us not to. She was fuming the next lesson when we were massively ahead of the rest of the class…”
Sorry to hear that.  It looks like you guys (i.e., Brits) are taking marching orders from the States.  Sorry to hear that.  From your description, it seems that the entire purpose of those schools, now, is to take out the high achievers, group them together, and bring them back in line with the ‘average’ students.  In the US, other than in a few cases, we don’t have those kinds of schools.  Instead we bring down the high-achievers in different ways (like not teaching phonics until 4th grade, or teaching maths in ways that don’t make any sense).  I think in your case, they didn’t want to take the political heat of having to explain that success was no longer desired, so they kept the schools open, but simply dumbed them way down.
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“Needless to say, pre-A level I breezed through maths with no effort, in two years I was deemed a failure and incapable of doing higher-level maths. I consider this to be down to three things: bad teaching, being given a calculator (I still have to skip-count through some of my times tables ) and wasting two years before being streamed into a group where we worked the full lesson, but still with no real effort and using a calculator for the next two years.”
That sounds an awful lot like my childhood – which is what drove me to make damn sure that my kid(s) did not have to go through the same.  Not my kids, not in my house.  We’re all a product of our past.  I suspect that when your parents grew up, you had a well-functioning educational system that honored achievement.  I know that was the case for my parents.  So what did our parents do?  They figured that things were essentially unchanged when it was time to send their kids (you and I) to school.  How wrong they were.  It’s difficult for many, if not most, people to accept, but the people who run today’s schools have absolutely nothing in common with the achievement-minded people that ran our parents schools.  It is this fundamental understanding that parents must accept, in order for their kids to have a chance to do well in this country.   Otherwise they’re just rolling the dice, in a probability game with very, very, long odds (as I’ve seen with the kids of my co-workers, other than the immigrants).
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“I wasn't pushed at all for four years, by which point I was hopelessly lazy and absolutely dependent on a calculator for all but the most basic of sums.”
I showed this line to my kid…it is profound.  Once the pressure is taken off, then people have trouble (and often cannot) respond quickly once the pressure is again applied.  Teaching my kid through Saxon kept a constant level of pressure on him.  No ups and down, just a steady progression through pre-Calc.

Thanks Melanie,

Cayden looks great.

"I was also wondering if you could tell us your top books that you would recommend to help give us more insight."

Not much that I haven't mentioned.  I just figured out the phonics myself and used Saxon starting at their 54 book.  The hardest part, by far, was dealing with others, including the kid and wife, and I'll explain.

For the kid and wife:  No one wants a kid that's screaming and complaining, they want a happy kid - and one glued to video games and/or playing with toys fits that bill.  So my wife wasn't bad, but she's a mom, and when her kid is upset, it bothered her.  But we worked through it and she started seeing results.

For dealing with others:  This was the tough part for me.  I had no template.  I had to figure out whether I was pushing too hard, or in the wrong direction, or whether everything would backfire and maybe screw up his ability to learn later in life.  As I've said, the people that talked to, including my parents, at best thought it was odd, and many said it was simply too fast.  So being confident that it would work was very tough, and, at the beginning, progress is slow, and results are far between, so second thoughts are all over the place.

The reason that I bring that up is because it was books like "Inside American Education" by Thomas Sowell that kept me going - along with other books critiquing today's educational system (there are plenty out there, and I read maybe another 5 or 6).  And it was my political instincts - I simply was not going to let the same people that I didn't trust to run this country - educate my kids.  I just couldn't see how they would do that right, when they couldn't even figure out who the bad guys were during the Cold War (sorry for the politics, but it is part of what drove me).  All of that kept me going...and then things started dropping into place as he read quicker and started breezing through math.

But as far as curriculum was concerned.  It consisted of the following, and nothing else except:
1)  Flash Cards - for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division - although you might need to buy them used.  I suspect if you buy them new and open the box, all you'll find is a cheap calculator.
2)  Marker Board - for teaching phonics, starting with the word "cat";  I would just write letters and words, obviously starting with the easiest first.  Then I used it for a number line, while doing plus and minus flash cards.
3)  Books to Read - Some easy, some tough.  "The Lion King" was a very tough one, but he wanted to read it.  We were lucky to get through one page a day, at times.
4)  Math number sheets - Addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, decimals.  Just made those up out of thin air and printed them out (he hated them...and so did I, thank God for Saxon).
5)  Saxon Math - Math 54 through Advanced Math (pre-calc), only use hardcover editions.  No calculators until near the very end.  I even printed up log and trig tables.

That was it.  I looked at computer applications to teach kids phonics and math, and they simply didn't seem to be doing it - they seemed more concerned with keeping the kids entertained then having them learn (my opinion, of course), but that was how I saw it.

Mandabplus3
“Thanks to you all I have learnt MUCH reading this thread.  Robert THANKYOU so very much for jumping on here with us. I in particular have really enjoyed your contribution.”
You’re certainly welcome, and given all the kind responses, I won’t doubt you guys again.

“Did your son find Saxon 5/4 ridiculously easy when you first started?”
Yes and no.  Thanks to the number sheets he had no problems at all on the arithmetic end of it.  But much of the other stuff was very challenging, and forced him to think hard (he was 6 when he started on it).  The ones that I remember as  really challenging were problems such as having a block of cubes 3 x 4 x 5, and painting the outside of the block black.  What you had to do was figure out how many cubes had no paint on them, how many had one surface painted, two surfaces, and three surfaces.  It was a tough problem for a little guy.  So were time (i.e., clock) problems, where it’s 2 hrs. 40 minutes earlier…  I even struggled with some of them.

“ Based on your comments I can assume he had a really good basis in math and was probably pretty quick at basic calculations mentally.”
Yes and no mentally – he never really got the “feel of the numbers” as I call it until much later, but could always do the work on paper, and quickly.

“ I am using 5/4 with my 3rd grade child and she is finding it easy. I skipped ahead to see if it gets harder and really it won't be much of a stretch for her at all. I am considering starting my grade 1 child on saxon 5/4 at a slower pace. It’s pretty much at her level now. I am reluctant to skip to the next book as I believe in a solid foundation and she doesn't have any math facts memorized, she is just pretty good at math overall.”
My first thought was “you’ll have to make that call, as  I’m just not privy enough to even know what’s being taught” – but now I’m thinking something else.  If she’s good at 54, then just have her breeze through the book nice and quick.  At worst she brushes up on her skills, but more likely she’ll plug some gaps.  With Saxon, if you do it all, you will have no gaps – none – that’s why I admire them so much.  For the younger one, I think she definitely needs her addition and multiplication facts memorized, as well as being able to do 2-digit addition and subtraction (division is dealt with in the 54 book).  I wouldn’t recommend starting on 54 until she’s at least there.  In other words, if she struggles with the basics, she really won’t be learning what they’re trying to teach in that book.  So sit her down with number sheets, until she’s at the level I suggested, and then go to 54.

“Based on your experience I have decided that she can do 2 lessons on most days ( probably one on her gymnastics days) and 6 over the weekend. The book will be finished in under 2 months at that rate so I am thinking we will stick with it.”
Exactly.  Perfect pace for the early books, just as we did.  She will be sharp as a nail finishing the book that quick.  Make sure you buy her a gift for finishing it.  And then right on to 65, maybe skipping the first 40 sections, as they’re basically catch-up for the summer break.  If you work that clip, or close to it, you can skip the exams they have, just do the problems.  Never skip a problem and never accept a mistake.  If she gets a problem wrong – tell her it’s wrong and to try again, then slowly give hints if she’s still struggling.  But 95% is not acceptable – she needs to be able to, eventually, answer each one.

“ I was only asking her for one lesson ,most days but decided to up the expectations after reading this thread.”
Concur – if she’s breezing through, then keep it going.  I’m convinced that the faster you’re able to go, the less time (in hours) will be spent on each book.

“I also offered her a reward for the completion of the book. ( don't know why I didn't think of that before!)”
(caution, political rant, LOL)  That’s because rewards don’t mean anything these days, since everyone gets one, for about anything.  Have her really feel she earned it, and it will mean a lot to her.

“In addition to all this I have decided that every time my kids argue or get sent to their rooms they have to complete a lesson in Saxon ( or a page of sums depending othe kid) I will have to carefully balance the rewards and punishments to keep a positive disposition towards math work.”
My answer:  "I won’t go there, other than to say you’re on track – you simply cannot let them run the show.  That’s the number one parenting problem today."
David's answer:  "Risky, you don't want to associate Saxon with punishment, and gives somewhat conflicting messages if there is a reward for completing the book.  I (David) recommend a swat instead.  But it is a delicate balance."
[[ so, tough one...you'll have to pick the approach you're comfortable with ]]

“I figure doing it this way they will either grow up to be nice people or smart enough that it won't matter!”
It always matters (and I know you know that).  The thing is, they will adore you for what you’re doing.  Not now…you’ll be the meanest mom in their video game group, but they’ll see other kids struggling with basic math concepts that they mastered years earlier, and they will know who to thank.

“Oh and it's so refreshing to "chat" with a parent who raised a advanced student with his feet obviously still firmly on solid grounding. Well done!”
Many thanks

Thanks so much.
Yes the punishment of math is something iwill keep an eye on. Oh and David, yes thats my backup plan for repeated bad behaviour.  :D
I definately run the show in this house my kids are not spoilt video game kids who don't know what a reward means. They might have trouble explaining what a video game is actually....  Nope her reward is exactly what she REALLY wants and it's something she knows I wouldn't normally buy any of my kids. She desperately wants an iPod. She has been asking for one for about 18 months. I have said no because I am sure it will lead to other behaviour I don't like. ( room isolation, ignoring her siblings and head phones) Since I gave her the reward motivation she is zipping through the lessons very quickly. Tonight she asked if she could read in the car on the way to and from school and do math lessons in her bedtime reading time! She knows she is time poor so she is looking for ways to fit it in faster. We don't have time for TV and videos in this house. I schedule in free play time we are that busy!
So your reply confirmed my plan. Whizz through this one 5/4 and get started on 6/5 ASAP which should provide some challenge. Thanks for mentioning to skip the first 40 lessons ( although I may skip a few less than that) I wasn't sure on that idea for the next book, but i could clearly see the revision in this one. I made her do it anyway this time around.
My second daughter ( she is 6 also) is very nearly ready to start it then. She can do double digit addition and subtraction now. We shall do more practice all the same. I want the Saxon to count and I only want to do it once with her! She will be hard work. I can't see her doing division but that's obviously my issue not hers as she can do multiplication.  :blush: I guess it's time to go make some flash cards! ( oh boy I laughed so hard reading that one, my hubby was thinking I was a little deranged!  lol )
Thanks again!

That sounds fine, you seem to have a good plan.  I showed that line on the flash cards to my kid too.  As cynical as I was towards public education at the start with David, I only got worse as the years went by.  After all, like I say, I'm a  second-rate engineer with zero training on how kids learn, how to motivate them, and even what curriculum works.  But I followed my instincts based on my experiences and what I was hearing in the political world - which was completely different than what the experts insist on, and David (obviously) blew past their template.  It's hard to think of an analogy, but the one that comes to mind (to me) would be if my wife has surgery for something, and she improves, but not all that much - but the doctor says that the best that medicine can do.  So I (as a non-doctor) say, "I can do better", so I cut her open, do a few things, and she winds up much, much, better off.  If that happened, one could, I'm sure, then understand my cynicism towards the medical community.  But that would never happen (of course), I would never consider trying, and if I did, I'd be looking at decades in jail.  But that's my point - I shouldn't be able to do something better than a field that has millions and millions of workers and trillions of dollars of money to work with - but I did in education, and much, much, better.   So when I make my snide remark about flash cards, you know where I'm coming from - and what is true now, is that the flash cards actually have the answer (along with the problem) in small print on the back.  I suspect too many parents complained when they needed to have a calculator with them as they worked the problems (LOL).  Anyway, I bring this up to warn you (and others) that if you pull this off, you may wind up as a different person, even more polarized than you may have been when you started.

Just a bit of caution on the IPOD - they do have internet capability if you have a wireless system in your place (or a neighbor has an unlocked system).  I would strongly advise to keep that locked out as long as possible.  Listen to music - fine, surf the web, not so fine.  And be sure you understand it - I don't, I only know what David tells me, and he didn't get his until only a year ago (I got him MP3 players prior, but not an IPOD).

Anyway, your plan sounds great and please keep us all informed.

I am joining this interesting conversation a bit late although I've been following it from the start. Needless to say that I am so thankful to Mr. Levy for sharing his valuable experience with us. Now my question is about David's leisure time. Does he have any hobbies he's doing "just for fun"? How much time does he spend on them and how do you let him know that "there is a time for playing and there is time for working" (a quote from a Brillkids book :D )

Thanks for sharing

P.S: BTW, I am a neighbor :)

Robert, many thanks for your recent posts. You've given me a lot more to think about.

Apart from Sowell's 'Inside American Education', what other 5-6 books did you read? Can you paste their titles? I've read `Dumbing Us Down' by John Gatto and `Dumbing Down Our Kids - Why American Kids Feel Good About Themselves but Can't Read, Write, or Add'  by Charles Sykes.

I've also read a lot of Harold Stevenson's cross-cultural studies on academic performance between nations and I shared my insights on this thread  - http://forum.brillkids.com/general-discussion-b5/why-japanese-and-chinese-kids-outperform-american-children-(research-article)/.  And this one  http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-child-math/proportion-of-el-time-devoted-to-math-(split-from-2-year-old-thread)/msg89195/
 
I'm in Europe and I'm seeing the same trends in schools here - the 'feel good' and 'self-esteem' syndrome, the substitution of solid academic content for indoctrination, etc. At least by reading these books, I'll know what exactly is going on in those schools and how to prepare myself in case my kid ends up in one of them. As they say 'to be forewarned is to be forearmed’. What are the other titles you read?  Thank you.

Hi A_BC,

"I am so thankful to Mr. Levy for sharing his valuable experience with us. Now my question is about David's leisure time. Does he have any hobbies he's doing "just for fun"?"

You're welcome, and I would say the hobby that he likes most is computer programming.  I had him take some pretty tough classes in "C" when he was, maybe, 8 years old - and like any kid who's actually learning something, he didn't enjoy it much.  But then he got the hang of it, and from what I can tell (I don't program), he's very, very, good, and just loves it.  Prior to that, about the only thing that he'd want to do was play with his toys.  I never enjoyed sports much, although he did the Karate thing and baseball (for very young types).  But programming was the only hobby that was really all his.  One thing that comes to mind that I haven't mentioned before, although it doesn't fit your question was that he would wiped out, because of doing the math, by 9:00 to 10:00 at night (depending on his age).  This worked great for all of us, because when hit the bed, he never, ever, had trouble sleeping, he was solid asleep - and as parents, that certainly made our lives easier.


"How much time does he spend on them and how do you let him know that "there is a time for playing and there is time for working""

That was very simple.  When it was time for working, I told him.  No negotiation - I simply told him.  When it wasn't time for working, then it was time for playing.


"P.S: BTW, I am a neighbor smile"

Please define what "neighbor" is - you know who I am.

Hi Nee1,

"Apart from Sowell's 'Inside American Education', what other 5-6 books did you read? Can you paste their titles? I've read `Dumbing Us Down' by John Gatto and `Dumbing Down Our Kids - Why American Kids Feel Good About Themselves but Can't Read, Write, or Add'  by Charles Sykes."

That's a good set of books you list up there.  Sykes was the second name that came to my mind.  To be honest, I don't remember the others, and I've long since given them away.  If I were doing it now, though, I'd go to amazon, look up "Inside American Education" and then see the books they suggest, which are typically similar in philosophy - also read the comments, as they often point you to good stuff.  But given the above books, I think you're about set.  You'll see that these books are very good in getting you in right mindset to go against 90% plus of the country and educate your child outside of "the system".  The actual instruction, however, is not covered in those books.  For that I'm not as sure, as I basically winged it, and didn't have a manual to go by.


"I've also read a lot of Harold Stevenson's cross-cultural studies on academic performance between nations and I shared my insights on this thread  - http://forum.brillkids.com/general-discussion-b5/why-japanese-and-chinese-kids-outperform-american-children-(research-article)/.  And this one  http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-child-math/proportion-of-el-time-devoted-to-math-(split-from-2-year-old-thread)/msg89195/"

Interesting, I'll check that out.


"I'm in Europe and I'm seeing the same trends in schools here - the 'feel good' and 'self-esteem' syndrome, the substitution of solid academic content for indoctrination, etc. At least by reading these books, I'll know what exactly is going on in those schools and how to prepare myself in case my kid ends up in one of them."

Awesome!  You're keeping ahead of these clowns - they all follow the same template.  Once you know that and understand that, they cannot defeat you.  They can defeat 99% of the other people, but not you.  So I need to warn you - you will be looked at as a total nutcase over there (it's bad enough here, but you guys are still decades behind us in the race to the bottom, so people there still respect schools).  You cannot, ever, let that get to you.  You also should not talk much about what you know, because you'll find yourself out of friends very quickly.  Nope...you're just a concerned parent with some spare time to help your children.

I remember the beginning of the self-esteem movement here very well.  Dr. Sowell used to always say: "Look at those thugs on the corner, the way they act, the sneakers they wear.  Do they look depressed and lacking self-esteem?  Heck no, they have plenty of it - all unearned, but plenty of it"  There never was a "self-esteem" problem with kids, but it was a great way for the education system to excuse failure.  After all, who wants to hurt a kid's self-esteem.

Hi again Nee1,

I'm reading the first link you posted and they pretty much spelled out why David got so far ahead:

"American mothers estimated that on weekdays their first-graders spent  an average of 14 minutes a day on  homework;  the  daily average for Chinese first- graders was  77  minutes,  and for Japanese, 37  minutes."

My first response, to myself was "I guess this is the difference".  And it really is.  The question being when a kid gets home at 3:30 in the afternoon, and does not go to bed for another 5 to 6 hours, is taking 2 hours or so of that time to actually educate him all that bad?  Or should that time be spent watching TV or playing video games?

"For fifth- graders, the  estimate for the American children was 46  minutes a day..."

I also noticed this.  As David moved up in grade level, he would get homework, but much of it was simply useless.  It was art projects and science projects.  The damn things took a lot of time, and most of the time I would do it myself (and pretty lousy, by the way).  They accomplished nothing, but I suspect they were meant to "keep the kids occupied" or something.  In any case, I bring this up because at the younger ages, before, probably 4th grade, kids have a boatload of free time, during which they can learn reading and math, as David did.  But as they get older, if they're in just about any school, they will start getting hit-up with "busy-work" which will really cut down on that time.

Thanks a lot for your response. I can see his hobby is still related to learning. Enjoying programming at 8 is impressive as most children at that age would spend their time on video games. Programming looks like just the right alternative to this unwanted behavior. It simply makes computer time more productive.

Now to define what "neighbor" is in our case, I'd say it's just at the city level. Sorry if my PS was a bit ambiguous. The reason I mentioned that was because I read about the community college hints with big interest. Sharing how you worked with the educational system in Texas helped me shape my vision. Even though my son may take a different path from yours, I know at least that there are ways to accommodate his educational needs. BTW, he loves math and we are doing simple addition and subtraction using RightStart Math and other programs and manipulatives (especially dominoes). Still a long way to go and we are progressing slowly, but what matters the most to me is to make math part of his daily life, sth that he will do naturally... Well, I hope so!

You know I am not game to read any of those books! I work in education, I see it every day. If I read anymore I might just quit, give up and teach my kids gardening instead!
In all fairness Australia isn't as bad as other places. My kids get a good education, not good enough for me but EVERY kid in their year can read at least. I also pay for private schooling for a reason. Same one as you did Robert. Yes there are all types in the world but that doesn't mean I want my kids mixing with them! I choose my friends wisely ( and my work environment for that matter) and I expect my kids to choose their friends wisely too. I will help them learn to do that by paying to get a better melting pot to choose from. To ensure you all know I am not racist both of my girls have "coloured"  best friends. It's not the ethnicity I am avoiding, it's mostly the parents empossed attitudes towards education and self discipline.
Sadly I can clearly see many of the people I work with would be better teachers with more training and flexibility with reporting. I think the training they get is pathetic at best. Any of the good teachers do their research elsewhere OUTSIDE of their degree. ( places like here are a great start  :biggrin: )
Anyway, yep I have the iPod covered. I know exactly how to use them :) and she hasn't asked for a touch ( although that's probably what I will buy her) we have no concerns about her having access to the wifi, she is honest and good right to the heart. And too busy to waste time online anyway. Now the second child? Well it'll be years before she gets access to the wifi!  lol

Thanks for the insights, Robert, especially the one on homework. Like you,  I believe in real solid academic work, not busy work. And I also strongly believe that a parent should be in charge of his/her child's education, whether the kids are enrolled in school or not. Don't leave it entirely to the schools, you may be shocked at the outcome. Most parents, when advised to read aloud to their kids and teach them stuff at home, ask  'what is the job of the schools then?’ and refuse to do it.  Soon, the kids start having problems in school and start failing. The parents now start undertaking remedial work to get the kids to catch up. Oh well. I wish that had been done from the start, it would have saved the poor kids so much trauma. Dr Richard Gentry, an expert on childhood literacy makes the same point in his blog article titled 'A Lack of Parent Engagement Helps Create Failing Schools'. Link -  http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/raising-readers-writers-and-spellers/201107/lack-parent-engagement-helps-create-failing-schools.

And yes, I like your attitude that study time is study time, not play time. Once you finish with your work, you can go and play. My son is very young, and I use the same approach with him. Why? Because I’m trying to inculcate good habits of perseverance and concentration when working. Don’t confuse work with play, son. We work, and if you can sit still, we’ll finish the work in very little time, and you’ll have the rest of the day to play. Especially in this era of ADHD, it is very important for a child to be able to sit still for several minutes or even hours to do work.

Below is an excerpt from 'Dumbing Down our Kids - Why American Children Feel Good about Them but Can't Read, Write or Add' by Charles Sykes.
Sykes quotes extensively from Harold Stevenson’s cross-cultural studies and here is an excerpt from pages 296 – 297.

``In his cross-cultural studies of schools in the United States, Japan, and China, researcher Harold Stevenson attributed significant differences in achievement levels not simply to differing approaches to schooling, but  also to the very different approaches to their children's education by Asian  and American parents. "Chinese and Japanese children know that they  will have free time only after they have completed the day's schoolwork," he found. "In American families, leisure activities and schoolwork compete for the child's time (17)." American parents do not like what they regard as excessive homework and frequently express distaste for schoolwork if it interferes with other activities they think should be given equal or even  greater value.

The implications of this attitude are considerable. "Daily lessons cannot be mastered without review and practice," noted Stevenson, "and American students cannot gain this experience as long as teachers are reluctant to increase the amount of homework and parents and children hold unfavorable views about its value.(18)".  But the attitude about homework is merely one reflection of the different emphases Asian and American parents place on education. Americans, for instance, place heavy stress on preschool education, and American parents seem to be deeply involved in making sure their children get a reasonable head start. In contrast, Asian parents regard children under the age of six as enjoying an "age of innocence" and do not push younger children much at all. While nine of ten American mothers of kindergartners teach their children the alphabet at home, fewer than a third of Japanese and Chinese mothers teach symbols to their preschoolers. Only 36 percent of Japanese mothers teach numbers to their preschoolers, in sharp contrast to the 90 percent of American mothers who teach their preschool children numbers (19).  To an observer unversed in the cultural differences, it might appear that it is the American families that value education more highly, while their Asian counterparts pursue a far more casual and relaxed approach to learning.


But when children turn six and enter first grade, there is a dramatic change. For the Japanese and Chinese parents, the age of innocence is replaced by the "age of reason," when a child enters elementary school. Parents who were previously "nurturant and permissive become authorities who demand obedience, respect, and adherence to their rules and goals (20) ". From their laissez-faire attitude toward education, Asian parents now become intensely involved with their children, helping and monitoring homework and providing a home environment in which schoolwork unquestionably is the highest priority.

At the same moment, however, that Asian parents are becoming more deeply involved with their children's education, American parents ironically are withdrawing. When a child turns six in Japan, his schooling becomes a parent's top responsibility; when a child turns six in the United States, parents tend to entrust their educational future to the schools and to his teachers (21).  Japanese parents see the task of learning just beginning at the same moment that American parents see their job as coming more or less to an end. For too many Americans, Stevenson found, "schoolwork is considered to be the responsibility of teachers and students, rather than a major concern for parents." In this country, the beginning of elementary school is "not accompanied by strong parental demands for academic excellence or devotion to homework and demands do not increase much during the succeeding years of elementary school (22)".

This perhaps explains the story one mother told me as I was working on this book: She had attended a parents meeting at her child's elementary school. At the meeting some of the other parents complained that their children were being given too much homework and that it was interfering with their sports, and even cutting into the time they had for watching, television. Other mothers admitted-apparently without embarrassment-that they had done their children's homework for them, to spare them both time and anxiety. The assumption that seemed to dominate the parents' meeting, the mother said, was that schoolwork had become a distraction from things that many of the parents believed to be the main business of a child's life. They were not concerned that their children were not learning-they were annoyed because expectations were too high. Their views were probably not representative either of a majority of parents at the woman's school nor did they reflect the attitude of most American parents. But they are undoubtedly widespread; most  teachers can tell stories of parents who complained about excessive homework, low marks, high standards.

Unless American parents raise those expectations, it is unlikely that America's schools will ever raise them unilaterally. Mediocrity, unfortunately, is contagious. But so is excellence. ‘’ QUOTE ENDS.

To A_BC,

"I can see his hobby is still related to learning. Enjoying programming at 8 is impressive as most children at that age would spend their time on video games.  Programming looks like just the right alternative to this unwanted behavior. It simply makes computer time more productive."

Yes, and to be honest, it seems to be a push for him between programming and video games - he loves both.  But he's impressed some real hard-hitters with his programming (i.e., he's good at it and may start his career there, rather than in engineering).  He just loves computers.


"Now to define what "neighbor" is in our case, I'd say it's just at the city level."

Ok, thanks.  It wouldn't be fair if you knew me personally, but I didn't know who you were.  Being a non-acquaintance on these terms is fine with me.


"The reason I mentioned that was because I read about the community college hints with big interest. Sharing how you worked with the educational system in Texas helped me shape my vision."

Yes, it's doable.  The Community Colleges here like having advanced kids.  But, unfortunately, the kid who followed David, at his school, was a bit full of himself, from what I've heard.  So the person there who went out of her way for both David and his successor is going to be more careful (and selective) in the future.  As I've said before, there's a good reason why I (figuratively) beat it into him that he was nothing special, instead just a kid who started early.  It's critical that any kid in his situation understand it.  But yes (to all of you out there) he does know he's special - once in a while I'll show him an article about a kid starting college at Age 14 (for example) and we'll both laugh and call him a "slacker" and wonder why they're wasting ink on him (since David started at 11).  It's a lot of fun.  I got him to the point where he can have fun making jokes about others, but never in a situation where it might hurt them (and thus hurt or embarrass himself).


"Even though my son may take a different path from yours, I know at least that there are ways to accommodate his educational needs."

There are, but always remember they, the college, is doing you the favor.  It's a lot easier to get arrogant and say that "My kid is special !!!"   Well guess what - to a parent EVERY kid is special, and teachers and others have heard it over and over again.  In one of David's classes when he was young (before college), my wife politely asked the teacher to try to give David some work that would challenge him, rather than grade-level work.  The teacher basically told her to shove it.  She was upset, and I told her exactly what I just wrote, above.  The teacher likely had heard it all from parents and was not about to get pushed around by another doting parent.  I told my wife to forget it.  Needless to say, my wife was right, and a week later a freaked-out teacher was very nice to her (after getting to know David).   In another case, at the Community College, David wiped out on some stairs and broke some teeth.  It was slippery, he was in a hurry to get to class, and he had a heavy backpack on.   We asked for the police report - they hesitated on giving to us, because they thought we'd sue them.  Heck, I was afraid he'd be kicked out of school there for being too little to navigate the campus (at that time he was very small for his age...now he's normal sized).  I promised them it was just for insurance and they were relieved.  How the heck could I think of suing them, after what they did for him?   But their fear was understandable - but as parents, we have to do everything possible for the school to feel comfortable with our little guys.  Remember, it is much, much, easier for them to say "sorry, too young".


"BTW, he loves math and we are doing simple addition and subtraction using RightStart Math and other programs and manipulatives (especially dominoes). Still a long way to go and we are progressing slowly, but what matters the most to me is to make math part of his daily life, sth that he will do naturally... Well, I hope so!""

No comment on that curriculum, either way.  I've posted my approach.  The only thing to remember is that math is not something a little kid runs into much, outside of an academic environment, so the learning must be maintained there.  Reading is just the opposite - it's everywhere.

To Mandabplus3,

“You know I am not game to read any of those books! I work in education, I see it every day. If I read anymore I might just quit, give up and teach my kids gardening instead!”
So you’re already there.  I agree – no need for the books.  The books are more for people who need some support, because going against “the system” is not a lot different than that guy in Tiananmen Square who stood in front of the tank.  You know that you’re putting everything you have on the line, so you need to be ready to make your case.  But if you’re there, already, then no problem.

“In all fairness Australia isn't as bad as other places. My kids get a good education, not good enough for me but EVERY kid in their year can read at least.”
That is impressive.  Being able to read seems to be an afterthought now in our system.

“ I also pay for private schooling for a reason. Same one as you did Robert.”
Yep, you must fill in the holes, and do it before the kid is behind.  You are doing great here.

“ Yes there are all types in the world but that doesn't mean I want my kids mixing with them! I choose my friends wisely ( and my work environment for that matter) and I expect my kids to choose their friends wisely too. I will help them learn to do that by paying to get a better melting pot to choose from. To ensure you all know I am not racist both of my girls have "coloured"  best friends. It's not the ethnicity I am avoiding, it's mostly the parents empossed attitudes towards education and self discipline.”
I doubt anyone on this site has any problems with anyone based on skin color.  Obviously that’s not the point.  There are plenty of crappy white people and there are plenty of very classy blacks, Hispanics, etc.  We (thankfully) still get to choose who we associate with – there really isn’t a reason for any of us to force our kids to associate with drug dealers and other losers…just to be able to say that they understand ‘diversity’.

“Sadly I can clearly see many of the people I work with would be better teachers with more training and flexibility with reporting. I think the training they get is pathetic at best.”
That’s only part of it.  The biggest problem, at least here, is that they are “education” majors.  They chose education because they hated math, and probably hated science too.  Yet they are forced to teach it.  It would be unreasonable to expect decent results from people that hate what they’re doing (at least regarding math, and probably science).  One must take that into account when you put your precious child on that big yellow bus.

“ Any of the good teachers do their research elsewhere OUTSIDE of their degree. ( places like here are a great start  big grin)”
Yes, but at least here, they have zero interest in us.  They are absolutely convinced that they know everything necessary to ‘educate’ a child.  Dr. Sowell makes that quite clear.  The ones that actually do a good job are either about to retire or about to get fired.  The system is rigged against them, and it gets worse, almost by the day (with the latest being the “Common Core Curriculum”, that nearly all schools will adopt).

“Anyway, yep I have the iPod covered.  we have no concerns about her having access to the wifi, she is honest and good right to the heart.”
Sorry, but that worries me.  When my kid spent a college semester playing video games, rather than studying, to the point of lying to me about never get his crappy test scores back and nearly flunking out of school  (he had complained and complained that we didn’t give him enough freedom, and we didn’t trust him – so we let him go that semester), I didn’t get mad at him, I just explained to him that he was powerless to prevent the people that designed these games from taking over his brain.  They are experts at it.  There was absolutely nothing he could do.  It was, literally, no different from heroin. 
Do not ever think that you come first, because you don’t.  Facebook will always win.  Video games will always win.  Now, as I said at the beginning, you paid nothing for my advice, and you are welcome to ignore me (or get mad at me) – but I will give my advice (for others, at least) based on exactly what I’ve experienced, and it was rough because it dragged down his GPA and I never had a chance to do anything about it (i.e., I had no clue since I was lied to – the only time).  So when she goes to bed with the IPOD in her hands, it might be a good idea to shut off the wifi, or better yet, to have that IPOD in your possession.

“ And too busy to waste time online anyway. Now the second child? Well it'll be years before she gets access to the wifi!  LOL”
Now that one I can agree with.

To Nee1,

“Thanks for the insights, Robert, especially the one on homework. Like you,  I believe in real solid academic work, not busy work. And I also strongly believe that a parent should be in charge of his/her child's education, whether the kids are enrolled in school or not. Don't leave it entirely to the schools, you may be shocked at the outcome.”
You're welcome.  Later on you have a quote from Sykes that mentions parents doing their kid’s homework.  Well guess what – if my kid could get another section of Saxon Math done in lieu of doing some useless homework project, guess who does the math and guess who does the ‘project’.  I’ll make the call as to whether the homework is helping my kid, and if it’s not, I’ll do it for him.  To do otherwise is to have blind faith in the same teachers that are part of this country’s decline.  To me, that’s part of taking charge of your kid’s education.

“Most parents, when advised to read aloud to their kids and teach them stuff at home, ask  'what is the job of the schools then?’ and refuse to do it.  Soon, the kids start having problems in school and start failing.  The parents now start undertaking remedial work to get the kids to catch up.”
So true, but here’s the fallacy:  You have to learn the code words.  When a teacher asks for parents to “be involved” at least these days, it means that they expect the parent to teach the material to the kid, because the teacher (for whatever reason) is not doing so.  If parents understood that, there would a lot less kids that are “behind”.  So yes, I suspect that something like 80% of the kids that are “having problems” learning are only having the problems because they are neither being taught in school, nor taught at home.  Asian (including Indian) parents figured this out long ago and thus have zero expectations for their schools and, instead, take care of getting their kids educated outside of school.  That is the primary reason they do so well (having higher than average IQs helps too, but the kids still need an education, somewhere).

“ Oh well. I wish that had been done from the start, it would have saved the poor kids so much trauma.”
Precisely, and you hit my biggest fear as a parent.  I was scared to death of my kid getting behind – because I know what that’s like and it’s not fun and it take probably 10 times as much effort to catch back up, as it would have taken just to keep up.  Parents must, never, ever, let their kids fall behind.  But don’t take this personal – because there are very few people in this country that will tell you that your kid is almost certain to fall behind if he doesn’t get educated outside of what we call “school”.

“ Dr Richard Gentry, an expert on childhood literacy makes the same point in his blog article titled 'A Lack of Parent Engagement Helps Create Failing Schools'.”
I have mixed feelings on this.  I think we spend more than enough money on education such that parents should not have to do anything.  But that is not the case, as I’ve mentioned in the earlier post.  I also have trouble understanding how “parental engagement” can overcome curricula that is design to fail the kids.  The only way parental engagement can work is if parents take the approach that I took, and that home schoolers take, which is to assume that no one, other than them, will be educating their kids – because they are about 80% right if they believe that.

“And yes, I like your attitude that study time is study time, not play time. Once you finish with your work, you can go and play. My son is very young, and I use the same approach with him. Why? Because I’m trying to inculcate good habits of perseverance and concentration when working. Don’t confuse work with play, son. We work, and if you can sit still, we’ll finish the work in very little time, and you’ll have the rest of the day to play. Especially in this era of ADHD, it is very important for a child to be able to sit still for several minutes or even hours to do work.”
Sounds good there.  If you have the priorities right, your kids will get the education they need, and will still have a good deal of free time.  It just has to be set up right.  If the kid is running around playing all afternoon (not that they do that anymore, but hypothetically), it’s not really fair to hit up with two rounds of Saxon in the evening.  In other words, do the math first, then the other stuff.
 
" American parents do not like what they regard as excessive homework and frequently express distaste for schoolwork if it interferes with other activities they think should be given equal or even  greater value.
Homework aside, I even see Saxon parents trading off things like dancing and figure skating against learning math.  That is the right of the parents, but, in my opinion, they’re taking some risk.  Not knowing how to dance will not cripple a kid’s future (as I can attest to), but not knowing reading and math will.  It makes me cringe.  I was teaching reading to some 4 year old friends of David.  But they couldn’t make it over much, because of other things, like violin (believe it or not) and gymnastics.  They never had a chance to match David…and only because of that (they were actually smarter than him).

“Asian parents regard children under the age of six as enjoying an "age of innocence"…But when children turn six and enter first grade, there is a dramatic change. For the Japanese and Chinese parents, the age of innocence is replaced by the "age of reason," when a child enters elementary school. Parents who were previously "nurturant and permissive become authorities who demand obedience, respect, and adherence to their rules and goals (20) ".
This was interesting.  One of the things that confused me, believe it or not, was why David was able to run circles not just around American kids (which doesn’t take much), but around kids all over the world.  This helps explain it.  By the time David was 6 years old, he was reading at an adult level and was years and years ahead in math.  I had him learning during those 2.5 years, from Age 3.5 until Age 6, while Asian countries don’t do that.   Good to know.

“For too many Americans, Stevenson found, "schoolwork is considered to be the responsibility of teachers and students, rather than a major concern for parents."
That’s it.  Put junior on that big, yellow, bus and never have to worry about him.  That may have worked 40 years ago, but the schools are run and taught by a different bunch now.

“This perhaps explains the story one mother told me as I was working on this book: She had attended a parents meeting at her child's elementary school. At the meeting some of the other parents complained that their children were being given too much homework and that it was interfering with their sports, and even cutting into the time they had for watching, television.”
Look at this as an opportunity – if parents have this attitude, then it’s that much easier for your kids to get a high score on the SAT or Medical Board Exam, since they grade on a curve.  Don’t worry about other parents, and certainly don’t let their problems bring your kids down.

“Other mothers admitted-apparently without embarrassment-that they had done their children's homework for them, to spare them both time and anxiety.”}
I freely admit that too.  If the homework is useless, and my kid could otherwise be learning, then I did his homework.

Bottom line here – none of this matters when one takes the education of their kids into their own hands.

I wont  ignore you, or get mad at your advice. I like to keep an open mind. For this kid at this time I have no concerns but I am not stupid or nieve and I know at some point in the future the lure of Facebook will win out. College is a few years off but puberty isn't nearly far enough away! I will take the warning and remember the wise words of Robert  ;)
For the record she is getting her 2 lessons a day done no problem. Some days she does more. It is eating into her reading time. But to be honest she can't get much better at that anyway. The reading time is just for story exposure and we still find some time each day to read the classics together, just a bit less time than previously. I am happy with this trade off as I think math is more important to her, both now and long term.
We ( her and I) arnt prepared to drop the gymnastics as she is good enough to go all the way. Gymnastics is what makes her heart sing. So the math just has to fitin around it. She is too bright to just be a gymnastics coach for life so the math is to open other doors and opportunities.
it's been really great reading through and getting all the details of how and why you did it Robert. I shall probably refer back hear for years to come! Thanks

This is so true! My brother is 11 and just started high school. His middle school was very good - they got top marks on all the government check-ups and they had a high percentage of kids doing really well. BUT my mum complained most weeks about one or more pieces of homework where he had to essentially learn the material at home to review in class time! Now, we live in a good area and most of the parents are bothered about their children's education (though the majority seem content to pay for after-school tutors and Kumon rather than sit down with the kids themselves). I am sure that is the sole reason that "teaching" in this way is of any use.

I am teaching my son to read, but I am not really worried about it. He is interested and even with little help should be reading long before he's due for school. There will always be material enough to encourage a nervous/lazy reader to challenge themselves (I seem to remember my other brother reading nothing but James Bond and computer manuals for a few years).

There is very little that will encourage a weak mathematician to become a strong one. The schools won't help - they teach twenty different ways to add up, not one of them being in any way efficient! That is something that really worries me. I tutor a little boy who is not great at maths. It would be immensely helpful if his parents would work with him to learn his times tables, but I guess that is what they want me for. What really bothers me is that he gets really nervous if I try to show him the (more efficient) way that I work out the sums. He spends most of the lesson trying to explain how he has been taught (and it is usually a different way each week), because he doesn't understand how to add in columns and won't try since he'll never need it at school!

Whether I send my son to school or not, he will be learning maths from me. I expect he will be many years ahead of his peers, who will spend the first term of school learning to add the numbers 1-5. I am determined that he will enjoy maths. I have been at a point were doing maths was painful. I was told by my maths teachers that I was useless and a failure. Three years out of school, I took a psychological test that told me I was actually very mathematically-minded and I re-learned my past enjoyment of maths. I am now capable to pre-university level and actually find complex algebra problems fun (much the same way others enjoy a crossword). I never want my son to go through that.

Ok two more questions.
Will some clever person list the order to travel through the books in?
I am thinking it's K, 1, 2,3 ( is there a 4?) for the early years that we are not particularly recommending.
Then 5/4. 6/5. 7/6.  8/7? After that it's a bit ambiguous ? Algebra 1/2 algebra 2....??? Does the physics tie in with the math taught or is it a seperate curriculum? I figured I had the next three years covered so I wasn't too worried but at the pace we are now traveling I need to start hunting for more books. Especially if I want the older editions.
Next question. Robert why do you think they stuffed up the newer editions? What's different? How different? At some point I am sure I won't have a choice and will have to use one of the new ones,  once the hens teeth fall out!  lol Also if possible to know what edition did they change at?

Thank you again, Robert. I’m learning a LOT from you.

You made a very insightful remark about misplacement of priorities. You said:

You are not the first person to tell me this. Dr Miles Jones of Jones Geniuses said the exact same thing during one of his early learning seminars. He strongly recommended that parents focus on the major, which are the 3R's (that is Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic). According to him, every other thing is an add-on (or a hobby).  I'd since made major modifications to my priorities as regards my kid's education ever since he said this. And you've confirmed his words with your experience. Thank you.

It's interesting to know that David was able to get ahead because you focused on the major stuff, i.e., math and reading. And in an earlier post, you did mention Amy Chua (Tiger Mom)'s piano and violin priorities as been a bit out of place.  You said:

I agree. I’ve gone for several interviews in my life and no one asked me if I could play the piano or not. That is a hobby, not the , except one is aiming to become a professional musician. While one may be able to get about in the world without knowing how to dance, sing, play piano, do sports, or speak multiple languages, one cannot get about (or go places) without a very solid grasp of math, reading, and writing. Except the child will want to make a career of these other things, I currently focus my limited time and energy on what will help the child through life - which is math, reading, and writing. Yes, those other things are important, but I treat them as add-ons, not the main stuff.  Since Dr Jones shared those insights, I’d refocused my energies completely. Thank you for chiming in with your experience. 

Could you elaborate more on this? You are always saying the most insightful things, giving me lots of food for thought. Thank you so, so much for joining us on this forum. You’ve impacted more minds than you think.

Mandabplus3,

"I wont  ignore you, or get mad at your advice. I like to keep an open mind. For this kid at this time I have no concerns but I am not stupid or naive and I know at some point in the future the lure of Facebook will win out. College is a few years off but puberty isn't nearly far enough away! I will take the warning and remember the wise words of Robert”
Thank you very much.  Believe it or not, I was worried most of the day how you would take it.  I hit you very, very, hard, but you can see it was from the heart, based on what I went through.  Even David wasn’t very happy to have that portion of his life put out in public.  You’ve been warned, and you’re not showing any signing of dismissing it – so you will do great with your kids.

“For the record she is getting her 2 lessons a day done no problem. Some days she does more. It is eating into her reading time. But to be honest she can't get much better at that anyway.”
Exactly, and I know the feeling.  Not long ago, based on this thread, I asked myself and David what I could have done differently, in the context of sight words, to even get him further ahead.  We both came up totally blank.  His reading was approaching a decade ahead of his age level – there was nothing left that could have made it better.  So I agree, you’re done with reading and she, like David, will take it from there – and she will find her own time – don’t worry about it – your job is done here.  It’s also awesome that you’re getting the two lessons per day.  As I’ve said, be sure to do every, single problem, and make sure she’s finally able to do every one, before advancing to the next section.

“The reading time is just for story exposure and we still find some time each day to read the classics together, just a bit less time than previously. I am happy with this trade off as I think math is more important to her, both now and long term.”
And it’s not a tradeoff.  I’m convinced that the later a kid learns math, the slower it comes.  So it’s a no-brainer, you do the math, just like you say.  She’ll have more than enough time to pick up the classics or anything else she wants to read.  And she will lots and lots and lots of time to do so, with math effectively out of the way.

“We ( her and I) arnt prepared to drop the gymnastics as she is good enough to go all the way. Gymnastics is what makes her heart sing. So the math just has to fitin around it. She is too bright to just be a gymnastics coach for life so the math is to open other doors and opportunities.”
Exactly.  And if she can keep up two Saxon sections a day with gymnastics, then you’re all set.  David didn’t just do math, he did Karate, baseball, being with friends (including sleepovers), violin and piano (of which he hated – he got that from me, LOL).  As long as she’s not booked solid in her afternoons and weekends, she’ll be fine for math.

“It's been really great reading through and getting all the details of how and why you did it Robert. I shall probably refer back here for years to come! Thanks"
Thank you also.  I really appreciate your class, considering what I had written.  You will have a very happy parenthood, at least we have.  Our kid is crazy about us, both because of his early learning and because we gave him clear rules all the way through - he knows enough kids (and adults) that weren't that lucky.

To MummyRoo,

“This is so true! My brother is 11 and just started high school. His middle school was very good - they got top marks on all the government check-ups and they had a high percentage of kids doing really well. BUT my mum complained most weeks about one or more pieces of homework where he had to essentially learn the material at home to review in class time! Now, we live in a good area and most of the parents are bothered about their children's education (though the majority seem content to pay for after-school tutors and Kumon rather than sit down with the kids themselves). I am sure that is the sole reason that "teaching" in this way is of any use.”
That’s basically it, and sad to say, it’s political.  It is their dream to equalize things, among genders, races, and whatever.  Once you accept that, things make sense.  Why teach multiplication tables if some kids (of certain races) will have trouble learning it?  Easier instead just to give all the kids calculators – nothing can equalize things more than having every kid using the same calculator.  Just keep that in mind, and you’re fine.  I looked at David’s schooling for two things:  (1) Day care – to give my wife a break;  (2) To fill in the gaps in stuff like science and history.  School worked fine there.  But I was not about to ever trust them with teaching him reading or maths.

“I am teaching my son to read, but I am not really worried about it. He is interested and even with little help should be reading long before he's due for school.”
Keep that up, and don’t let off.  It only took David 6 weeks to learn to read (at age 3.5) – and then I worked with him for another 6 months or so to get him near adult level.  Once you’re there, you’re done.  So just get it out of the way and you won’t have to think about it anymore.

“There is very little that will encourage a weak mathematician to become a strong one. The schools won't help - they teach twenty different ways to add up, not one of them being in any way efficient! That is something that really worries me. I tutor a little boy who is not great at maths. It would be immensely helpful if his parents would work with him to learn his times tables, but I guess that is what they want me for. What really bothers me is that he gets really nervous if I try to show him the (more efficient) way that I work out the sums. He spends most of the lesson trying to explain how he has been taught (and it is usually a different way each week), because he doesn't understand how to add in columns and won't try since he'll never need it at school!”
I’m sorry to hear all that – I sure hope the parents with younger kids are reading this.  He basically needs to be deprogrammed now and that is not easy, nor 100% effective.  That’s why I was dead-set to not only keep my kid up, but to get him 2 years ahead.  That was my initial goal in maths, and it was based on him being far enough ahead that no matter what the schools tried to teach him, he already knew the right way, and would be proficient at it.  Obviously, David got much further ahead than that, but the concept was still there – I taught him everything (through pre-Calc) and did it before anyone could screw with his brain.

“Whether I send my son to school or not, he will be learning maths from me.”
I love it!!  Music to my ears.

“I expect he will be many years ahead of his peers, who will spend the first term of school learning to add the numbers 1-5. I am determined that he will enjoy maths. I have been at a point were doing maths was painful.”
I don’t know how well I’ve come across before, but David absolutely hated doing maths.  But the point is that it didn’t matter to me.  Maths was simply too important.  It’s not even close to being debatable – so as  a parent you have to state to yourself (and it’s not easy):  “I DON’T CARE IF YOU HATE MATHS, YOU ARE GOING TO DO IT, BECAUSE IT IS THAT IMPORTANT !!!!”  Once you have that mindset, which you seem to, then everything else will fall into place.  And, by the way, one of his BS degrees is in Maths.  He does love it now.

“I was told by my maths teachers that I was useless and a failure. Three years out of school, I took a psychological test that told me I was actually very mathematically-minded and I re-learned my past enjoyment of maths. I am now capable to pre-university level and actually find complex algebra problems fun (much the same way others enjoy a crossword). I never want my son to go through that.”
Join the club.  I went through exactly the same.  You should never permit your son’s success in life (which is more determined by reading and maths than everything else combined) to be in the hands of people that you barely know, who likely hated maths (at least in the States), and who could really care less where your kid is in 20 years.  You are his parent, you are the only person that cares (along with some others, especially relatives – but you get my point).

To Mandabplus3,

“Will some clever person list the order to travel through the books in?”
I’ll only re-iterate what my knowledge base in Saxon is:  The first hardcover is 54, then 65, then 76, then 87.  From there it’s Algebra 1/2 (simply the greatest textbook ever written, by the way), then Algebra 1, Algebra 2, Advanced Mathematics, and finally Calculus.   We never did Calculus, but by finishing the book before it (we did that cover to cover, every section, every problem, and it is a thick book), David was more than ready for Calculus at the college level.

“Next question. Robert why do you think they stuffed up the newer editions? What's different? How different? At some point I am sure I won't have a choice and will have to use one of the new ones,  once the hens teeth fall out!  Also if possible to know what edition did they change at?”
To answer this, you have to understand the history of Saxon.  The company was started by a retired Air Force pilot, who wrote worksheets.  He then upgraded them into books and then his series of books.  He sold millions of them – but they were still very small in the word of text books.  The results were absolutely remarkable – kids using Saxon (properly) were way, way, ahead of their peers.  It wasn’t even close.  So didn’t the education establishment embrace Saxon – not at all (no pictures of Nelson Mendela, for starters).  They fought tooth and nail to keep them from taking hold.  John Saxon, the founder, fought them right back, using test scores to make his points.  Homeschoolers used Saxon in droves, they knew a good thing and had no political forces involved in their curriculum selection.  But in the end, Mr. Saxon died.  The company went to his kids.  The kids sold it to a big textbook company, which then took it upon themselves to re-position the brand to “remedial” students.  They did a few things that worry people, such as getting rid of hardcover books and going to “consumable” books – and, I think, significantly changing content, at least in some cases.  They’ve been doing this for about a decade and they are still doing it.  So are they worse now?  I can’t say because I haven’t seen the new additions (and I have to be careful what I say).  But I will say, for certain, that there was absolutely no room for improvement with the original version – they were perfect.
So my recommendation is to get what was called the “Home School Kit”, which consisted of the hardcover books, the solutions manual, and a test book with solutions (which we never used).

To Nee1,

“You are not the first person to tell me this. Dr Miles Jones of Jones Geniuses said the exact same thing during one of his early learning seminars. He strongly recommended that parents focus on the major, which are the 3R's (that is Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic). According to him, every other thing is an add-on (or a hobby).  I'd since made major modifications to my priorities as regards my kid's education ever since he said this. And you've confirmed his words with your experience. Thank you.”

You’re welcome, and it’s sure nice to see someone other than a second-rate engineer (actually first-rate, but I don’t like to brag) saying the same thing.


“It's interesting to know that David was able to get ahead because you focused on the major stuff, i.e., math and reading. And in an earlier post, you did mention Amy Chua (Tiger Mom)'s piano and violin priorities as been a bit out of place….I agree. I’ve gone for several interviews in my life and no one asked me if I could play the piano or not.  Yes, those other things are important, but I treat them as add-ons, not the main stuff.  Since Dr Jones shared those insights, I’d refocused my energies completely. Thank you for chiming in with your experience.”

Yep, I think I mentioned it before when I discussed the probability game.  Yes, there’s Yo-Yo’s Mother, who can make a living playing the Cello, but there are, maybe, a few thousand orchestra musicians that can make a living at it (maybe less).  But there are probably tens of millions of people that have sacrificed much of their education because of their love (or, in many cases, their parents’ love) of music.  They have very little to show.  My best friend growing up, the electrical contractor, played Cello (really) in junior high.  He never did all that well in school…and spending time on that certainly didn’t help him one bit.
On the other hand, if your kid can have reading and math out of the way, then hobbies like violin can be done without the cost.  Just something to think about.
 

“Could you elaborate more on this? You are always saying the most insightful things, giving me lots of food for thought. Thank you so, so much for joining us on this forum. You’ve impacted more minds than you think.”
Not sure what you’re referring to, unless what I’ve discussed above.
But thank you for the kind words – it still blows my mind to have actually found parents that want the same for their kids – rather than just thinking of David as some freak of nature.

Thanks again for your insight Robert.

I just want to clarify (as I didn't explain very well) - when I said that I never want my son to think of maths as painful, I meant in the sense that he feels he is stupid and incapable. I fully expect there to be battles against 'boring maths' but I hope that will be because he has 'more important' (to him) things to do, or simply doesn't want to revise topics he considers himself to have mastered.

"Painful" because he doesn't want to take time away from play, I can handle. Painful because he thinks he is stupid and doesn't believe himself capable, I refuse to accept. And if I am in control of his maths curriculum, I will have the knowledge to nip any self-pity sessions in the bud because I will know exactly what he can do and beat in to him (figuratively!) that he is not incapable, he just needs to work at that topic a bit more.

And on the topic of school busywork - my brother came over to borrow my computer for his homework last night. He spent 3 HOURS making a powerpoint presentation (for English class) as prompts for a speech about his holiday!!! Preparing prompts on paper would have taken 5-10 minutes and given the same result.

I never really thought about the content of school homework, but now that I have started noticing it there seems little of any benefit, and little that can't be done without a computer! No wonder children no longer know how to spell (or even write!) - they rarely have the need to put pen to paper, and spelling mistakes are often auto-corrected so they don't even know if they typed it right in the first place!

"I just want to clarify (as I didn't explain very well) - when I said that I never want my son to think of maths as painful, I meant in the sense that he feels he is stupid and incapable. I fully expect there to be battles against 'boring maths' but I hope that will be because he has 'more important' (to him) things to do, or simply doesn't want to revise topics he considers himself to have mastered."

Ok, you pass (LOL).  That makes perfect sense to me.  But you do miss an important benefit when you actually control his curriculum and thus his learning.  And that is he will never feel stupid or incapable, because he will have mastered all of the per-requisites...and the work he will be doing will just be a tiny notch above what he already knows down cold.  That's the idea of Saxon - things will be different - you're still in the institutionalized mode of education, where knowing 75% of the prior material is good enough.


""Painful" because he doesn't want to take time away from play, I can handle. Painful because he thinks he is stupid and doesn't believe himself capable, I refuse to accept."

Yes on the first, don't worry about the second, based on my first comment.


"And if I am in control of his maths curriculum, I will have the knowledge to nip any self-pity sessions in the bud because I will know exactly what he can do and beat in to him (figuratively!) that he is not incapable, he just needs to work at that topic a bit more."

Don't worry, it won't be nearly as bad as you fear.  He'll do just fine.


"And on the topic of school busywork - my brother came over to borrow my computer for his homework last night. He spent 3 HOURS making a powerpoint presentation (for English class) as prompts for a speech about his holiday!!! Preparing prompts on paper would have taken 5-10 minutes and given the same result."

PLEASE!!! Do not get me started here!!!  I saw the same thing and it was a pain in the neck.  When I write a long report for work.  I just start typing.  Then, only after I have a boatload of words written down, I go back and clean it up and format it.  Yes, you nailed it - the computer becomes a crutch, not a tool, not by a long-shot.  I saw the same with David - he would have an assignment and spend 30 minutes trying to get the margins rights on his paper.  That's why I did all that I could to keep him off of that stuff (including calculators, since many of them are as bad as computers).  There is absolutely no need for computers, and virtually no need for calculators.  In fact, if our technology-driven kids were half as educated as American kids two generations ago, we would not be the laughing stock of the Western World when it comes to education.  Computers have done absolutely nothing to help kids learn - about the only benefit they have is to act as a babysitter for teachers that don't want to teach.


"I never really thought about the content of school homework, but now that I have started noticing it there seems little of any benefit, and little that can't be done without a computer! No wonder children no longer know how to spell (or even write!) - they rarely have the need to put pen to paper, and spelling mistakes are often auto-corrected so they don't even know if they typed it right in the first place!""

Yep - one of the biggest deceptions in the educational world (and believe me, that world is loaded with deceptions) is that computers can teach kids better than pencil and paper.  Well David learned math on pencil and paper, no computer, no calculator, at all.  At one point he was 8 years ahead of his age (that was when I slowed him down, significantly).  Exactly what more should I have expected from a computer?   That's my point - they're useless, for teaching kids.  They are good for analysis, once you understand the stuff.  On Space Station we can predict temperatures of outdoor boxes very accurately using computer models - but someone wrote that software, someone that understood engineering, and without computers.

So I just marked the rest of her lessons, she has completed 13 lessons this week.  :yes:  :biggrin:
She made a couple of mistakes. Three stupid ones so I made her redo them. She was skipping the date questions because we don't write dates the American way. So I made her do those questions writing them the Aussie way ( day month year). She very cleverly changed all the American currency to the Australian equivalent and completed all the currency questions.  :D ( including nickels!)
I have told her I want every question right. Oh she even explained why one that I had circled as wrong was actually right. Turns out mummy didn't read the question properly!   :ohmy:
To my surprise she learnt negative numbers this week. I didn't know she didn't know them until she told me she learnt all about those in the "number line thing" I made her read  :rolleyes: it was in the book so she had to read it!
So she has independently learnt a new math skill and got all the associated questions about it right. I am very happy about this! Also annoyed she hasn't already learnt this stuff at school but hey we arnt relying on them to teach her for a reason!
One thing I noticed is that it takes me a good chunck of time to mark all her work if she continues at this pace, I reckon i will be working the old grey matter to get my calculation speeds up so I can keep up with her! I don't want her to get too far ahead of my marking.
Finally her self confidence is improving. I suggested that perhaps she needed some harder work at school. ( her national testing scores came back suggesting just this  :biggrin: ) and she said " yeah especially in math" music to my ears!
Thanks for the list in order Robert, now I know what to shop for. This is going to be quite a challenge for me being in Australia!  :confused:

Thank you, thank you, and thank you to everyone for their insights on this thread.

Thank you MummyRoo for sharing that story about that little boy you tutor, and thank you to Robert for the very insightful response. A friend shared the story once, that he tried to teach his daughter maths the traditional way, and she whined: 'Daddy, that is not how we are taught in school'. So he gave up trying to teach her with the fear that he might mess her by teaching her the traditional way. 

Based on MummyRoo's story and Robert’s response to that story, I realised my friend should not have given up. He should have known that the 'new way’ would be the thing that would rather mess her up in future. If a child spends so much time learning 20 different ways of doing addition, when will he/she then learn how to do advanced math, and then go to developing math theorems? You can’t develop solid and publishable math theorems without a solid knowledge of math facts (most of it memorised); you just can’t.

The very inefficient methods of these ‘new math' curricula bother me greatly, take for instance this video of 'Everyday Math' book which I posted earlier on this thread.  (Huge thanks to Robert for originally posting this video alongside his Amazon.com review of the book).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Tr1qee-bTZI#t=0s


I have decided, based on the insights I've read on this thread, to keep my child a minimum of 2 years ahead in the core subjects (math and reading) with  very strong emphasis on math, just like Robert did. And that is not to brag or score points, but to ensure no one messes him up in these core subjects should he go to school. Thanks a lot, Robert. I've learnt A LOT from you. Thank you, thank you, and thank you.

Hi Mandabplus3,

"So I just marked the rest of her lessons, she has completed 13 lessons this week."

Outstanding.  You can do that math.  You'll complete a Saxon book in 11 weeks at that pace, and that's if you do every section.  You may remember that I skipped between 20 and 40 sections in the earlier books as they were simply review from the prior book (to make up for summer break), but towards the end of the series, I had David do all problems.  Do the math again and you can easily see how David got through 4 Saxon Books in one year.  He did that only once, as the work does get harder as you progress, but 2 books a year is doable...maybe to the very end.  Remember, that 11 weeks is a full grade level.  I don't make this stuff up, it's doable for virtually any kid that has normal intelligence and a good home.


"She made a couple of mistakes. Three stupid ones so I made her redo them."
LOL.  It was very rare when David got through a single section without a mistake.  Sometimes he did so bad in a section that I made him do every problem over, from scratch.  I also made him check each problem after he finished a set in nearly all cases.  Remember, he hated doing them, and the quality of the work showed.  But our house was not a democracy, so David had to do what he was told.


"She was skipping the date questions because we don't write dates the American way. So I made her do those questions writing them the Aussie way ( day month year)."

Nice...not too many differences between us, and certainly not enough to back away from Saxon.


"To my surprise she learnt negative numbers this week. I didn't know she didn't know them until she told me she learnt all about those in the "number line thing" I made her read it was in the book so she had to read it!
So she has independently learnt a new math skill and got all the associated questions about it right."

Jeeze, I don't remember David ever doing that.  Awesome.


"I am very happy about this! Also annoyed she hasn't already learnt this stuff at school but hey we arnt relying on them to teach her for a reason!"

You waste you energy being annoyed.  Remember what I said earlier, when things are done by otherwise intelligent people, that make no sense, then there is a political agenda.  So don't get angry, you are simply on the other side of that agenda and you must accept it.  We've had almost 4 years of a president 100% opposite from me - but he got power (fairly) and therefore I accept it.  I don't get mad at what he does, simply because I know and understand who he is and I expect it.  But I do chuckle at others that are shocked and mad at what he's doing - what's there to be shocked and mad at - he's just doing what his past has shown him to do and what he promised when he campaigned.  So I accept it and do my best to adapt.  He doesn't get to make me angry.  Likewise in your case (and just about everyone else's), the teachers are either too dumb to know what works so they do what they're told, or, if they are smart enough, they have their political agenda which is also used to control the dumber teachers.  So just look at school as day care now, at least for math.


"One thing I noticed is that it takes me a good chunck of time to mark all her work if she continues at this pace, I reckon i will be working the old grey matter to get my calculation speeds up so I can keep up with her! I don't want her to get too far ahead of my marking."

That's why I recommend having the Home School kits, if you can get them down there.  They have the solutions manuals.  Even at 76, I was needed the manuals - and I am pretty decent at math, still.


"Finally her self confidence is improving. I suggested that perhaps she needed some harder work at school. ( her national testing scores came back suggesting just this  big grin ) and she said " yeah especially in math" music to my ears!"

I like that part.  I didn't get that pleasure with David, but all is fine now.  For school, do your best, and take what you get.  It's not going to affect her either way.  As to self-confidence, that improves as they get the basics figured out.  I figure 80% of the trouble that kids have with new material is that they have to use skills from the past that they either never learned or had forgotten.  One the huge benefits of Saxon is that their problems are designed to keep those skills intact, until they're needed again.


"Thanks for the list in order Robert, now I know what to shop for. This is going to be quite a challenge for me being in Australia!  confused"

Best of luck there.  I guard my set with my life.  They never leave my home - except when we hurricane evacuate - then they are always with me.

Hi Nee1,

"A friend shared the story once, that he tried to teach his daughter maths the traditional way, and she whined: 'Daddy, that is not how we are taught in school'. So he gave up trying to teach her with the fear that he might mess her by teaching her the traditional way.  Based on MummyRoo's story and Robert’s response to that story, I realised my friend should not have given up. He should have known that the 'new way’ would be the thing that would rather mess her up in future."

Exactly.  The reason your friend gave up is because he (or she) trusted "The System" to do what's best.  But who should you really trust?  Math, through Calculus, was developed over thousands of years, with Calculus itself being invented (or discovered) about 350 years ago.  In other words, everything your kid learns through Calculus has been around for at least 350 years, and the early stuff for thousands of years.  So, we've had thousands of years (or at least many hundreds of years) to figure out the best way to do addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, and we've come up with the traditional way - the way our parents learned.  There were many great minds in those thousands of years - and I would almost bet that they tried out the Lattice Method (as you link to), as they had plenty of time to do math and no calculators to distract them.  They almost certainly concluded that there is really no merit to that method at all, and only a bunch of politically-driven education nutcases in Chicago would ever force kids to learn that (and that would only be after the Birth of Christ, the New World, and Chicago even existed).  So, in other words, I trust the work of the first 4990 years a lot more than I trust the work of these fanatics of past 10 years, and so does Saxon.  [that was fun to write]


"If a child spends so much time learning 20 different ways of doing addition, when will he/she then learn how to do advanced math, and then go to developing math theorems? You can’t develop solid and publishable math theorems without a solid knowledge of math facts (most of it memorised); you just can’t.  The very inefficient methods of these ‘new math' curricula bother me greatly, take for instance this video of 'Everyday Math' book which I posted earlier on this thread.  (Huge thanks to Robert for originally posting this video alongside his Amazon.com review of the book)."

Yep, and again, it all starts with a political agenda.  Then their strategy makes sense.  People have trouble dealing with that, for they ask how could our huge school system not be operating in the best interests of the kids.  So once again, I would point people to Bill Honig in California.  That's probably the best-documented case of the damage they are capable of.  I lost many friends over the years because they thought I was the nutcase - but I didn't write a curriculum that threw out 4990 years of recorded history for some fad of the past 10 years and then force on to kids - with no evidence that it can match what was was even being taught prior (and it can't hold a candle to it).


"I have decided, based on the insights I've read on this thread, to keep my child a minimum of 2 years ahead in the core subjects (math and reading) with  very strong emphasis on math, just like Robert did. And that is not to brag or score points, but to ensure no one messes him up in these core subjects should he go to school. Thanks a lot, Robert. I've learnt A LOT from you. Thank you, thank you, and thank you."

You're welcome, welcome, welcome.  As I've said before, I had no intention of David shooting past others the way he did, it just happened because of Saxon.  My only goal was that 2 years, and just as you said, so "The System" could not contaminate his brain with their garbage - I got there first and got the connections made.  If he had stayed just 2 years ahead and with his peers, I suspect math class would have been fun - like doing puzzles - but he would always know the right answer and never get caught behind when he went to another school, or college, or if they decided (once again) to go to something new.

Just my 2 cents...
As a teacher and a parent with accelerated kids, bearing in mind this may only be relevant in Australia, 2 years ahead isn't enough. I thought it was. My kids are two years ahead in math now. Neither of them is far enough ahead to be given differentiated instruction in math. Yes in English they do, but they also have to do the grade level grammar ect first.
For math I recommend 3 years ahead OR 2 years ahead with awesome mental calculation speeds or an impressive math party tricks bag! the advanced kids who get differentiated work around here are years ahead and still get just one or two grade levels ahead for their " advanced" textbook. I think so lazy teachers don't have to teach them anything and they can work independently through a text book.   :blink:
My experience shows this is less important in higher grades where it is easy for schools to send kids to a different class. It is obviously irrelevant if you are homeschooling also.
 However the biggest factor as to whether or not your kid gets extention work is whether or not the teacher likes you and believes you. Yes school is just for babysitting and exposure to those extra bits ( cross country, athletics, friends, some science?). Anything else you get out of it is a bonus. You all know my oldest had a whole year off last year. A year of staring out the window because her teacher was a snot! ( this is the year she should have learnt about negative numbers BTW!!!) she went from dux to below average in one year!  I will only ever experience this once, I will never again let any teacher be the sole educator of my kids. They are too impotent to me.
 It's interesting to note that a number of my friends are starting to realize that my kids are not smart because they are smart. They are finally starting to realize that to top the class requires a whole load of effort at home. All of them think it is only achievable in my house because I am a teacher. Sadly i know correcting them is pointless, none of them are willing to put in the effort to get the results. Of the two that I thought might, I suggested one get a tutor ( which is working beautifully!) and the other is doing a second curriculum entirely in Japanese. These two families will do well over the years. But mine will do better  :tongue:

Thanks a lot, Mandabplus3, for that insight.   I've learnt a lot from what you just explained. From what you said, I’ll up my goal to keeping him a minimum of 3-4 years ahead in math and reading. That will change very rapidly to keeping him 5 years ahead, and even up to 8 years ahead, just like Robert accomplished with his son. So 3-4 years ahead will now be my current minimum, and then we will quickly scale it up depending on how he performs. Thank you so much for that insight.

And thank you so much for updating us with how your daughter is doing with Saxon. 2 lessons every day is great, and as Robert mentioned,  in 11 weeks, you can get the entire book finished, then move on to Saxon 65, and so on. Please keep us updated with how it’s all going, I’m learning a lot from your updates. And thank you to Robert for explaining how David completed the 4 Saxon books in just over a year. I'll be using that game plan too, so thanks a lot for sharing.

I am learning so much from this thread, and I’ve made serious modifications to my plans. And my expectations for school have changed immensely. If my child will be schooled, I will consider it simply as a day care center (as Robert advised); my child's real education will be at home under my tutelage.

Thanks so much, Mandabplus3. And thank you, Robert. I'm very grateful for the insights you both have shared.

"As a teacher and a parent with accelerated kids, bearing in mind this may only be relevant in Australia, 2 years ahead isn't enough. I thought it was. My kids are two years ahead in math now. Neither of them is far enough ahead to be given differentiated instruction in math. Yes in English they do, but they also have to do the grade level grammar ect first."

Thanks Mandabplus3.  First, even though I might be looked at as superhuman or something here (a first for me as a parent), the two year number was a guess that I had, at the outset, and never got to check on it.  It seemed like the minimum amount one would need to stay far enough ahead to be good at material before it was 'taught' to them by "The System".  But there's an implied assumption there that the presentation of the material by The System is basically the same as  by Saxon (i.e., the way its been done for hundreds of years).  From what I can tell with Everyday Math, for example, they jump around, a lot - so it's certainly possible to need to be even further ahead, just in case they hit Trig proofs in 2nd grade, for example.  Also, you're still looking at school as a place where you kids should learn math - kinda old fashioned in my book (LOL), but since you are (which is fine, I just never considered that a possibility and didn't account for it), then things may change and you need to get them to the level necessary, as you state.  And my thought, also, with the 2 years was for parents that don't necessarily want their kid light years ahead of the pack, and thus with kids much older, for any of a number of reasons.  So yes, don't stop at two years, but it still may work well as a minimum (except, maybe, with Everyday Math or stuff like that).


"For math I recommend 3 years ahead OR 2 years ahead with awesome mental calculation speeds or an impressive math party tricks bag! the advanced kids who get differentiated work around here are years ahead and still get just one or two grade levels ahead for their " advanced" textbook. I think so lazy teachers don't have to teach them anything and they can work independently through a text book."

That certainly makes sense to me.  What's shocking is that program even exists there, because they're long-gone here (from what I can tell), where 'equity' is the buzz-word.  But yes, getting 3 years or more ahead is not tough (if you start young enough), and if they actually still have a way to be learning math in school, that's great.  I just can't bring myself to seeing how that could still be done here - but we still have something like 10,000 school districts, and I'm not a researcher, so maybe there is some similar stuff here.


"However the biggest factor as to whether or not your kid gets extention work is whether or not the teacher likes you and believes you."

Key point for every parent (and kid too).  You must do what you can to be liked.  Had my wife been a jerk and acted like she was owed something, then David would have been in a bind, because Pam (at the community college) would have simply told her tough-luck at that age.  Instead Pam went to the State Board of Education and asked whether there were any laws or rules against accepting a kid that young (he was much younger than anyone else they ever dealt with).  They said nope, he just needs the 500/500 SAT scores required for anyone under 18 years and he can enroll.  She also interviewed David and he charmed her (and he got the needed scores).  But I remember reading a couple of years ago about a ~12 year old at UCLA (I think) that wanted to spend a semester in South Africa as part of her liberal arts education.  Not required, but commonly done.  The school told her to take a hike and that it wasn't safe (probably not safe, these days, for adults either).  Rather than say something like "thank you, I appreciate your diligence and looking out for my kid" they filed a lawsuit, hence the news article.  That's going to make that school think a lot harder about admitting young kids again...and maybe that was their strategy?


"You all know my oldest had a whole year off last year. A year of staring out the window because her teacher was a snot! ( this is the year she should have learnt about negative numbers BTW!!!) she went from dux to below average in one year!  I will only ever experience this once, I will never again let any teacher be the sole educator of my kids. They are too impotent to me."

Ok, you're with me, cool.  Sorry about that experience.  It is very, very, difficult to have a bad teacher and realize it, even later in life.  One is, of course, inclined to think that the teacher knows what he's doing.  It is also very difficult to realize and accept as a parent that your kid is not being taught properly - because what do you know?  Do you know "early learning pedologies", or whatever the hell they call that, as well as an 'expert' in that area?  Of course not - so SHUT UP, you parent, you're clueless.  So now you're forced to play catch-up, but you have time and you will not have a problem.  David had a teacher in 3rd grade, I think, that loved looking at birds and always took the kids out there to watch, and watch, and watch - and then gave lessons on birds in class.  David knew every species native to Southeast Texas.  He would rattle off names and descriptions like he was a biologist.  The other kids lost a year of reading and math - David had nothing at all to worry about, so we just joke about.


"It's interesting to note that a number of my friends are starting to realize that my kids are not smart because they are smart. They are finally starting to realize that to top the class requires a whole load of effort at home."

Yea, I'm convinced that most parents think that if they had David as their kid, that David would have done just as well - but since they're stuck with their own kids, they might as well lay back and let The System take care of them.  That's why they never ask me questions (except for the Russian lady using Saxon).  They are ABSOLUTELY CLUELESS as to how David would have turned out if we just threw him into that meat grinder and given him calculators, Facebook, video games, etc.  Like I say, I barely made it through, and The System wasn't even half as bad as now.  They also don't realize that their kid may well be another Einstein, but even average kids with parents like myself who take education into our own hands will clean their clock, every time.  There are probably a whole lot of other kids that could have done better than David, given the same parenting...but were never given a chance.  (I know it sounds like I'm bragging, but I'm trying to make a point here)


"All of them think it is only achievable in my house because I am a teacher."

Exactly!  They figure out an excuse.  (sorry about this bragging again, but I need to make another point)  Without going into details...I am known very, very, widely on Space Station as the absolutely expert when it comes to electrical power architecture and how to keep equipment powered in contingencies.  I'm probably considered a genius in my own right - and I don't deny some of the stuff I've come up with over the years is pretty clever.  So people who know me and hear of David just think it "rubbed off" on him.  They have no idea how close, many, many, times I came to not being there.  I was not in the honor society.  I made the honor roll once in high school (you needed to hold at least a B in every class)...not to mention my near-death experiences - you get the point.


"Sadly i know correcting them is pointless, none of them are willing to put in the effort to get the results. Of the two that I thought might, I suggested one get a tutor ( which is working beautifully!) and the other is doing a second curriculum entirely in Japanese. These two families will do well over the years. But mine will do better."

A lot of it, I suspect, is fear.  I just have a tough time thinking that 99% of today's parents are that lazy.  To me, it's just that they think that either they will not accomplish anything (after all, how can they do better than the experts that designed The System), or that they could even make things worse - you know, wrong pedologies and what not.  It takes a lot of self-confidence to tell The System that they are full of it and cut one's own path.  It was only my early-life experiences (i.e., learning arithmetic and reading by sheer luck), and my political instincts (understanding that there are evil people out there that don't want my kid, or kids that look like him, to succeed) that allowed me to do what was necessary. 

I'll chime in a bit too, Nee1.

"I’ll up my goal to keeping him a minimum of 3-4 years ahead in math and reading. That will change very rapidly to keeping him 5 years ahead, and even up to 8 years ahead, just like Robert accomplished with his son. So 3-4 years ahead will now be my current minimum, and then we will quickly scale it up depending on how he performs. Thank you so much for that insight."

Just a heads up here.  Saxon does get more time consuming at the higher levels, so polishing off 4 books in the first year, starting at 54 may be doable (and was done by David), that may not be as possible later on...although 2 books per year through junior high should be doable.  Also the kids, if in school, will be getting more homework as they get older, so there's that competition for time.  I can't really quantify it much better, I just observed that David's available time for Saxon dropped off as he got older...so don't count on more than 2 books for year starting at junior high.


"And thank you so much for updating us with how your daughter is doing with Saxon. 2 lessons every day is great, and as Robert mentioned,  in 11 weeks, you can get the entire book finished, then move on to Saxon 65, and so on. Please keep us updated with how it’s all going, I’m learning a lot from your updates. And thank you to Robert for explaining how David completed the 4 Saxon books in just over a year. I'll be using that game plan too, so thanks a lot for sharing."

Sure thing, and I second you, keep us informed on your kid.  If he (I think) does well, that increases my credibility on the subject and may well mean that it's doable by many, many, kids - which is what I think anyway.


"I am learning so much from this thread, and I’ve made serious modifications to my plans. And my expectations for school have changed immensely. If my child will be schooled, I will consider it simply as a day care center (as Robert advised); my child's real education will be at home under my tutelage."

Yep, dead-on.  And your child will appreciate that for the rest of his life, especially as your child sees other kids struggling.  And your child will still pick up a lot of good stuff at school in other areas, but you won't have to worry about the core stuff.


"Thanks so much, Mandabplus3. And thank you, Robert. I'm very grateful for the insights you both have shared."

Any time, like I say, this is a load of fun for me.  I had given up on finding parents that believe this is possible.

I have been following this thread since it started and especially closely after you entered the conversation Robert, and I have to admit that I had mixed feelings at the start. I understand that a lot of accelerated kids focus on Math, there was a popular programme in the UK on child prodigies were an Asian family were very clear that it was hard work that earned their sons' achievements, watch them respond to the very negative feedback they received for their sharing their methods - http://www.channel4.com/programmes/child-genius/articles/video-interview-with-wajih-and-zohaibs-parents (http://www.channel4.com/programmes/child-genius/articles/video-interview-with-wajih-and-zohaibs-parents)

I guess I'd always thought literature was better able to provide a well rounded education so I had always planned to use a literature-based homeschool curriculum like Sonlight and use something else for math like Saxon. But I'd never thought I would have a specific maths focus for my son, well one because I really did not like maths myself much in school and thought of myself as a word person not a number person. It's not that I did not do well in it, I was still above average in my class, but I never really felt like I got is or enjoyed it and that has continued until now.

I know maths is important, although I still find myself googliing that phrase for evidence to really sell me on it, but I have never given serious consideration to emphasizing math with my son until after reading this thread. So here is my question for you Robert or Mandabplus3 or anyone who wishes to chime in really - to achieve the things we're talking about here what goals should I set for my two year old son (he's two this Thursday) for us to achieve by 3. Robert I know you started with David at 3.5 yrs and Mandab you started earlier, what would you suggest should be my goals from this year moving forard, even in terms of concentration time, his understanding of work vs play time etc.


Many thanks for all the insight and passion shared on this thread!

Davinia

To MrsObedih,

"I have been following this thread since it started and especially closely after you entered the conversation Robert, and I have to admit that I had mixed feelings at the start."

Welcome to this thread and glad you joined.  As to mixed feelings - thank you, one man can only take so much hero worship - but I understand what you're saying.


"I understand that a lot of accelerated kids focus on Math, there was a popular programme in the UK on child prodigies were an Asian family were very clear that it was hard work that earned their sons' achievements, watch them respond to the very negative feedback they received for their sharing their methods - http://www.channel4.com/programmes/child-genius/articles/video-interview-with-wajih-and-zohaibs-parents"

I'll watch that, sounds interesting.  The thing to keep in mind about maths is that it's serious stuff.  In fact, I don't think it's a coincidence at all that the Industrial Revolution began almost to the day when Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz published their discovery of Calculus, as it formed the mathematical backbone of the Industrial Revolution and more.  I'd still be riding horses had it not been for them, but I like my cars better, and they pollute much, much, less (per mile driven/ridden).


"I guess I'd always thought literature was better able to provide a well rounded education so I had always planned to use a literature-based homeschool curriculum like Sonlight and use something else for math like Saxon."

Haven't heard of Sonlight, but you know what I think of Saxon.  Yes, many people do just fine without maths, but, as I've mentioned earlier, we're talking a probability game when it comes to our little guys.  If they're good at maths, and literature, then they simply have a much better chance of doing well, than just one or the other (and I would strongly argue that maths trumps literature...but many people have done fine without being good at maths).


"But I'd never thought I would have a specific maths focus for my son, well one because I really did not like maths myself much in school and thought of myself as a word person not a number person."

You're a parent, that's your call.  If you sense that maths isn't going to work, then literature only may be best.  In my case I knew David had the genes to do maths, regardless of the fact that he hated it (back then).


"I know maths is important, although I still find myself googliing that phrase for evidence to really sell me on it, but I have never given serious consideration to emphasizing math with my son until after reading this thread. So here is my question for you Robert or Mandabplus3 or anyone who wishes to chime in really - to achieve the things we're talking about here what goals should I set for my two year old son (he's two this Thursday) for us to achieve by 3."

Unfortunately I have trouble remembering David's timeline back at that age.  I think I was hitting him up with numbers, but I'm not certain.  I would suggest that you just use addition flash-cards.  As I mentioned earlier, don't worry if he understands the concept of 2 plus 3, just get him to say "5".  He will learn the concept later - that was what I found out, the hard way.  The concept is much harder than the fact...as the concept is abstract, whereas the fact is simply memorization.  Also use a number line, it really worked with David.  He would just tick down the line.  But it was on a marker board, so I stared erasing numbers, and he had to remember what was in between...and finally he got there, without the number line.  The numbner facts are very tough at that age, so be patient and expect progress to be a tiny bit at a time.


"Robert I know you started with David at 3.5 yrs and Mandab you started earlier, what would you suggest should be my goals from this year moving forard, even in terms of concentration time, his understanding of work vs play time etc."

Just as I wrote above.  And if you can get through addition, then subtraction, and times, and division (the last two actually went very easily for him).  Their brains are like computer chips at this point, if you can burn it into them, they will never forget it.  But if you wait too long (and I mean really long), it will never get there.  Just like learning a language fluently.

Best of luck!!

This thread is just a joy to read. Thank you again Robert for all your continued input, it's valued highly around here (if you couldn't tell).

I think the number line is an awesome idea.

As to prior to age 3 sort of things you can do...

When I first found BrillKids, I figured out who seemed to have some great results and then attempted to read every post they ever made on BK. That took me a while to say the least. Two of those parents were aangeles and nadia0801. If you look at what their daughters are doing mathematically from age 3 to 4, it's absolutely awe inspiring. I'd recommend going back and reading the sorts of things they were doing at age 2+. One of the biggies, IMO, is when they transitioned into using the soroban. Both girls also do traditional algorithms to solve problems, but they can also do it mentally with Anzan via their soroban training. For the early stuff, I plan on going more this route and then once we have basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division down, we'll be off and running with Saxson 5/4. I see no reason why this couldn't happen by around age 4 just based on what I've read from these other parents. Perhaps I'm dreaming and certainly time and effort will tell....

http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-child-math/cammie's-anzan-(mental-math)/ (http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-child-math/cammie's-anzan-(mental-math)/)
http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-child-math/math-supplement-for-advanced-3-year-old-(almost-4)/ (http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-child-math/math-supplement-for-advanced-3-year-old-(almost-4)/)
(be sure to check the last page of this thread)

MrsObedih,

I did share my reasons for my Math focus on this thread - http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-child-math/proportion-of-el-time-devoted-to-math-(split-from-2-year-old-thread)/msg88896/?topicseen. Check out the thread. And all of those reasons mean very much to me.  And on that thread, I pasted 3 news articles on Zohaib and Wajib Ahmed (the boys you mentioned), alongside the interview and written testimonials from their parents. Further, I've done quite a large amount of reading on really clever kids, and realised that most of them were very good in math too. You may get to skip a class for being very good in math and reading, but you may not get to skip a class if you are only good in reading.  LDSMom made that point on this thread.

Further, from Harold Stevenson's research which I cited on that thread, most of the teachers questioned tended to neglect math, because:
1) They do not like math themselves.
2) They do not feel very competent in math.
3) They do not think math is a very important subject.
You'll notice that most of the teachers tended to focus on/ love teaching the language arts. So what is a parent to do? If I know that there is likelihood that my kid's teacher may not be a math-lover, and hence will likely let him down in that subject, I hammer it a lot at home. And that is what I'm doing currently. Take for example the story Robert shared about the bird-lover teacher David had in 3rd grade. A very funny story, but as Robert mentioned, the other kids lost a year in math and reading because of the teacher’s love for birds.

Robert also said something very important, that while reading can be picked up everywhere, math is different. Reading could be easy, but math may not be. But I know that is a very important subject, and you can't get by without a solid knowledge of some math. Most University courses need math a lot, and I've seen a lot of students fumble because of poor math skills.

I recently got this great article from Caroline Mukisa ( of mathinsider.com) in my email box.  The article is titled 'Degrees that need Math'  - http://www.mathsinsider.com/degrees-that-need-math/. And also this one titled `Is College Still Worth It? (Yup, Especially If You Study Math)'. Link - http://www.mathsinsider.com/is-college-worth-it/. Check out both links. You'll be surprised at the level of math that even literature-based courses require.

TeachingMyToddlers did paste an article on this forum titled 'Kindergarten Performance/Math Linked to Later Academic Success'. Here is the link http://forum.brillkids.com/general-discussion-b5/article-kindergarten-performancemath-linked-to-later-academic-success/.  Read the article, and then read the thread to see the insightful remarks of Brillkids members. PokerDad made salient points on that thread, and that has stayed with me since them. 

My focus is not just on keeping him ahead in math, but keeping him in ahead in reading too. The two go hand in hand. He's still very young, but I'm working hard to get him fluent in math as he will be in reading.

Mrs Obedih,

My son will be 3 in December, so very close in age to your little one. Between the age of 2-3 our goals are for James to know his addition, subtraction, multiplication and division math facts. Unlike Robert, we are going for a little more math understanding. I am sure if I drilled him with flash cards I could have him memorize all those math facts by the time he is 3. But instead we play math. We play math daily, and a lot. My son loves math, but so do I. :)

Right now we are working on using different manipulatives, unifix cubes, abacus, beads, touch math numerals, tally sticks, m&m's, cuisenere rods etc  to do addition and subtraction. We do number bonds, and traditional 1+1=? Equations and number lines. Once we are able to do double digit addition and subtraction we will move onto multiplication and division. Starting with manipulatives, skip counting and outright memorizing flash cards.

Before we got to this point James learnt to subtitize, then match math numerals and amounts. Then counting, forwards and backwards and now we are counting from 10-100 by tens. I will introduce 11-99 systematically so he doesn't need to memorize all the numbers but uses the pattern to fill in the blanks. He can go on forever from that point.

James also does Kindergarten Math right now to fill in the blanks. Pretty much covering concepts.  We will continue to do that.

We plan to start Saxon 5/4 with James is 4-6. Whenever I feel he is ready. I don't want to pressure him on it at too young and age but if he remains the mathy kid that he is, I think it won't be too long until we start.

Oh and we will always use IXL.com to make sure he is doing everything.

PokerDad,

I've had mixed feeling about Anzan mental math after reading Arvi's question on page 8 of the thread http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-child-math/math-supplement-for-advanced-3-year-old-(almost-4)/ and Aangeles and Nadia0801's responses to that question on pages 8 and 9 of the thread. 

I’ve read this thread too - http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-child-math/question-(or-hypothesis-if-you-will)-about-anzan/. I thought 'If Anzan does not build number sense, what's the point?''  I may be wrong, correct me if I'm wrong.

Née,

I am going to go check out those threads right now. So my thoughts might change. But I don't see how doing Anzan will hurt understanding.
We do RS math with the abacus, (I know it is not soroban, but from my understanding you can transition easily because it is both based in 5s) and the way that they do math on the RS abacus had been able to give me a more visual understanding of math.

I was a mathy kid, always getting High Distinctions each years, in national math competition, I was also in special accelerated math classes. I loved math, I still do. I am the odd one who likes to pull out an algebra textbook and do exercises for fun. Math came easily. My math instruction was hands on in the early  grades. in high school we moved  to text books, they look very much like Saxon text books. And I loved them! I loved seeing how the math was done, then doing all the problems. I was able to do mental equations in my head, not by Anzan soroban, methods but because I could write out entire equations in my head.

Now all that being said.... It wasn't until I started learning about Rightstart math with the abacus did I really understand how multiplication and division worked. I could not fathom how either were to be done on the abacus. And now that I see how easily it is done I am floored. I feel like a fool. :) And I can see how if you learn the abacus or soroban in your head for Anzan how it really makes everything make sense.

I'll go check those pages of the thread, I missed several posts in there.

As for the hypothesis about Anzan thread that I started, I remember Chris bringing up Richard Feynman's comment about the abacus salesman. I went ahead and read that entire book and enjoyed it thoroughly. I think there's a fallacy in reading too much into his (Feynman) comment about "they don't know numbers". In that particular chapter, Feynman went on and on about the time in his life when he started doing mental math. His ultimate challenge was taking on the salesman - and he admits that he got lucky in the number that they chose to cube root.

His conclusion or comment about not knowing numbers came from when the salesman asked him how he beat him. Feynman, who was around numbers his whole life and mental math for quite some time, tried to explain how he just "knew" what 12 cubed was and how he took it from there. This didn't make a whole lot of sense to the salesman because he didn't have a working memory of math facts like Feynman had - and was trying to calculate with the abacus to see what Feynman was talking about. The problem was, the abacus was precise and Feynman used a method of estimation followed by smaller and smaller calculations that were easier to arrive at the answer much quicker than the mechanical process the salesman was using. But, you ought not conclude that this was duplicable for any joe shmoe off the street.... because it's not.

The reason is because you have a guy that not only won a Nobel Prize in physics, but also contributed tremendously to human knowledge in a handful of ways. His contributions to quantum mechanics, particularly probability waves, are still used as part of the current theory - and bears his name. This guy really was the upper echelon of people that have ever walked the planet in terms depth and scope of mathematics and physics. It's not really fair to compare a guy like that to some uneducated poor abacus salesman in Brazil. The fact that he was able to make things interesting with a guy like Feynman ought to say something to the efficacy of the calculation method he was using. But, I think you raise a concern which anyone reading ought to weigh for themselves.

PS... in that book, Feynman also criticized Einstein's assistants for the very same reason "they don't even know his theory!"

PokerDad, point taken. But how about this story pasted by Chris1, still on that thread? Link - http://www.osaka-abacus.or.jp/english/soroban_experience.htm

Thank you so much for your response Robert, I do feel honoured to have you guidance on this (not to add to the hero worship or anything  :biggrin: )

I will do as you recommend. He knows his numbers to 20 and we were working on number value but I won't hesitate now to add maths facts in song and flash card format. I may not have been taught math in a way that left me with a burning passion but he certainly seems to enjoy it, probably from his dad's genes. I hope to remedy my maths issues through homeschooling so I can help Douglas, certainly bearing in mind that it is not always going to be enjoyable for him OR ME should steel my will to ensure he is not in the position I am in now with regards to my feelings about numbers.

Glad you do not necessarily think literature is pointless, just that maths has a higher probability of guaranteeing success in later life which even  I cannot argue with - my lack of enjoying maths led to me qualifying as a secondary school teacher  :confused:  Although not too long after I knew it was not the right career for me and left to EL and ultimately homeschool my son - that is how traumatised I was by what I saw in schools even Ofsted rated Outstanding ones. I very quickly felt disillusioned with the school system in the UK and even the tools I was given to do the job - and I was trained via the Oxbridge of teacher training institutions in the country. Perhaps it was just me, but like Mandab said I felt I learnt more about educational philosophy from this website than the essays I had to write for my teacher training. The different styles of learning and curricula I was exposed to through my research into early learning and homeschooling made me want to cry at some of the programmes I was required to teach - not to talk of the abilities majority of pupils had after years in education at their final years of secondary school and even sixth form (15years to 18/19 years). It was truly shocking. I am talking about students about to go into university who cannot write grammatically correct structured work.

I feel reading was the  that enabled me to be a good writer, I do not remember being formally taught grammer although given the schools I was in in my indigenous hometown Nigeria, I probably was! But I know my love of reading opened many doors and opportunities for me, so while I am passionate about sharing that with my son, I DEFINITELY want to do better than me with math. So Robert we shall be following your recommendation for math and thank you very much for bravely facing down critics of your methods, so parents like us can benefit from you willingness to tread the less beaten path.

God bless,
Davinia

To PokerDad,

"This thread is just a joy to read. Thank you again Robert for all your continued input, it's valued highly around here (if you couldn't tell)."

Thanks, I was just wondering about you.  You started the thread and I hadn't heard too much from you recently.  And yes, it's been a blast for me.


"I think the number line is an awesome idea."

Thanks, it worked.  I was flailing - David couldn't remember or derive anything.  By derive, I mean putting 2 marbles with 3 marbles and understanding it's 5 marbles.  It was hopeless.  The number line gave him something to latch on to (a tool), rather than trying to pull the answers out of his head.


"One of the biggies, IMO, is when they transitioned into using the soroban. Both girls also do traditional algorithms to solve problems, but they can also do it mentally with Anzan via their soroban training."

Wow, never heard of it, so no comment either way.


"For the early stuff, I plan on going more this route and then once we have basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division down, we'll be off and running with Saxson 5/4. I see no reason why this couldn't happen by around age 4 just based on what I've read from these other parents. Perhaps I'm dreaming and certainly time and effort will tell...."

I don't know, we were hurting at the end with his number sheets.  It wasn't until he was 6 that I even heard of Saxon, and was by sheer luck (my life story).  I don't know how he would have done if he started earlier.  On thing I do remember is that we had apply to "The School" in Houston (i.e., the best private school), at the insistence of our pediatrician.  He was applying for Kindergarten, at age 5 (just turned 5).  I wanted him to demonstrate he was smart, so we were doing number sheets with reduction of compound fractions.  I got him there, but he was ready to take off my head (and I didn't blame him).  So he was pretty far along then, even though I didn't have any kind of text to use.  So, even at that age (just turning 5), he would have likely been ready for 5/4, I just hadn't heard about it - and it would have gone slower (he started Saxon about 1.5 years later).

@Pokerdad - thank you very much for your helpful addition! I will read those threads again (I am sure I came across them during my time of reading through BK forum posts, but forgot about it). Yes, I remember conversations about Soroban and Anzan, but somehow thought this would be added at a later stage. Will read through and see if it Douglas can handle it during this next EL year (2-3 that is). Number line is good especially as it can be a drawn one not a manipulative. The thing is I'm going to have to learn how to use these things before teaching my DS, good thing I'm starting early lol . Thanks again.

@Nee1 - I think I actually first read about Wajih and Zohaib from your post! The watched the full documentary on Channel 4. Thanks for your post to reasons for math, because it really does not come naturally for me to assume math superiority (although intellectually I get it and am starting to get it even more). The links to aangeles and TmT I will read through also. Really glad though that it is not a case of one being better than the other, working hard to make him strong at both I can definitely get behind.

@Korrale4kq - I really love the idea of doing math games, we sort of do that now using Marshmellow Math, but like I said math is not my strength so I am learning via the resources we gather as much as Douglas is. Would Mathtacular kit and DVD1 be a good enough start for math games? I know Touch math is prohibitively expensive, do your recommend Rightstart kit over Mathtacular's? It's a lot more expensive and we could buy an abacus or soroban separately? I appreciate your thoughts on this.

Thanks so much for all the advise and links, I feel more confident about setting our agenda for this year!

Nee1,

"Further, from Harold Stevenson's research which I cited on that thread, most of the teachers questioned tended to neglect math, because:
1) They do not like math themselves.
2) They do not feel very competent in math.
3) They did not think math was a very important subject."

Now this one I can agree with.  There are a lot of options in college for people that are decent at math - there are far fewer for those that are not.  One of those is 'Education'.  So the system tends to push non-math people into education.  My mom has mentioned to me that she thinks women's liberation had a lot to do with declining teacher quality.  Basically, women that were smart now had choices beyond being a teacher...so schools were left the others.

I also just checked on the University of Michigan (where I went) School of Education website.  They require 3 courses in math to be a primary or junior high teacher (sometimes more for high school, depending on the field).  The pre-requisite for the first course is Algebra 1 and Geometry - that's it, 2 years of math in high school, although they 'recommend' more.  The first required course is simply arithmetic.  The second course is makes it to geometry (with some probability and statistics, but I suspect simple stuff).  The third one is an elective.  More advanced math is required for an English Degree (at least at Michigan State, couldn't figure it out for Michigan).  My point here isn't that high-level math is needed to teach 7 year olds, it's that when a School of Education takes students that only did 2 years of high school math, they are really taking students that are either lousy at math or hate it (or, probably, both).  Not every teacher is like this, but some certainly are.


"Robert also said something very important, that while reading can be picked up everywhere, math is not the same."

Yea, that was one thing that really struck me.  Once he had reading wired, by Age 4, David would pick up anything with words and start reading - including adult novels (he never told me what was in those...LOL).  He just loved it.  But math, just forget it.  To this day, literally, to this day, I have never seen him do a math problem for fun.  I even do math problems for fun...to test my sharpness and memory - but I've never, ever, seen him do a single problem without some external force telling him to do so.  He never wanted to do Saxon, and I'm sure he just wished I would forget about it when I came home from work.  He's likely different in that way, but it does make him a worst-case example.


"The article is titled 'Degrees that need Math'"

Agree...a Biology, for example, degree requires a full year of college-level Calculus - and you won't get through that year unless you seriously have your act together.  The colleges mean business with that course.

I very specifically remember what one of the top UK state schools considered to be 'teaching grammar' - we spent several lessons in year 8 or 9 learning that "a verb is a doing word and a noun is a person, place or thing". That was the total sum of my grammar education (if we don't count my choosing to learn Latin, and later Russian  :rolleyes:  )

I was lucky enough to live near and attend a really "good" secondary school. Despite what the government insists about the GCSE/A-Level exams being equally hard, we all knew it was a joke.Once we had drilled our way through the past GCSE exam papers in any subject, the teachers dug out the O-level papers. They are the exams my parent's generation took which were later replaced with GCSEs. We COULDN'T DO THEM!!!  It was laughable - the older the exam paper, the more we struggled! There were chunks of the paper we had to skip because the topic was no longer covered, and what was covered needed so much more depth of knowledge to answer accurately. That, if nothing else, is a sign that the current system isn't working as well as the old one.

My disillusions with the state school system started at the age of 15 and have only gotten worse with time. I knew before I even finished school that I didn't want to entrust the education of my children to one. They refused to challenge me for years, then called me a failure when I stumbled at the challenge of sixth form (because they let me get lazy and I forgot how to cope with being challenged). I might not have the qualifications to teach anything, but I am positive I can't do worse than the school. If sending my son into the education system becomes a necessity, his primary teacher will still be me :D

I really favour a literature-based education for my son. I plan to use Ambleside for the most part. However, I put an EQUAL importance on literacy and numeracy - he will get his literature exposure through all the humanities, but I expect my son to excel at maths, too. Unfortunately, there is a much smaller number of maths-based subjects than language-based, so the proportion of time spent on maths compared to specific English grammar will be much greater.

Korrale4kq ,

"Unlike Robert, we are going for a little more math understanding. I am sure if I drilled him with flash cards I could have him memorize all those math facts by the time he is 3."

I only had one kid to work with, so other kids (maybe most other kids) may be much different.  I can only relate to what worked and didn't work for me.  I did try hard with concepts as I couldn't understand how a kid could learn math just by memorizing - I learned from concepts up also.  But I finally gave up - it was futile, at least at the age I was working with him...which was probably about 3.

Let us know how it works out, and at the very least, I've given you options if it doesn't work - but like I say, David is a single-point example - things may be much different for other kids.


"We plan to start Saxon 5/4 with James is 4-6. Whenever I feel he is ready. I don't want to pressure him on it at too young and age but if he remains the mathy kid that he is, I think it won't be too long until we start."

That sounds great.  David was about 6.5 when he started (once I figured out it existed), so I agree - no hurry at all on it.

To Davinia,

"Thank you so much for your response Robert, I do feel honoured to have you guidance on this (not to add to the hero worship or anything  big grin )"

Thank you too, it's always very interesting to talk to people on the inside when it comes to education.  Most of those people are very defensive about their profession (as are people in many professions), and it's difficult to get them to open up.  On this thread, there are at least two (including you), probably more, people that have taught young kids in a school setting and the stories are remarkably similar from all around the English-speaking world.


"I will do as you recommend. He knows his numbers to 20 and we were working on number value but I won't hesitate now to add maths facts in song and flash card format. I may not have been taught math in a way that left me with a burning passion but he certainly seems to enjoy it, probably from his dad's genes."

Yep, give it a shot.  He's still very young (and probably adorable).  The key is to keep an open mind, and if something doesn't work, try something else -  but definitely be quick with a number line, that was a life-saver for David.


"Glad you do not necessarily think literature is pointless, just that maths has a higher probability of guaranteeing success in later life which even  I cannot argue with - my lack of enjoying maths led to me qualifying as a secondary school teacher"

That's just what my last post was about.  I hadn't read yours at the time,  but it fits perfectly.  Liking math certainly helps as a teacher, and I loved arithmetic, so I was gunning to go with David.  But you'll do just fine, I have no doubt - your mindset is perfect.


"that is how traumatised I was by what I saw in schools even Ofsted rated Outstanding ones."

When you look at it through a political lens, as I mentioned earlier, it can help make sense of it.  In England, they have their colonial history, and that simply bothers people, a lot in some cases (not me, I got a really great country out of it)...and they tend to want to punish today's generation for that past.  All that is fine, until they get political power and start carrying it out in many ways - one being to make sure that England never produces another Isaac Newton.  I'm not saying all the politicians are like that, but enough are, and they are organized well enough to overcome the opposition (which is typically clueless anyway).


"I very quickly felt disillusioned with the school system in the UK...Perhaps it was just me"

The people that have given us this mess are much better in stifling opposition than they are at teaching kids.  I've read detailed reports on how they operate to isolate people that have 'issues'.  Basic tactics such as always telling you that no one else is complaining - and more advanced tactics (for after you've talked to others with the same issues).  An example would be a forum that the schools set up for parents to give feedback.  They will often have assigned seating, and they know the 'troublemakers', so they get split up.  Then they will plant a few people at each table to isolate the 'troublemakers' and make them feel invalidated.  Take 10 parents that all know each other and know that Everyday Math doesn't work, sit them at the same table, and you have a very powerful force.  Split them up between tables, sprinkle in one or two plants at each table to talk them down, and they don't have a chance (the others at the tables often are typical parents, and don't know anything, either way).  So don't ever let you feel isolated.


"I am talking about students about to go into university who cannot write grammatically correct structured work."

I hear you and it's simply tragic that this happens. 


"I do not remember being formally taught grammer although given the schools I was in in my indigenous hometown Nigeria, I probably was!"

I would bet on it.  Especially back then, back there, there just wasn't the organized political will to subvert education (either for political reasons, or simply to sell new coursework).  The Nigerians were taught the British method and I'm sure hung on to it much longer than the Brits, and likely still teach it.


"But I know my love of reading opened many doors and opportunities for me, so while I am passionate about sharing that with my son, I DEFINITELY want to do better than me with math. So Robert we shall be following your recommendation for math and thank you very much for bravely facing down critics of your methods, so parents like us can benefit from you willingness to tread the less beaten path."

Thanks - and it's not a choice between the two.  There will be plenty of time for both, and even lots of time for your little guy to enjoy his childhood - he just will not be wasting hour after hour being a zombie in front of a screen.

To MummyRoo,

"Once we had drilled our way through the past GCSE exam papers in any subject, the teachers dug out the O-level papers. They are the exams my parent's generation took which were later replaced with GCSEs. We COULDN'T DO THEM!!!  It was laughable - the older the exam paper, the more we struggled!"

So you saw it first-hand.  I think I mentioned the example that Saxon used to have on their website (when they were still independent) of a school that "handed down" their old beat-up Saxon books to 'average' students, and got the latest and greatest curriculum for the honors students.  Needless to say, the Saxon kids cleaned their clocks (they obviously also had a teacher who knew how to use it).  The Saxon books represent 'yesterday' about as well as anything available now, in any subject.  The new stuff is disastrous...but it keeps coming out.

"If sending my son into the education system becomes a necessity, his primary teacher will still be me."

I like it, and as far as I know, they still cannot stop you from doing that.

Wow! I Love This Thread!

I have been gone a week and had A LOT of catch-up reading...

This weekend was parents weekend at the University here in Texas...one of the events we attended (hubby teaches about 3/4 of Freshman chemistry, and I tutor and teach premed chem/bio review for MCAT) was a coffee hour where parents, students, and faculty could mingle and ask questions...

Over, and over, and over again...exact same questions and complaints! "The CHEMISTRY isn't hard, I just don't get the math!" "I don't understand, I study for HOURS and HOURS, and I TOTALLY understand the chemistry...but when I try to solve the problems I get lost.." "I HATE chemistry because of the math!"

Sorry, but we are not talking difficult math here...converting metric units by moving a decimal place, logs, nothing that a college student (especially the 60% Premed average!) should struggle with.

Anybody who has read the 2-year-old math thread and others here know that our days revolve around math...various curricula, games, MathTacular Apps, RightStart Lessons (her current spine), apps, and hours of card games and board games...I have to do this for sanity as my kiddo will invent math games of her own, and incorporate math into every daily activity....even reading, she insists on reading the even-numbered pages whilst mommy reads the odd-numbered pages.....I think our home library now has nearly 200 math-based children's literature, an awesome and fun way to incorporate advanced math ideas into reading...

That being said, many of these teach concepts, and in a much more scattered order...I have personally found that at a very young age (Alex is 2yrs 10 mo) that many of the games and programs tend to focus on concepts and numeracy...VERY necessary! bUT!!!

.....just like the college students that 'study' the concepts for hours and cannot perform on an exam, Robert's points absolutely ring true for me!
Yes, during RightStart Lessons and Singapore lessons, not to mention others, she enters everything on theAbacus, uses manipulatives of all sorts, even number stamps to do problems until her writing catches up... But! Ultra fast, efficient, and CORRECT solution are ultimately the goal! We do focus on grouping, and ensuring that when she enters the number '29' on her abacus that she thinks in terms of 'three-ten, minus one'...it has been exceptionally helpful.

Two times per day, (and Alex reminds me multiple times throughout lol ) we do 'Super Fast Equations'...I set the timer, 'Mr. Dinger (dressed in shoes, hat, and bow tie) for five minutes.  Then I use the magnetic Melissa and Doug number set, with operation signs and equal sign, to set up as many equations as I possible can! Alex shouts out the answers just as fast and we try to beat the clock with all of the math facts to twelve that we can, mixing up operations....
SheLOVES it and it has become a favorite part of the day.  Yes, she can do them all with manipulatives or the abacus, albeit much more slowly, but the confidence and instant recall are just as much, if not more, important! BTW- as areward, she gets a stamp on her hand ( she loves these as we have reinforced that they are special and must be earned through hard work!) and a funny note: the stamp says 'I Love Math!' lol  lol  soeverytime she proudly views her 'reward' a bit of brainwashing/subliminal messaging goes on!!!
You need to find a balance.

Literally, a balance! I can't even begin to explain how many math oriented things we use, but one of the best 'games' is this balance from RightStart.  You literally use it to solve equations, and is even fantastic for illustration algebraic concepts.  It is also self-checking: you can add a 10g weight to the left side, say at 10 on the number line.  Then, to 'balance' the scale, you can find all of the number fact combinations that equal 10... Or, as Alex uses it now, she will instantly recognize that by adding a weight to the 9 and the 1 on the left side, equals a 6 and a 4 on the other...
http://store.rightstartmath.com/mathbalance.asp

Wealsohave a number line in the hallway floor at all times, and everything is readily accessible... We LOVE the board game Sum Swamp, Smath, and others, as well as multiple card games...these are all exceptionally fun for reinforcement, understanding, interest, and math enjoyment... But, we also focus on fast, immediate, perfect recall of facts!
In this aspect I absolutely agree with you Robert- it IS the mastery and immediate recall that are the determining factor...providing background information and understanding is important- but no child will gain confidence and mastery of math if they have to think it through every time...always arriving at the correct answer, as quickly and confidently as possible? That is confidence-inducing every time!

The mastering of  math fact recall is what we are ultimately aiming for. I think it helped me become a very confident math student. And I certainly have no qualms against flash cards at all.
James just isn't there yet. He doesn't respond to high pressure requests of any sort. :), but I honestly have no doubt that through our math play he will be there soon. If he has rapid and accurate recall of all basic math facts, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division by the time he is 4 I will be happy.

As for concepts... I don't think it is unrealistic at all to expect him to know those. He is currently at a Kindergarten level right now with good understanding. From my experience doing EL with other children (I have an early education teaching background) with enough exposure most kids have all the Kindergarten-1st grade concepts mastered by the time they turn 4. The issue is, most kids aren't exposed. Parents seldom know what to teach. And daycares and preschools have an emphasis on play and think that early learning can stymie a child.

Oh Keri,

Something I have noticed is that American math curriculum barely touches on metric. Where as they are heavy on fractions. And they do fractions in a more complicated multi step process.

When I was a little Aussie kid we spent a lot of time working on metric. Maybe too much time. But we didn't work on imperial measurement and didn't do much fraction work.

Oh and American math makes a big fuss about separating geometry and algebra. In Australia it was all just math.

Nee1 wrote:

I read this, but am not convinced by his comments that there is no purpose to learning the abacus. It is obviously not necessary and parents have to weigh the time they must spend to learn it vs. teaching other mental math techniques as say found in this book:  http://www.amazon.com/Mathemagics-Genius-Without-Really-Trying/dp/0737300086  A child can work through the book one day a week with additional mental math practice throughout the week. If I am to teach soroban, the reason for doing so would be the advantage rapid mental calculation provides a child. It will make so much of math work easier. Especially if a child learns to do it with precision and can tell if they have the wrong answer and "forgot to move a hundred bead". Time saved later on would be huge. But I am beginning to wonder if teaching techniques such as Arthur Benjamin has in his book would not be better than the soroban, or at least better for me as I have to learn myself and then teach it. The techniques Arthur teaches (some of them show up in the Jones Geniuses - though Dr. Jones takes it to a new level by memorizing all prime numbers to a 1000) have more uses than the soroban. That doesn't mean I am not going to do it, I am still in the "thinking" stage. regardless, you give your child an advantage by teaching some kind of rapid mental calculation.

Arthur Benjamin is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4vqr3_ROIk

"The mastering of  math fact recall is what we are ultimately aiming for."

Concur.  My approach worked in my, one, case.  Other approaches likely work too, especially with kids that aren't ready to tear down the house whenever the word "math" is mentioned.


"If he has rapid and accurate recall of all basic math facts, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division by the time he is 4 I will be happy."

Agree there - having that wired by Age 4 will put him on an excellent trajectory (especially when many kids never learn it, and the ones that do don't learn it until years later).  Age 4 is probably about when David had it down, but I don't remember for sure - but it sounds right, as I was finishing up reading just after he turned 4.


"As for concepts... I don't think it is unrealistic at all to expect him to know those."

It may be something as simple as you being more patient than myself, or have a method that works (as with everything else, I was winging it).  I just made zero headway at the time and gave up.

"Oh and American math makes a big fuss about separating geometry and algebra. In Australia it was all just math. "

Mr. Saxon agrees with that, at least when he was alive.  There (was) no Saxon Geometry.  Instead he just spaced it through Algebra 1 and Algebra 2 (and maybe a bit in Advanced Mathematics).  It drove a lot of 'educators' nuts, because they couldn't understand how Geometry could be taught without a separate course...but it was.  The new editions, I believe, do break out Geometry.

Robert,

Prior to having my son, I had 10 years of being a live-in nanny, with very long hours, under my belt.  I was committed to early learning and working one on one, or mostly one on two, with 0-6 year olds. So it was my thing. It comes naturally.
I also think my exceptional early  math eduction helped me a lot. It was a lot of fun and hands on. And my love of math can't hurt.

In Queensland, the Australian state I grew up in, we just learnt math. In year 11 and 12 we just moved onto either Math A, B or C depending on the level of the student. It all just made sense. And frankly... Because it was all just math I don't  honestly know the distinction between all the maths. We didn't define trigonometry, statistics or calculus. I just knew that algebra and geometry was intrinsically different at first. One used algebraic expressions with letter the other used shapes and planes.

The downfall about math in Australian schools or at least Queensland is that it is not required past 10th grade. And certainly not in college. Because I was a natural at math I didn't do it above 10th grade. But I tutored my friends doing Math C (the hardest math) without any issues. I didn't need to learn the work, the text books were that good.
 

Neat stuff down there, Korrale4kq.  I too remember the logical progression as I was growing up.  It was just that at the early part, they left too many loose ends.   l saw it most when I would go bowling with my friends, back before they had automatic scorers.  I had to add my scores, and got very, very, very, fast at it - I just snapped the answers, probably by second grade.  To my friends, it was a struggle, for as long as I can remember - I couldn't believe that they were so slow - but since no one expected better, that's where they wound up.

In the UK, pre-schools and nursery schools have been told by the schools not to teach anything beyond recognising the letter names and numbers. I think also recognising and writing their own name. The schools want everyone to start on a 'level' so they can begin teaching all kids phonics and maths from scratch when they start Reception (Kindergarten) at 4/5. The teachers don't like having to re-teach those who haven't used phonics 'correctly' (or at all) when they come to school already sounding out words/reading. It is just so much easier when nobody knows anything and the teacher doesn't need to work with different levels at the same time!

Koralle we did so much metric as kids because none of our parents knew it well enough o teach us. They were still using ( and mixing up ) inches AND centremetres  lol Math in Queensland is still the same BTW it's still just math in 3 different levels. And yep it's optional after grade 10.
So I had a chat to my favourite teacher today ( yep one of the good ones my kids get  :biggrin: ) she asked me quite bluntly if I had room to home school next year!!!! Oh dear it appears my second daughter is also going to get a year off learning as the school still hasn't solved the problems my oldest encountered.  :mad: I guess I will be using the school for babysitting during the day next year. Oh well I got two years of reasonable education from them in a row with this kid  :ohmy: Better than most kids get.

Someone asked what to focus on for a 2-3 year old age bracket. My suggestions
Fractions. So easy to teach at that age. Especially as everything you give them to eat you cut up nice and small!
One to one correspondence. Lots of counting while touching different objects in a line. Teach your kids to only count each object in a group once and to be sure to count every object in the group.
Math facts to at least 10- flash cards, games, the math balance  ;)
Numeral recognition up to 100
Counting at least to 20 but preferably 100
Skip counting, easy to teach while playing. By 2,5,10 then 3,4,20,50
To get kids to understand their math facts use the little math program and/or make other flash cards in LR that include photos of objects relating to the math facts you are teaching. Robert most 3 year olds can learn what 4+6=10 really means. I guess in this case you didn't know how to teach it. But like I have said before don't wait until your kids understand times tables to teach them their times tables. Eventually they will understand, it need not be today.
After age 3 teach times tables, time, writing numerals and practice actually computing sums. After 3 you can pretty much teach anything including basic algebra. Before 3 your kids may stubble with the logic side of math, so before 3 focus on memorizing work after 3 focus on understanding and memorizing.
Also whoever asked...I love the mathtacular DVDs my son loves them and my girls enjoy them. They are an absolute bargain in terms of content for $$$ value and if you watch each 5 minute segment and then extend on one concept a week you will have it all covered. Saying that I also have rightstart curriculum and having an abacus is priceless, we use it all the time to demonstrate math concepts. So at the very least get one on your iPad. Mathtacular is a skeleton to fill out yourself. Rightstart is a complete curriculum.

Robert, Maybe I am asking a very controversial question but I want to understand your perspective on this question. I truly appreciate your son's efforts and yours. But I feel that rather than going to college early, if your son had put lots of effort few more years then he could have got entry in Ivy League colleges or the ones like MIT or Stanford. My understanding is that  colleges like those provide so much scope and rigor that would put a student in the top few % of talents which is more beneficial for the student in the long run. I know very little about universities in USA and very little about Houston university, so excuse my ignorance if Houston univ. is also in the top tier.

Arvi, I'm not trying to answer for Robert here, but here's my take. I'm in UK, so it may differ in the US, but most Ivy League schools do accept very young kids. The problem, however, may lie with the inconvenience to the parents. Ruth Lawrence was admitted to Oxford at age 12, Sufiah Yusef was admitted at age 12, I think. With Ruth, it was mentioned that her dad had to relocate to live at Oxford with her, as she is considered by law to be a minor. So it's rarely a matter of  the child putting in more effort to get admitted, the kids do get admitted, it's always mostly a matter of convenience/ relocation problems to the parents and family of the child.

Sending such a young child to be alone in the university if the parents work and live in a different town may not be advisable. I did mention Wajih and Zoihaib Ahmed earlier on this thread. The boys are very clever, and had very top scores (even higher than that of older students) so getting admitted at Oxford might not be a problem. However, their parents live in Southampton, and their mum hinted they would check Southampton University for their admission. Southampton is a very good school, by the way. It makes sense that  if you have a young child going to University, the child has to be close to where you are, rather than sending him off to another ‘elite’ location where you may not be able to monitor his/her progress.  If my kid completes his k-12 education early, I'll send him off to University. Why wait? He might be eligible for Oxford, but if Oxford is too far from where I work and live, I'll send him to the nearest high ranking University close to where I live. Being at Oxford does not make you clever, it may be good for the CV, but it does not make you more talented or clever.

"In the UK, pre-schools and nursery schools have been told by the schools not to teach anything beyond recognising the letter names and numbers. I think also recognising and writing their own name. The schools want everyone to start on a 'level' so they can begin teaching all kids phonics and maths from scratch when they start Reception (Kindergarten) at 4/5. The teachers don't like having to re-teach those who haven't used phonics 'correctly' (or at all) when they come to school already sounding out words/reading. It is just so much easier when nobody knows anything and the teacher doesn't need to work with different levels at the same time!"

A couple of comments:  What we call Kindergarten in the states is Age 5/6.  Age 4/5 is still pre-school.  David had a lot of fun that year as he was reading fluently and his teacher Miss Linda, as she had them call her, had never dealt with a kid like that (I guess early learning is still very rare where I live).  As to starting the kids at the same level - that certainly makes life easier for the teachers, and they may have a point about having to de-program kids that get taught incorrectly - and if they start phonics at that age (i.e., Age 4) the kids will be good readers - providing they move out quickly, and don't drag it out for a couple of years, and I have read that the UK is done experimenting and is back to phonics.  In the states, we don't get to systematic phonics until the kids are 0, at which time most parents have already figured out that they need to get this material covered separately (prior to that it's Sight Words, through 3rd grade, as I understand it).

My mistake - I assumed that since most K-level work I've looked at is about the same as the Reception-level work that they were equivalent.

Yes, thankfully they start phonics straight away in school. There are sets of phonics readers - hundreds and hundreds of them - and in most schools, the kids *have* to read every single one, whether they are easy or not. So even the good readers make slow progress, which turns reading into a boring and tedious part of early schooling for them.  It seems that the government targets are to finish phonics by the end of Y1 (age 6) but there are still lots of children failing to learn to read - I would have thought that phonics taught correctly should prevent this!

To Arvi,

"Robert, Maybe I am asking a very controversial question but I want to understand your perspective on this
question. I truly appreciate your son's efforts and yours."

Thank you for the required bow, now on to your question.  LOL.


"But I feel that rather than going to college early, if your son had put lots of effort few more years then he could have got entry in Ivy League colleges or the ones like MIT or Stanford. My understanding is that  colleges like those provide so much scope and rigor that would put a student in the top few % of talents which is more beneficial for the student in the long run. I know very little about universities in USA and very little about Houston university, so excuse my ignorance if Houston univ. is also in the top tier."

Great question, and as long as you don't dig into his medical history (of which there is none, thankfully), or ask for his Social Security number, feel free to ask just about anything.  Nee1's answer did cover half of my answer, which was the location and keeping our family together.  My wife doesn't work (which is fine by me as Texas is a very low-cost place to live, especially with our life style, and I make plenty for all 3 of us), so, yes, she could have moved out with him, possibly to an Ivy League school, and believe me, she reminded me of that option.  As it is, we have Rice University in Houston, which is near-Ivy in quality and probably the best school in this part of the country.  David tried to take a math class there, my wife talked to them, and they still told him to take a hike - and not the first time.  The private school that I mentioned earlier, the 'best' one in Houston for K-12 years, also told us to get lost after they interviewed David for Kindergarten - it wound up that they didn't care whether he could read fluently or knew math, or whatever, they just didn't want him.  In both cases I was relieved, as Rice and the private school are across town, which would have been a pain.  We also looked at the Texas Academy of Math and Sciences (TAMS), which is a bit north of Dallas, making it a 5 hour drive for us.  He would have been 14 when he enrolled, while everyone else is 16.  The idea there is that you start college classes during what would be your junior year of high school (i.e., age 16) and get dual credit - then you can finish college at Age 20 (would have been 18 for David), rather than Age 22.  We never applied there, as I couldn't make it work in my head.  They had the kids live in a dorm and they just seemed to give them too much freedom for David to do well in, which leads to the next parts of my answer, which is that I'm not a typical dad and David is a typical American kid (i.e., tries to get away with as doing as little academic work as possible).

But first, my job.  It's not going anywhere.  The Space Station program is managed in Houston, my company's work is based in Houston, so that's where I need to be.  My value in a new area would not be as great, if I even got work elsewhere.  In other words, I just wasn't interested in starting my career over, so I would be staying put, regardless.  Next is my wife - being an immigrant and not having an engineering background, her ability to ride on David's back to make him study was limited.  In other words, he could fool her any time he wanted by saying "Of course I'm studying".  I was tougher to fool, and took some significant steps to make it tougher for him to get around me (such as opening up his laptop and removing the wireless antenna from his laptop when he was picking up the neighbor's internet...something he still doesn't know I did).  So, I needed to be with him, just so he would study (and his nightmare semester that I mentioned earlier proved me right) - and I knew all that because I was (is) no different.  So that limited us to the Houston area.  Also, I like doing stuff with my hands, particularly relating to cars and our house, and I have decent skill level at it, to the point where we don't need auto mechanics and tradesmen.  I wanted to pass that on, as no one can predict the future and those skills can save people a lot of agony and money (in the case of our air conditioner once, it stopped working, and I had it fixed in 45 minutes - it was a capacitor that went bad, and I had a spare - it was summer so it was nice have it back on line that quick).  So I needed him around to learn that.

Finally there's the money end, and that is partially political for me, and partially greed (I admit).  The political part is that the private schools simply charge huge amounts of money for what is now a sliding tuition scale.  They have a "sticker price" which is probably double their cost for your kid.  They then make you fill out a federal form and they go run it through a program that weighs your income and assets, and gives spits out what your cost will be, and it's a combination of maybe tuition grants, loans, and work (for the student).  It has nothing to do with whether your kid is bright.  In fact, the Ivy League announced publicly that they were through will all merit-based scholarships about 2 years ago - so all financial aid is now need based.  In reality that means that what you pay in tuition at these schools is based exclusively on your income.  I don't buy a car that way, or a house, or a can of soup that way, so I was not about to do that for college.  They can shove it with their little redistribution schemes as far as I'm concerned.  (my mother has given me more stories from her days as a univeristy administrator that just get me angrier)

So it came down to keeping him local, and with a public college.  As it is, he did get a decent education at the University of Houston.  From what I can tell, they are selective, but in a different way.  At UH, they will admit people that may not be the top students, but they did not give them a pass.  In his engineering and math courses, during the early years, it was not uncommon for 80% of the students in a class to drop out prior to the end of the semester (they started with huge classes, but they were down to reasonable size for the second half of the semester).  They were that tough.  They gave you a shot, but it was up to you to take advantage of it.  I see a lot of merit in that.  His friends that graduated there all got engineering jobs in the oil industry, except one that joined him in grad school.  The ones that took the jobs, I suspect started about $80,000, the one that went to grad school with him got an offer for just over $100,000 (he's about to finish).  And once you start working at a large company where you went to school becomes a minor issue - so it's difficult to see much benefit, at least from a money standpoint, in the Ivy League.

As far as getting a better, more thorough, education, sorry, but he's not into answering all those deep questions that have sent philosophers banging their heads against the walls and screaming from the mountain tops, for millennium.  Just not into that stuff.  For him school is simply a path to a job, and UH does just fine providing that path, at least for engineering students.

Thanks for that insight, Sonya. I've known about Authur Benjamin, but I never thought about using his mental math strategies as an alternative to soroban. Now that you've mentioned it, I'll check his strategies in more detail, to see how it works, and  to see if I can use it as an alternative. Thanks again for that insight, Sonya. I'm checking up his book in more detail now. 


EDIT - On  Amazon.com's book preview of Authur Benjamin's 'Secrets of Mental Math', it shows that  'Mathemagics: How to Look Like a Genius Without Really Trying'  is the older form of  new book 'Secrets of Mental Math'.
In other words, get 'Secrets of Mental Math' rather than 'Mathemagics: How to look like A Genius without Trying.'  Same book, different titles. The former is the new version, the latter is the old version. Hope that helps.

Just a quick observation about the whole "doesn't know numbers" argument.... this is the same argument that gave us TERC Investigations. Too many teachers in high schools and college were noticing that kids sucked at math and they said "They don't understand numbers".... so.... the geniuses that head our schools decided to improve upon a failing system by giving us TERC. Wow.

I'd argue, on the other hand, that mastery in mathematics will give you all the "understanding" of numbers you could need. It seems to me that one or two slight comments against a proven method has scared people out of a potential method that could speed up math acquisition... the same argument has certainly chased away common sense in our schools. Mastery is mastery, that's the bottom line, and it takes WORK

To Poker Dad,

Wow.  I looked up "TERC Investigations Suck"  on Google (always a good way to get to see the dark side of anything), and I got this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YLlX61o8fg

I was about to cry for this poor girl, but the video has a very happy ending, as her parents took her math education into their own hands.  If you look hard at the TERC technique, you'll see the intent of it was to avoid forcing the kids learn anything beyond single-digit counting, in order to do large arithmetic problems.  In other words, to use their method to add 8 plus 7, she draws out 8 shapes, then 7 shapes, then counts them all to get 15 shapes.  She never needs to actually know that 8 plus 7 equals 15.  So they make the problems an order of magnitude more complex (and thus more subject to failure), in lieu of having the kids learn their number facts.

Obviously I'm trusting whoever uploaded the video to be honest about it, but nothing in it surprises me.

Yeah, pretty bad. But if you can suspend your brain for a second, you might see why the teachers actually like the method. You see, in the "stacking" example, the child just goes through a systematic process of adding digits. She might not even understand why she carries the 1, she just does it. The argument was that doing this method focused too much on mechanics and not enough on conceptual understanding.

I'm not buying it and neither is anyone else around here...

My point is that saying something that utilizes mechanics will lead to lack of understanding numbers is the very same argument the national council of teachers of math (though I might have the organization incorrect, so don't take it as truth that it was them) that brought about these "improvements"... yeah, you'll understand how to break a number into components but woop-dee-doo. The kid that masters the "stacking" method will understand numbers just fine after a while (though may not understand it when 5 or 6 years old or when very first taught); a 9th Dan in soroban understands numbers just fine. I really think it's the same argument, made primarily by those that didn't understand the method in the first place.

One of the most damning chapters of Sowell's "Education in America" was when he started talking about exactly who, on average, goes into the teaching profession. Hint, it's not exactly the Nobel laureates if you know what I mean. I know three teachers within my family - one says she doesn't understand math, one feels as though TERC needs to be balanced at some point, the other is a complete dumbs****t... it's no wonder that the system is now cranking out failing math students at an ever increasing rate... and those in other countries love all the jobs getting outsourced because the subsequent crops of graduates are effectively innumerate.

PokerDad,

Agree, and I had mentioned it also in an earlier post, regarding who now goes into teaching, and what is expected of them.  Just from a political end, I'm an engineer, so I'm able to do math.  There are millions of engineers in this country - and there are likely hundreds of thousands who are either retired or unemployed.  The vast majority of us could teach early math in our sleep - but we don't, because we're not 'qualified' to do so (i.e., don't meet cert standards) - and those that are qualified would never be trusted to teach in a way they think would work (i.e., memorizing more than just counting) - so we don't.  We leave it to the 'professionals', like you just described.

Is it any wonder regarding the results we're getting?

This thread has had me thinking a lot. And I actually think I personally like learning the traditional algorithms, becoming competent, if not to mastery, THEN being mind blown when I see how it works. I have been watching a lot of math videos lately and actually been seeing how stuff works and feeling wowed and loving math even more. But, I don't think some of the things I have seen would have helped me learn or have made an impact if I didn't know the traditional way of doing it.

Edited to add: I honestly think that teachers who learnt thing traditionally are having the same reflections that I am having. They are seeing HOW and WHY the algorithms actually work. And they are being seduced by it and thinking, wow it is so easy. But in reality it isn't any easier, at least to a new student because they didn't know how to do first.

It is like breathing,  We know how to breath,  but to have it broken down scientifically and understand how oxygen is pumped into our blood and how co2 is expelled it awesome to know. .... Or maybe I am just that much of a nerd. But if someone tried to read me breathing by explaining all that I would be dumb founded.

I know that breathing is an automatic thing, but I can't think of a better analogy now. Walking or running or hitting a baseball might be a better one.

To Korrale4kq,

"This thread has had me thinking a lot. And I actually think I personally like learning the traditional algorithms, becoming competent, if not to mastery, THEN being mind blown when I see how it works. I have been watching a lot of math videos lately and actually been seeing how stuff works and feeling wowed and loving math even more. But, I don't think some of the things I have seen would have helped me learn or have made an impact if I didn't know the traditional way of doing it."

If that's  the case, I shall vaporize from this site, as my job is done.  Just kidding.  I think you hit on something very much at the root of our problems.  The case for Whole Language was made by saying if the kids (that can't read) are exposed to the great works of the past, they will pick up reading by assimilation.  We also know that's simply BS, but that was foundational basis on which Whole Language was pushed - that kids would appreciate the great works and learn to read just from that.  Millions of kids later, we know that simply doesn't work any better than explaining to a kid how a car works and then expecting him to design and build one on his own.


"Edited to add: I honestly think that teachers who learnt thing traditionally are having the same reflections that I am having. They are seeing HOW and WHY the algorithms actually work. And they are being seduced by it and thinking, wow it is so easy."

I know you're talking math, but the reading analogies are what keep popping into my mind.  In the case of reading, adults simply say:  "I read by sight, I don't sound out words, so why should my kids have to".  To answer that, THEY DON'T have to sound out words.  Once David knew a word by sight, I never, ever, dreamed of making him still sound it out.  But it takes time to get there, and that's where I diverge from these people.  I simply wanted to give him the tools to either sound out words, or get very close to that (for the tougher words)...rather than guessing.  Most adults simply don't remember how they learned to read.  I did, but only because my speech was so bad (only my mother and brother could understand me through first grade), that they were stuck having to start from scratch and teach me sounds.  So I learned phonics, but only be sheer luck.


"I know that breathing is an automatic thing, but I can't think of a better analogy now. Walking or running or hitting a baseball might be a better one. "

There are plenty of analogies.  Yes, I can appreciate (to an extent) a great work by Picasso, but being shown those works, for years, will not get me any closer to be a great artist.

To MummyRoo,

"Yes, thankfully they start phonics straight away in school. There are sets of phonics readers - hundreds and hundreds of them - and in most schools, the kids *have* to read every single one, whether they are easy or not. So even the good readers make slow progress, which turns reading into a boring and tedious part of early schooling for them.  It seems that the government targets are to finish phonics by the end of Y1 (age 6) but there are still lots of children failing to learn to read - I would have thought that phonics taught correctly should prevent this!"


That's half the game, the other half is how serious they are at it.  When David was in pre-K, at Age 4/5, his class was covering one letter-sound a week.  They didn't even make it through the alphabet that year, much less blends, much less words.  That was it.  It was  a good school overall, but they simply were not interested in teaching 4/5 year olds  how to read...so it's still understandable that kids can be taught phonics but at such a slow rate that they likely forget what they already learned, when they have to apply it.

Robert,

I had a  phonics reading analogy ready :) but thought it might be fa fetching.
We teach our kids 44 phonemes, what they look like and expect them to memorize them. Later they blend them. Voila. When you think about it, pretty elementary, but it does nothing to explain how reading actually works, or I guess langauge in general.  You have a pretty good formula that you apply over and over..... With exceptions. :)

I learnt to read with phonics. And I have taught with phonics. But my son is a pretty competent whole word reader at a K-1st grade level. :) He has had rudimentary phonics instruction and he will have more in time. When he is older and doesn't struggle so much with it. But he is doing pretty well with intuiting phonics. And he is reading a lot, so has lots of practice. He learns the word jump. He comes across the word jumping while reading. I tell him what it is. He later is able to read the word running, swimming, and a variety of other verbs with the -ing suffix.
I have thought about reading a lot with the whole word and phonics debate and initially I thought I was a phonics reader because that is what I was taught with (as we're nearly all Aussie kids in the 80s, thanks why Aussie teachers were in demand in the US a decade ago) but the more I think about it, I thought I was a whole word reader.... But now I have decided that I am a chunking reader. I don't sound out words anymore. Even unfamiliar words. Infact when I read them I look for small known words inside of the words. And I have realised that this has contributed to some odd pronounciations.

MummyRoo,

That is sad about the incessant phonics readers drilling. The thing I have found about phonics readers is the they bore older kids and are hard to comprehend for younger kids. And the stories don't have any substance initially. Yes, at first there is a sense of achievement to be able to read a first book. But when the book goes like this....

Mat sat.
Sam sat
Cat sat.
Mat, Sam and cat on a mat.

There is little to make the child want to read more. And very little to excite the child to learn to read. So i certainly see why there is failure. My son detests those type of phonics readers.

 I will type out the first book that my son (2 yr) read.

JUMP ROPE
"I have a jump rope," he said.
"That jump rope is for you to play with."
"It is in the box of toys."
"That is it on top of the bat."
"You have to jump in and out of it."
"You have to jump for a long time."
"It is fun to play jump rope."
The End.

He loves this story. He love the conversation between the little girl and boy illustrated on the pages. We talked a lot on out jump rope afterwards. He was entertained and he wanted to read the book again and again. 6 months later he still likes the book. But I limited him reading it because I don't want him to memorize books.

I should add.... There are some amazing phonics readers out there. Usborne (lucky Brits) make some amazing ones. But they are usually not the ones that are available by the hundreds in schools. :(

"Korrale4kq "

I have thought about reading a lot with the whole word and phonics debate and initially I thought I was a phonics reader because that is what I was taught with but the more I think about it, I thought I was a whole word reader.... But now I have decided that I am a chunking reader. I don't sound out words anymore.

I doubt any parent on this sounds out words much - we're all sight readers now - the only question is initial learning, and how was that done.  I think in many cases, parents simply don't remember how they learned, so they think it's how they're doing it now.  I'm taking a Russian class at work.  It's a voluntary class, and it's all phonics, they don't dream of throwing us a bunch of weird looking words and expecting us to remember them by sight, without knowing the sounds of their alphabet - and if they tried it, I'd get up and walk out, and so would everyone else.  In fact, they don't even have names for letters - just the sounds (at least the way we're being taught).  Backwards "R" (я) is not called "Backwards R-ski" or something, it's called "ya", because that is its sound.  It's all phonics.

To Korrale4kq ,

"Mat, Sam and cat on a mat.
There is little (in those phonics readers) to make the child want to read more. And very little to excite the child to learn to read."

I'm with you 100% there.  I never used them and actually didn't know they existed or how to get them (thankfully).  We started with letters, then blends, then simple words.  From there it was right to children's books.  It was slow at the beginning, but before he read from a page, I made him learn the difficult words.  I knew which ones, and we would work on them separately.  Once he knew them pretty well, we'd go back to the book and read that page (which could still take a while).

I'll be the last person to support "Mat, Sam, and cat on a Mat" - his first book was "Walter and the Tugboat".  It was a real story at least and wasn't trying to teach him phonics at the same time.

I love the way that you are learning Russian. Similar to how my son learnt phonics.

I only taught him lowercase letters and called them by sounds. He actually doesn't say letters. He calls them phonics. He has plenty of time to be corrected. I never taught him the names. And only later did I teach him upper case. My son can not recite the alphabet song, and I am completely okay with that. He does know most, if not all the letter names now I think. Honestly I am not sure how he knows them all. I assume from apps.  We don't do TV, so no Elmo assist. :) Now I think about it he may have learnt them from a little toy laptop that he has. With the exception of a drum and Piano it is the only electric toy he has.

I figure we use lowercase letters the most when reading it was the most logical place to start. I really did intend for him to learn to read phonetically at first. ... Just didn't work out that way.

I like that you used a real book to teach David to read. Centuries ago before primers, children learnt to read with the bible.

"I only taught him lowercase letters and called them by sounds. He actually doesn't say letters. He calls them phonics. He has plenty of time to be corrected. I never taught him the names. And only later did I teach him upper case. My son can not recite the alphabet song, and I am completely okay with that. He does know most, if not all the letter names now I think. Honestly I am not sure how he knows them all. I assume from apps.  We don't do TV, so no Elmo assist. smile Now I think about it he may have learnt them from a little toy laptop that he has. With the exception of a drum and Piano it is the only electric toy he has."

Wow, you're better at it than I was.  We still had David learn letters, but I agree, they're not needed and can be confusing - you might as well just learn the sounds.  You can always pick up the letter names later.


"I like that you used a real book to teach David to read. Centuries ago before primers, children learnt to read with the bible."

Thanks, like I said, it wasn't brilliance on my part, I just didn't have anything else around, so I grabbed the first book that looked potentially doable for him.  The bible would work to...just much slower (and small print) - I could see spending a month to get through the first page, using my technique (of learning the words before attempting to read).  Things would, of course, speed up over time.

Lol, teaching sounds initially only makes sense to me. But I didn't always do it that way, I had a few years under my belt. You were in a time crunch and figured out something that obviously worked.

Robert,
Russian letters do have names (though the vowel names are equivalent to their sounds) though I was never taught them and only picked them up much later because I felt silly spelling out words using phonics. lol

Koralle,
I do like the Usborne books particularly. I believe they can be found on the bookdepository site with free shipping to most countries, so its not just those of us in the UK that can benefit! Their phonics readers are good fun for very first books (mostly cvc words) and their farmyard tales are excellent for confident early readers with very clear print.


We have most of what I would consider 'good' phonics readers. We have several sets, but they are generally those considered 'advanced' readers - the ones with lots of words and an actual story - that I hope will make the transition to chapter books easier. I can't imagine more than a couple of 'cat on mat' type stories will be tolerated. Once the excitement of actually reading a book himself wears off we'll be straight on to the proper books.

I have one set using the same books the schools use - the stories are ok, but somewhat tedious to begin with, but where I have two books at each level where the school has a box (I would guess 10+ per box, but I can't find official numbers). I know my mum raves about my brothers (Aussie) Reception teacher because she was willing to go against the 'rules' and let the kids skip whole boxes. This in itself is telling that there were lots of boxes of readers to get through!

Off topic a bit ( but so is the entire thread! lol ) but i ran the reading program at my kids school, they are fairly typical of a smaller school here ( Australia) they run with a set of PM readers. They are not phonics based readers but sight word readers that gradually increase in difficulty. The phonics difficulty increases over the levels also.  They have between 6 and 16 books for each level and there are 30 levels. They also have a backup set of 8 books per level, all 30 levels for kids who need more practice. Level 30 is supposed to be for 12 year olds but most kids finish the set completely by grade 4 ( age 9/10) at the latest. Mine finished them at the end of grade 1 ( second child about to finish them) Kids are expected to read every available book on each level then progress automatically. They are tested 4 times a year to move them up ( or potentially down) levels to ensure they are constantly getting just above easy books. it works out to be three books and a worksheet for each book a week.
The phonics programs are usually run separately, in class time. It is systematic phonics and usually linked to spelling lists also. He books are for the parents to teach the phonics is for the teachers to teach. that way even the kids with lazy parents who never do a reader will still learn to read just a little slower.

Robert, Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences. You're very pragmatic :) Just one more question. Most of the child prodigies and accelerated learners that I've read about have ended up depressed and being unhappy during adulthood. There are a few exceptions to this list like your son (great indeed). One common thing about the prodigies/accelerated learners who turned out depressed is the fact that they were accelerated in a super fast pace like graduating college at the age of 12 or less. What is your opinion on this? Did you put special efforts to ensure that your son is happy and did you make conscious effort in making him well-rounded or is it because of his personality that he is happy now.

Manda,
That is how it was when I was in primary school. We did the phonics work in class. Even though i could read, I still remember ants on and apple a...a...a...  Lions licking lollipops l...l...l... And many more.
Then I remember a whole slew of readers that we took home.  I remember having to read them, but I took home up to 5 at a time. A distinctly remember one saying "this is an apple." "This is an orange" And more pages with other fruits. These had  large font and a picture of an apple, orange or whatever fruit to give context clues. I loved those books and I think they help with fluency and comprehension. And above all confidence. These are called high frequency readers and outside of a school setting they are hard to find. And when they are found they are ridiculously expensive. These are the books that parents see and I think the assume that kids are only learning to read via whole words. But in fact nearly every school district I know has a phonics program that is given by pure instruction.

To Mandabplus3 ,

"Off topic a bit ( but so is the entire thread!)"

Teaches you guys to invite me to someone else's threat.  But I like it better this way, it gives my kid some cover.

No comment on the rest, as it's out of my league - other than to mention again that we just had a marker board and then standard children's books.

To Arvi,

"Just one more question. Most of the child prodigies and accelerated learners that I've read about have ended up depressed and being unhappy during adulthood. There are a few exceptions to this list like your son (great indeed). One common thing about the prodigies/accelerated learners who turned out depressed is the fact that they were accelerated in a super fast pace like graduating college at the age of 12 or less. What is your opinion on this? Did you put special efforts to ensure that your son is happy and did you make conscious effort in making him well-rounded or is it because of his personality that he is happy now."

Good questions Arvi.  I guess a few things here.  First, David had his church group of same-age (or at least very close-aged) kids that he grew up with literally from day 1, so that was probably the most important factor.  Had we moved (for any reason) or sent him away, I suspect he would have turned out completely different (and for the worse).  It's critical for a kid in that situation to have a group like that and stay with them.  Remember, David also doesn't have siblings - and even 'normal' single kids tend to have a lot more problems socially - so he had both going against him.  Next, like I've said, I beat it into him (figuratively, but pretty loud when necessary, which was very rare) that he was nothing special, he was just a kid whose parents started him early.  Without that, he probably will have still been in the top half of his class, but not by much (and I'm not even sure of that).  He knows it himself - he understands that intrinsically.  A number of times after he'd spent hours living it up with his friends I'd ask him whether they talked about him going to college - it never comes up, he's not about to talk about it, and to the other kids, he just went to another school - so they would never feel inferior around him.

Beyond that, we never, ever, shopped him to the media or had a blog, or anything.  But keep in mind that the Internet was younger, although still very big - I just had no interest.  I realize that others here have pages, and I completely understand that.  You have relatives, probably out of town (especially grandparents), that just love to read and watch the postings - and that's fine, because I also know that you guys will know be able to figure out when to back off, such as when it could make the kid susceptible to teasing.  Since I haven't done it, I don't feel qualified to say if it's harmful or not.  But back to the media.  My conservative political views don't give me much love of the media to begin with, and I've heard story after story of how they mess up and ruin people.  So it was easy for me to avoid them.  But, in the end, we had Pam at the Community College, that really stuck her neck out to get him enrolled early - and when she wanted to put out a press release when he finished there, so that she could maybe draw more kids in like David, we were fine with it.  And then you had University of Houston that had an 86 year old graduating the same day as David (who was 16 years old), and they wanted to do a story on it, and then TV stations got wind.  We were good there too, as the school also did a great job and we didn't want to let the older guy down.  But all this was done just as he was finishing up both schools.  So while he was in school, there were no distractions, like TV stories, that would have made him an outcast (or gotten to his head).  I know lots of parents do shop their kids - I think some parents just have their own problems and are trying to solve them through their kids, but I suspect many other parents just want the kid's name out there, so the colleges come knocking with offers.  We don't know - because we never gave them that chance (to speak of).  And by the way, the media stories were fine...they weren't out to destroy him.  LOL.


A couple of other things that we did, that may have helped.  First, I never used baby talk with him.  When he was two months old in a basket, I would explain to him that was changing out a washer in the sink, why I was doing it, how I was doing it, and I would talk in exactly the same tone that I would talk to a co-worker in.  Of course he was 2 months, but then he was 6 months, and then 12 months.  When he started talking, he was talking like an adult practically from day 1.  I remember one phone call to my mom when he was probably 5 years old and she said to me (after) that feels like she's talking to an adult.  Where it helps is when they're with older kids in school - they simply sound more mature.  David wasn't actually the first one I tried it on.  When I was growing up, we had a dog and I would talk to him like an adult too.  Needless to say he'd cock his head over like I was a mental case, but he remembered stuff and was brilliant, for a dog - and I think that was part of it.  Back then I figured it wasn't his fault that he was a dog and I wasn't going to treat him that way (that was my rationale).  For David, I saw the results with the dog, so it was a no-brainer.

Robert, we are very much alike.  lol

I will point out, FYI, the reason I am blogging is two-fold. 1. It's just for me to keep track (call it motivation, child rearing is HARD WORK) 2. People on this forum that have helped me. It gives sort of a running commentary on things we're doing. These are the only two reasons, and basically it's anonymous. The family far away does see some of the videos, but not the blog. But enough about that, I'm sure there are as many reasons people do it as there are people.

Yea, I'm not worried about parents on this site.  And I enjoy watching the little guys...brings back memories!!

Arvi wrote:


Robert already answered this to a large degree - but I thought I'd pass along the information that was given to me by the Belin Blank Center. It is typical for advanced kids to become depressed. Usually it has little to do with how fast they were accelerated. Since the children have a hard time relating to their peers, they have a difficult time making friends. The children are lonely. They found that acceleration helps this problem - and the problem of developing laziness.  Also, when those children whose parents did make a "big" deal out of them when they were little reach their late teens and early twenties, when many of their peers have caught up to them, they aren't such a big deal anymore. It is a bit of a blow to the ego. 

Thanks for sharing, Robert. Sonya, you have provided another perspective to that problem. Do you think that the loneliness and laziness problem can be evaded through other means. Can you recommend any resources or books in that subject.

I haven't read it yet, but it has been discussed in the forum a bit. Carol Dweck did a study and wrote a book called Mindset. She talks about how it is best to encourage a child's learning capacity, their patience, their effort etc rather that praising their smarts or the end result. That may help with the lazy attitude.
That way they are encouraged to try rather than be doomed to failure.
I think Po Bronson's book The Outliers might address some of this too? I have just started the first chapter.

"Carol Dweck did a study and wrote a book called Mindset. She talks about how it is best to encourage a child's learning capacity, their patience, their effort etc rather that praising their smarts or the end result. That may help with the lazy attitude.  That way they are encouraged to try rather than be doomed to failure."

I'm not saying it's not possible, but I'm not sure how to encourage learning capacity or patience (there may well be ways, and maybe they're covered in her book - I just don't know what they are).

As to praising smarts, I'm with her her there.  I praised accomplishment, rather than simply telling him he was smart (as that would get to his head - and he's able to figure it out fast enough anyone) - obviously I never called him stupid - in general.  But if he did something stupid, I sure let him know it - simply because I wanted him to remember and not do it again when I may not have been there to keep him out of trouble (and it happened a lot - his common sense developed at a more normal pace).  An example would be when he set up a vacation calendar for his church group.  I asked him if it was password protected - he said no, but they didn't tell any outsiders the website address.  I explained that was dumb to do, and that he needed a password - he pushed back a bit and then agreed - but I will call a spade a spade - and if it's dumb, I'll let him know it, in a way that he remembers.

As far as the end result, which is really what led me to comment, here's my take:  It depends.  If the material is hard and he tries, then definitely praise the effort - and then work with him until he does get it right.  But don't praise the effort if the material is easy, but he gets it wrong.  With David, at least, that was the path of laziness - just do it real quick and don't care about whether it's right or wrong.  If I accepted that, he would have been knocking out Saxon sections every 20 minutes.  So it's a balance, and it's easy enough for a parent to know whether the kid should have gotten the right answer.

Agreed!! It is about finding the happy medium.

Here is the Po Bronson article about Carol Dweck and praise for those who are interested. And his book is NurtureShock  and not Outliers. Sorry.

http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/

Interesting.  Like I mentioned before, I do remember some things from my early grade school years.  One thing was always being told the following, time after time on my report card:  "Robert is doing well, but should be doing better".  For years I would read that and try to figure out how the teacher would know what I was capable of, as I felt that I was doing as well as I could.  I had no clue where that comment came from - but I learned later that they had access to my standardized tests (some were like IQ tests).  I always did well on those tests and they were judging me against them.  I'm still angry to this day that they were doing that.

Hi people,

As an FYI, here is a study that was done in Scotland to assess what's called "Synthetic Phonics" versus "Analytic Phonics".  The form of phonics that I used is what is called "Synthetic Phonics", although I had never heard of either term at the time.  I think the word "Synthetic" means "synthesized", as in putting together sounds to make words (rather than meaning artificial, as there's nothing artificial about it).  Basically you teach a few sounds, and then start blending them into easy words, and then build up from that (the report explains it well).

Analytic Phonics appears to be an approach in which the kids use words to try to learn sounds.  Like for the letter "c", they would give the kids "car", "cake", "candle", etc.  Not as direct, and much slower.  They say in the study that the kids are taught one letter per week...which means that they just might get through the alphabet in an entire school year.  I remember they were doing that at David's pre-school (pre-K) and it seemed like a very long, slow, process (obviously it didn't affect David though).   I suspect this approach is used more commonly here than Synthetic Phonic.

In the study, it's not even close, Synthetic Phonics (the way I taught it) wins hands-down - which is no surprise to me - but somehow these studies don't make it into our educational system.


Here's the study:
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2005/02/20682/52383

Here's the easier-to-read PDF version: 
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/933/0044071.pdf

Thanks for this!

You're welcome.  I was just reading up on this stuff and I remembered reading about that study several years ago.  I always thought of phonics as monolithic, but it's not - there are fast ways and slow ways to teach it.  In that study, they only spent 16 weeks with the kids (age 5 at the time, I think) and got them reading.  Then they left them alone, other than checking up on their progress.  Most impressive to me was that boys actually did better than girls...which may be why real phonics is so despised by the establishment.

I'm not sure how this translates when teaching a 2 year old, but when I began teaching my oldest child to read at age 3.5 - he was a motivated reader and I was a horrible teacher. I used too many letters at once. It took a good year to get him reading well. He didn't make the jump to reading like an adult until middle of first grade. He was still way ahead of his peers but in reading this I can see where I made my mistake. I like to introduce a lot and confuse little kids.    :blush:

Synthetic phonics is really, really popular in Scotland and the UK in general.  One of the most popular programs, being taught in schools is the Jolly Phonics program.  We have many Jolly Phonics materials we have brought back from there (hubby is from there and we make regular trips back to visit family). It is VERY child friendly and is well suited for very young kiddos! We have a fantastic Jolly Phonics storybook reinforcing the letter sounds and other phonemes.

http://jollylearning.co.uk/overview-about-jolly-phonics/

Very informative article. Thanks for sharing.

I think this is a key factor in the phonics vs whole word debate. The type of phonics instruction varies greatly depending on the country you live in and even on the particular school you attend. Many people who are anti-phonics are thinking only of analytic phonics, when clearly the research points to synthetic phonics as the only phonics approach to take. I have been recommending Reading Bear to anyone who will listen to me as it is an excellent example of synthetic phonics.

One aspect of that research I loved is the speed at which children progressed. The fact that they learned to both read & spell one word ('pat') in their first lesson was fantastic & must have done so much to boost the children's reading confidence & their interest in subsequent lessons.

Keri - Jolly Phonics is pretty popular here in Ireland too, although it is not used in every school with many still using analytic phonics unfortunately.

As an aside, I learned to read using the whole word approach (Doman) as a toddler. I am using both synthetic phonics & whole word approaches with my toddler - she is definitely learning far more quickly using phonics than whole word. I think this difference may be partly due to learning style - I am a very visual learner & she is not.

Nice replies.  I did a bit more looking around to see what others said about the study.

It seems that the people that were shooting down the Scotland study did so because it wasn't up to the standards they demanded and also because the kids were only 9 months ahead in comprehension (versus 3.5 years in reading otherwise).  It was kind of amusing to read - the implication seemed to be that there was some way kids could be several years ahead in comprehension without being able to read - LOL.

So, regarding the scientific rigor test - it's real easy to shoot down a study by saying that it didn't control this or that - but it's plain-as-day when they don't bother mentioning their own controlled studies (which probably never existed) to prove their system works.

As to the comprehension aspect, one thing that wasn't always clearly stated about the Scotland study was these kids were about as disadvantaged as they get in the UK, so getting their comprehension even up to grade level was a major accomplishment - not to mention getting the rest of their reading capability way beyond that (as they got virtually no help from their parents).

I guess the bottom-line for parents is understand that everyone now at least gives lip-service to phonics - it's just been proven hands-down.  Teachers can no longer get away with saying that Whole Language is better, and that phonics doesn't work and shouldn't be used.  Parents, even the ones that don't drink this stuff, know that's a non-starter.  But "the establishment" attitudes don't change, so they tell parents things like "no one-size fits all" and we use the "best of both methods".  Just beware, because those are generally code-words for telling you that they don't take synthetic phonics seriously, but they may teach a sound or two when the kids are really stuck.

I like what I see of the Jolly Phonics, it seems to be right in line with the way I taught David.  Just the sounds, no fluff.   I probably would have bought something like that if I knew it existed back then...but it was still common sense to me.  If you want a kid to learn to read "cat", you teach him "ca", "aa", "ta".  No need to have him singing songs or doing other stunts.

I see your point, but on the flipside, I taught my kids all of their basic letter sounds (with short vowels) by ages 15 and 13 months old. This was done easily by playing a selection of about 3 youtube videos 2-5 times a day which they ADORED (each about 1-2 minutes long?). It took them each about a month and a half to learn all their basic letter sounds if I remember correctly. During this time, I continued to teach whole words through Little Reader and I also practiced blending CVC words on a regular basis, along with a few other things.

So, I admire your "no fluff" approach (which clearly worked well with David) but when working with very little kids, I think those recommendations can be bent a certain amount. We're not talking about first graders or even kindergarteners here, but rather babies and toddlers for the most part. They are in such an absorptive state and if music can better engage them and get them reading by 15-18 months as in the case of my kids, then the "fluff" was well purposed. I just don't want any parents here to draw conclusions from this conversation that may not be as applicable to the youngest BrillKids learners. And whole words/intuitive phonics are an entirely different animal when used to introduce literacy to a baby versus when used as a sole instructional method for 3-6 year olds.  Just my 2 cents!

Letter sounds and CVC words seem a lot like synthetic phonics to me. It's basically readingbear.org - other than the site words, doesn't sound like you deviated too much TmT.

As for "only" 9 months ahead in comprehension: Advancing in comprehension is far more of a job than simple decoding. It requires, aside from decoding mastery, a lot of background knowledge. That knowledge is often factual or even simple vocabulary. I recommend E.D. Hirsch's stuff for further reading about on the topic.

For this reason, I plan on adopting a memory strategy for facts and more advanced vocabulary when the time is right. If you build those two things along with the decoding skill, you will wind up with a child that far surpasses a year's reading placement, IMO. This is maybe the biggest thing (other than math, ha ha) that I plan on doing and cannot wait to implement

My explanation was in reference to the quote below, because we chose to teach through cartoon music youtube videos


With very young children in particular, I think learning through music can be very effective because it easily captivates a 1 year old,  making the process not just painless, but enjoyable. :)

PokerDad, you seem to have a great plan. Can you elaborate your plan on facts memory strategy and advanced vocabulary. What tools and resources are you planning to use?

JollyPhonics might be good!  :)

I agree - there is a huge difference between someone who is 15 months and someone who is 3.5 years old.  I won't even begin to guess as to how I would approach someone that young - so you guys are having good results - so much the better.  As I've often said, my sample size is ONE, and I can't reset him to try out different approaches (not that I would, though).

Just thought I would give you an update on our Saxon progress.
We started of guns blazing at 2 sections per day. I quickly reasiled that perhaps our lives might turn into only math at this pace so we readjusted. The problem mostly stems from the lack of free time Natalya has due to her gymnastics. Did I mention she got tested for the next level and passed?  :biggrin: So next year her commitments are going to increase in time.
Another problem we encountered is that now that I am back a t work I can't mark 2 sections a day! ( I can't even fold the washing or mop the floors!  lol )
After careful thought we decided one section a day was a reasonable and not all consuming goal. It has been about 60-70 days since we started and she has done 50 lessons. I was hoping we would catch up on the ones she missed over her school holidays but unfortunately I didn't count on the fact that since I am working they still don't have any more free time as they are in care.
So at one section a day and 120 sections in the books we should manage 2 books a year no problem. I am a realist and will allow for a few days off here and there ( camping, competition season, my off days  :biggrin: ) she is getting quite a lot of the work done in the car on the way to and from school and Gymnastics. She prefers to do each section in two or three short sittings rather than all at once. But I am strict about finishing every question so I don't care how she gets them done.
There is quite a bit more American only type questions than I first thought. Money, measurement and temperature as well as dates all need to be converted. Mostly I leave it to Natalya to convert them but she often gets confused with quarters of measurement and quarters of money, mixing them up.
She probably asks me a question once on every second section and is working independently apart from reminders " Nat, do your math!" "Nat, Focus!" are the most common things out of my mouth  lol she makes 1-2 mistakes each packet but sometimes gets them all right. The onces she gets wrong are always silly mistakes or questions she missed/skipped or didn't understand so didn't attempt them. We always do those ones again  :D
I now have enough Saxon books to keep us in math for a while. I have 4/5 and 6/5 in digital. We are printing these and stapling them into sections. I give her about 5 sections at a time and she tries to get them done before I print more! ( she caught me out once as we ran out of ink!) I bought the older versions of 7/6 and 8/7 and have algebra on the way from an awesome brill mummy :)
I need answer keys for all of these older style books if anyone has any, they are very hard to get and I think I would love a scanned copy of someone elses  :yes: My brain hurts.
It's end of the school year here. I got my children's workbooks for school back. I looked through their math books and was shocked at how LOW the level of math they expected from them was. I mean I was truly shocked! And I am a teacher!  :ohmy: This school is fairly advanced in it's teaching of math so I can only imagine what the rest of the country is doing in math. Anyway even my daughter was surprised when she compared what she does in her Saxon to her school work. " no wonder I do the school math faster now mum" she said! She is easily 2 years ahead of her peers in math confidence, skills and calculation. Probably not yet in different techniques and new concepts but that will come before this book is finished. Interestingly the school still hasn't nticed she can do grade 5 math in grade 3. The teacher noticed she hasn't tested to her ability and that she is more confident but that's it.
Finally, having all the math focus in the house has led to the other two wanting to do math. I have my 6 year old doing a page in a grade 2 book each day but she is clearly unchallenged and has been nagging me to print out some Saxon for her. I am undecided as to the solution for her. It would be a big time commitment for me to start her on Saxon 5/4 now and I just don't have it. I am not sure what to do but may give her singapore 3A and see how she goes with it. Or I may give her the first 20 lessons in Saxon 5/4 ( the revision section) and see if I survive teaching her or not  lol

Beautiful, Manda! So inspiring!  Tell your daughter all the BrillMommies say to keep up the good work!! lol

Mandab, very good work on the Saxon Math progress and many thanks for the update.



As per time commitment to mark 2 sections a day, I feel getting the answer keys might be very useful and time-saving for you. The Saxon Math 5/4 sums are quite easy, but since you’re accelerating, the answer keys become highly useful. I'll have to check for them myself because I’ll definitely need them being that I’m aiming for acceleration too. Not sure if I can find them on Amazon or Abebooks, but I’ll definitely check. I’m assuming that if not for the gymnastics, you would have easily gotten 3 Saxon Math books completed in a year. But since gymnastics is her second love (apart from math), 2 books per year is not bad at all. That will comfortably keep her 2 grade levels up. Good job!



And thanks for the heads up about the low math standards in the school. Robert was spot-on on that, and that is one of the reason I'm working towards my goal of keeping kid 3 years ahead in math. We'll see. So that even if the school decides to invent 50 ways of teaching addition, that won't bother me one bit, my kid would already have a solid math foundation from me that would serve him well for life. Your comment made me think: ``Could that be the reason why it is so easy to accelerate a child in math than in reading?’’ Because most schools do a poor job in math anyway, a child that is accelerated in math by the parents has a higher chance of success than one that is not?  Is that why Wajih and Zoihab were able to get such success at very young ages? I remember their parents’ testimonial here - http://www.channel4.com/programmes/child-genius/articles/testimonial-from-wajih-and-zohaibs-parents .



On your second daughter wanting to join in, if I were you, I would let her jump on the bandwagon. It's not every day you see a child wanting to do math, in fact it's rare, so I would let her join in. Seriously! You may start her from the Saxon 5/4 beginnings, and allow her go at a slower pace, and get the answer keys for this time. Because Nat has already mastered Saxon 5/4, Nat could help her with bits, and that is good for general sibling congeniality.
This is what Wajih and Zoihaib’s dad said in the testimonial about starting the younger kid in math due to the success of the older kid:

``Heartened by Wajih's extraordinary academic successes, we started applying similar techniques on his younger brother, Zohaib, who enjoyed several advantages over his older sibling, ie having a source of inspiration in Wajih, an ardent competitive spirit to do one better and an additional family member to turn to for technical help. This has resulted in Zohaib reaching the same milestones in mathematics as Wajih but at faster speeds.’’ QUOTE ENDS.

Further thoughts?

I am also using saxon withs my girls , and everysince i read this thread i now have higher expectation from them so far they doing 2 lesson per day , but checking their answers have become a pain in the butt. ( i have 6 kids so is hard to keep up with the checking even with the answer key.
Iast week I found this website that is call saxon checker ,the kids will enter their answer in the computer and the checker will check and not let them go to the next question until they get the current problem right . it sounds like an answer to my prayers.
I am thinking to give it a try, just waiting for my homeschool budget to kick in.
here is the website
http://www.draardsmassaxonmathchecker.com/

Yes I do need to get the next kid started! Great quote Nee1, just the  :tongue:  I needed! I am printing as we speak to take a couple of packets camping.
As to the school levels being so low, well it's not actually the math functions that are low it's just that the questions they have them do are really really basic. For example when they were doing area of a rectangle the hardest rectangle had a side 5cm and one 2cm! Sure they learnt area but they didn't get to practice any calculation! This one they have known since they were in prep! 2x5 isn't enough for grade 3 I reckon. Her Saxon has harder problems and has them getting harder as they remember the formula. I like that. All the questions she is doing in Saxon are harder than the ones she does at school even when the techniques are the same.
Most of the books I got from betterworldbooks, finding answer keys is just harder as it's difficult to determine whether you are buying the right thing. I think these should be available online somewhere as the books are not the same anymore so copyright issues are irrelevant. I just havnt found any online yet. Te computer marking sounds interesting but I don't think it would work for us. Time at the computer is a precious comodity here too. I have kept ALL of Natalya's work so when the next two kids do it I can mark quickly using her answers. That way I am only doing the calculations once!  :biggrin: for the higher levels if I can't get the answer keys I will organize with the math teacher at school to mark them. By then she should be far enough ahead to be a "special case" and it shouldn't be difficult to convince him :) I don't want my lack of time to slow her down. I am hoping to find time to put all the answers into a PDF to share.
Two sections a day is quite achievable. It is a big time commitment and would need to be in two sittings. If home schooling 2 would be my aim. One a day in our case has Natalya 2/3 years ahead of grade level by half way through her school year and 4/3 levels ahead by the end of this year. Due to the timing of our school years it's harder to calculate out. Even at this rate she will excell beyond her peers purely because the quality of the questions is more challenging.

I was going to wait a few weeks to post on this subject but seeming this thread is active again (and I have a few minutes) I thought I would post now.  We decided to start our 5 year old son on Saxon 5/4 thanks to the free PDF that was linked on one of the threads.  It has been 9 weeks - we have just begun week 10 - and he is up to lesson 98.  I've been very happy with Saxon and really like the spiral method they use.  It seems that if he doesn't completely understand a concept that within a few days of just doing 2 or 3 questions a day he gets it.  Whereas I think if we sat down and tried to do a whole page of the same type of question that it would just end up so frustrating - for both of us! 

At the moment we usually do 2 lessons a day mon to fri and either catch up or lately we have been able to do a couple of extra on the weekends.  Even though we homeschool we aren't going to continue at this rate and for Saxon 6/5 we will drop back to 1 a day on average.  I'm hopeful that as he gets older and matures that we will be able to increase the amount of lessons though.  At the moment he likes me to be sitting with him while he is working and needs lots of reminders to stay on task.  As he gets more independent we will increase the number of lessons. 

As for the American money/measurements etc... There is quite a lot of them but I simply haven't bothered about converting it.  I figure it is just another concept that he can learn.  And if he can do Saxon 5/4 with no problems at 5 years old than knowing the difference between American measurements and ours isn't going to be an issue later in life.  I was pleased to see that the metric system is included though. 

Doing this has made me realize how much he could achieve if he (and every other child) was given more opportunity. 

I Found the quote about the two brothers interesting as I was just talking with my husband about this same thing as my 2 year old is now doing a beginning school type math workbook that I had as she wants to be included.  She is also writing letters/words earlier than I remember him doing as we'll.  she is very competitive though.

Finally, I would be interested in any more Saxon workbooks, answer keys etc.. That anyone has links to as we are now going to have to start looking for them to continue on (and shipping to Australia is not likely to be cheap). 

Have you tried the Aussie Homeschool website http://aussiehomeschool.com.au/ and look in their classifieds section. I have seen some Saxon books for sale and maybe some as freebies - just go through the ads and see what's available.

Thanks, Michjas.  I hadn't looked on that site.  On there now and there are some decent prices.  Will have to keep my eye out for the next few books we need (and anything else that looks interesting :biggrin: )

Hi people,

I realize this isn't a thread to bash public schools, although lots of us do it by default.  But this jewel just popped up here in Texas.  What's happened is that virtually all of the public schools in Texas (80% of them) did an end-around to get away from the annoying accountability requirements of our state.  They did it right under the noses of parents, legislators, or others that think they follow education (myself included).  Essentially the schools, through a state-chartered organization, developed a curriculum that they keep so secret that teachers have to sign a contract threatening criminal penalties, if they disclose any of it, to anyone, even parents.

They have completely circumvented state law which guarantees access of class materials to parents and they managed to do it through some loopholes they found in the way our school funding system works.

So, for those interested, simply type "CSCOPE" into Google look down the page a bit (past the propaganda links) and you'll see what's going on.  It's spooky that they could pull it off without virtually no one knowing it, or at least understanding the significance of it.  For background, here in Texas, we have an elected State Board of Education, whose job it is to review and rate curricula.  The schools don't like it, since many times what's approved lines up with Texas values, rather the values of the schools.  So they got around it.

I only bring this up so that parents understand just how devious these people can be, and that they should never trust the primary education of their kids (i.e., reading and math to them).  For example, with CSCOPE, there are no textbooks, it's all on the Internet...and only visible to teachers, and can change in an instant (if the webmaster decides to do that).  So what really stirred this up were parents that wanted to help their kids, but had absolutely nothing in the way of reference material.  No books, no handouts, nothing.  I heard a parent complaining about that last week on the radio.  But, of course, that was only the tip of the iceberg, as the curricula appears to be terrible, and would have never been approved here, had they gone the conventional way.

Jenene, do you still have the Saxon PDFs? the links are not valid anymore and I would like to have a look to see which is the right level for my eldest (8 years old).
Thank you very much in advance.

NPLight I have send you a personal message.

I do have the PDFs saved if anyone else needs them.  Although after using the PDF for 5/4 I did end up buying a second hand set of 6/5 as I decided it was worth it to have the solution manual.

Bob,

I have a cousin who is a teacher in the public school system and she is always raving about how the school is going paperless.  I am impressed with the capabilities of technology and do think our children should learn how to use them but I was shocked nothing beats a book with a highlighter.  I simply can't fathom staring at a screen hours and hours while expecting your brain to learn and understand the info without getting a headache.  Now hearing that the subject matter is questionable makes me cringe thinking about all the young minds that will never be given the chance to reach their full potential.  They are robbing the world of its future.

Oh my you have just scared the crap out of kerileanne! She lives in Texas. I doubt Alex will ever see the inside of one of their schools.
Even wthi full access at times I find it hard to put my finger on exactly what they are teaching at school. The curriculum is open to interpretation and that interpretation can make a huge difference to what is taught. In our state there is only one line in the curriculum about handwriting. ONE LINE! it certainly doesn't cover fonts, typing, print or cursive. It's just covers legibility. That's all they deamed important apparently.  Math interpretations would make a difference to the level of difficulty taught within the math strands. Not to mention the amount of practice time and whether any math facts are memorised.
Our Saxon is still progressing nicely. We are managing just under one a day now that school is in full swing and gym is 6 hours a week.
Tiana has just started and I may need a lot of wine to keep going with her but I haven't set her any goals yet so that will help. I am of course completely open to bribing my children to complete their extra studies  :laugh: school and home work is expected as is piano practice for the older 2. Saxon is a extra so bribes are available  :tongue: Tiana and I are just polar opposites so it will be a long ride no mater what with her.  :yes:
I have the PDFs also if anyone missed out. But they were probably removed from the website because it was illegal to have them there  :blink:  :rolleyes:  :wacko: I assume they still have some copyright.
Ps I wish I lived in the states right now SOOOO jealous!  ;)

I hear you Mela,

One of the scary parts about an on-line curricula is the way it can be changed.  Here in Texas, if you are involved in CSCOPE, and are called to testify to the State Senate, it can go like this (where they did have a hearing, and part of what I'm saying is true...I just don't know how much):

1)  You are given questions in advance, based on people that have disclosed some CSCOPE comments.  One question asks about CSCOPE stating that the Boston Tea Party was a terrorist act (which is what they said).
2)  You arrive at the State Capitol, swear to tell the truth under threat of perjury.
3)  You are asked about the Boston Tea Party and you state that that reference has been deleted from CSCOPE, which is true, as the reference was deleted a few days ago, after the questions arrived.
4)  The hearing ends, you go home.
5)  The next day, you put the reference back into CSCOPE, without having committed perjury.

Number 1, above is likely true, number 3 is true, and I don't know about number 5, but there's nothing to stop it.

My point is that the curricula is now totally in control of the schools and parents and others never can be sure of what they're seeing or being told about.  In fact, the curricula could easily be 'updated' at 3:30 PM every day to something likeable to the parents.  So when the parents come to see the teachers, they pull up a very nice, traditional curricula, but by 7 AM the next morning it's back to the old version for the kids.

I realize that I'm sounding paranoid, but I follow education as close as I can in Texas and I am really shaken up by the way the schools were able to slip in CSCOPE, bypassing all accountability that our state has (which is a lot), and then deploy it to 80% of our school districts, almost without a whimper.

So, what I'm getting at, is that there has to be some configuration control of these electronic curricula if they are  used (basically a locked-down version that cannot be modified without an official revision), otherwise it's no different than a contract that you can modify at will after signing.  But I doubt that legislators can figure that all out.  I wasn't even able to figure that out until it was pointed out at our State Senate hearing.

As to what's better - I'm with you - BOOKS!!!  They worked for my kid, starting with Saxon Math and all through college.  He never had to deal with a "virtual" curriculum and he did fine.

"The curriculum is open to interpretation and that interpretation can make a huge difference to what is taught. In our state there is only one line in the curriculum about handwriting. ONE LINE! it certainly doesn't cover fonts, typing, print or cursive. It's just covers legibility. That's all they deamed important apparently.  Math interpretations would make a difference to the level of difficulty taught within the math strands. Not to mention the amount of practice time and whether any math facts are memorised."

Mandabplus3 ,

I remember reading somewhere that schools JUST LOVE parental involvement...until.  Until the parents start to question the curricula.  Then those people turn into Tasmanian Devils.  Try it, you'll think you were a bit south of Hobart or something.  It seems that they like parents to help with the chores, run the bake sales, chaperone the trips, but don't want them anywhere near the "Adult" decisions,  I read that in the context of either parents trying to get Saxon Math into their schools (back when they were competing head-to-head with Big Textbook, as I call them), or trying to get Everyday (or Connected) Math out of their schools.  Either way, the parents were presenting their own research, and the schools did not like it one bit.


"Our Saxon is still progressing nicely. We are managing just under one a day now that school is in full swing and gym is 6 hours a week."

Nice, you're doing fine.  I agree with the others, don't worry about the SI units, metric is easy to pick up.  My kid had to do the same for college and never skipped a beat (and neither did I).

I am certainly going to have to do some more research into all this. One of my best friend with 3 young kids lives in TX and I want to make sure she is up to date on everything.

However... I was under the impression that all states had to adopt the common core standards by 2014. I wonder what made Texas exempt. I also thought I remember reading that Texas was one of the few states that did not use the horrid Everyday Math curriculum. And I applauded them for that.
They use that everyday math here in ohio and upper elementary students are struggling. And contrary to the initial philosophy  it is not teaching mathematical thinking.

"However... I was under the impression that all states had to adopt the common core standards by 2014. I wonder what made Texas exempt. I also thought I remember reading that Texas was one of the few states that did not use the horrid Everyday Math curriculum. And I applauded them for that.
They use that everyday math here in ohio and upper elementary students are struggling. And contrary to the initial philosophy  it is not teaching mathematical thinking."

Actually, Common Core is by bribery, not mandate.  All but 4 states (Texas being one of those 4) took the bait (as I say), and now have their curricula handed to them from DC.  California had to tone down their math standards to match the feds - they no longer require Algebra in 8th grade, but now in 9th (albiet, 8th was pretty agreesive for them, but it's interesting that they had to go backwards).

Yes, our State Board of Education rejected Everyday Math.  Schools are still permitted to use it, but the state won't pay for the books...so they wind up not using it (i.e., good).  But all of that is mute with CSCOPE, as there's no accountibility with it, and if they want to take the worst from Everyday Math, no one can stop them, and, in fact, no one will even know.  And as you do your research, you'll find that pretty much what they did...their approach to teaching has a lot in common with Everyday Math.

Here an article discussing this curriculum. Just wow.

http://www.wnd.com/2013/02/parents-gain-access-to-secret-school-curriculum/

Hey Robert  :D  since your back again ( I know you missed us  ;) )
What are your thoughts on having the children mark their own Saxon lessons?
Also what are your thoughts on reducing the quantity output if children are struggling to get accuracy?

We have another thread going which is Saxon heavy  :yes:  and these are the key questions. The children under this curriculum are that to be self sufficient and independant in their education. Saxon comes first then they mark their own and fix their own mistakes. Then they write whatever for a page ( which daddy marks) and then they read classics and history for the remaining time up to 6 hours. Apparently the curriculum is effective.

My thoughts are sure, have your kids mark them if you trust them to do it accurately. But I also think its important for parents to mark them too, in order to keep an eye on where your kids are falling behind. If they constantly get the same questions wrong then that is a problem that needs addressing. If they are marking it you may never know. I make my daughter go and fix any mistakes she makes herself. If she is completely stick I send her to look up the lesson it was taught in ( if possible) or we sit together and I ask guiding questions until she figures it out.
As to reducing the quantity, I think if a kid is struggling they really need more not less...but we just do as much as time permits anyway so that one won't effect us.
Here is the thread link to the other topic.
http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-older-child/swann-family-10-children-with-ma-at-age-16!-book-review-and-discussion-thread/

Hi Mandabplus3,

Yea, this has been my little hiding place.  I haven't tried diving into the rest of this website.  I'll comment on your posting:

"Hey Robert since your back again ( I know you missed us)
What are your thoughts on having the children mark their own Saxon lessons?"

NEVER!!  Well, at least in my case (and my kid agrees, I asked him), and I'd suspect in most cases for boys.  The way that I see it, unless the kid is really motivated, such as begging to do Saxon sections rather than X-Box 360, then I simply would not trust the kid to accurately mark up his own work.  His motivation will be to get back to something more fun, as quickly as possible (i.e., Mom!!, I got them all right).  That was certainly David's case and it doesn't mean that the kid is a bad or anything, it just means that the kid, understandably, cannot see any value at all in doing those weird math problems, when television, video games, and who knows what else are out there.  In other words, the kid will cheat in whatever ways can get him liberated from that book.  This question is a no-brainer for me, for my situation.  There may be other kids that are a bit more motivated, but not David.


"Also what are your thoughts on reducing the quantity output if children are struggling to get accuracy?"

Not having anyone other than David, I'll give my thoughts, but I don't really have a basis for comparison.  I think that kids can spend about 15 to 20 hours a week on Saxon, which is about what David spent.  It's hard work for them, but it pays off big-time, as the total number of hours they spend getting through math, to Calculus level is probably half of what it would be if they went at a slower pace (and had to keep re-learning).  So, to answer your question - you do it by the number of hours.  I think more than 20 in a week would be tough (but maybe possible), so even if the kid is slow, you have to limit to that.  But you must demand the accuracy, or your wasting your time (and his).  If he's having trouble with earlier stuff, then go back and get that covered, before trying to progress in Saxon.  The number of sections that I suggest doing per week is really based on the assumption that the earlier stuff (all the way back to addition tables) have been fully mastered.  If not, then you definitely need to slow down - and you can, since you (not the classroom teacher) control the pace.


"We have another thread going which is Saxon heavy and these are the key questions. The children under this curriculum are (taught) to be self sufficient and independant in their education."

Sorry, that's new-age stuff for me.  I'm a proponent of total traditional education - that's how it's done in Asia and they run circles around us.  That's also how I did it with David, and he's run circles around everyone anywhere near his age.  I realize that we're always searching for that magic bullet...but it doesn't exist in education, it's simply hard work.


"Saxon comes first then they mark their own and fix their own mistakes. Then they write whatever for a page ( which daddy marks) and then they read classics and history for the remaining time up to 6 hours. Apparently the curriculum is effective."

I don't know the age, but overall, I don't see much value in anything other than reading and math, until about high school (maybe a bit before).  In other words, if reading classics (as opposed to learning to read) and history (and science) detract from reaching the 15 to 20 hours of Saxon (and/or remedial math, if needed), then, in my opinion, the schedule should be rebalanced.  As I see it, kids have one chance to become very good in reading and very good in math, and that is when they are very young.  Regardless of what the 'experts' say, if the kids miss that opportunity, they may learn reading and math, but it will be a struggle, maybe for life.  Other stuff, history and science, will come much, much easier if reading and math have already been fully mastered.  Stuff beyond that, gymnastics, piano, karate, etc. - maybe do some of that, but not to the point where it cuts into the number of hours for math (and early reading)...I know that I sound like a radical, but I give my opinions here - no one has to listen to me.  It just drives me up the wall to hear other parents treat Saxon as optional, while gymnastics, violin, and other stuff are mandatory.


"My thoughts are sure, have your kids mark them if you trust them to do it accurately. But I also think its important for parents to mark them too, in order to keep an eye on where your kids are falling behind.  If they constantly get the same questions wrong then that is a problem that needs addressing. If they are marking it you may never know. I make my daughter go and fix any mistakes she makes herself. If she is completely stick I send her to look up the lesson it was taught in ( if possible) or we sit together and I ask guiding questions until she figures it out."

I agree, other than saying why bother even having them do the marking?  It doesn't take long for parents to do the same and like you said, you can tell where the problems are.  Or if there are enough mistakes, then the kid is simply not trying, which is what happened with David a number of times.  In those cases, I ripped up his work and made him redo the section, and I wasn't happy about it.  He got the message that that tactic wasn't going to work on me.  Also, just as you said, I also had David look back at the earlier sections and try his best to answer the question.  Obviously if he was completely stuck, I would start giving hints, but only after he spent a decent amount of time trying.


"As to reducing the quantity, I think if a kid is struggling they really need more not less...but we just do as much as time permits anyway so that one won't effect us."

Exactly, as I said.  But if you're at 15 to 20 hours on Saxon, you're about maxed out, so reducing quantity really isn't a factor...the kid is working just as hard, but on earlier material.

Wow, I think I met my match with that Robinson guy (on the other thread).  He seems to think just like me (unlike 99% of the rest of the country)...that the kid is clueless and needs direction and discipline.  I don't feel like as much of a radical listening to this guy...and seeing the respect he has here.

Nice to have you back Robert.  I know I enjoy reading what you have to say.  Glad to see you have read the other thread and like what Dr Robinson has to say.  The independence in learning that is fostered in the families that we are discussing is very much within a structured framework (curriculum and schedule).

Mandabplus3, I know this question was directed to Robert but I just thought I would share my plan for self-marking.  (And I reserve the right to change my mind on this at any stage in the next 10 years or so!)  I agree completely that a child who has no accountability in marking their own work is quickly going to discover that they can 'get it all right' and move on to the more fun things as Robert says.  For those of us who do want to work toward independence (which I think becomes more important to us the more children that we have  :biggrin: ) than we have to work out how to work in accountability while still having the child work as independently as possible.

At this stage as my son is not yet 6 years old, I do spend a majority of the lesson/marking sitting with him.  Not so much to help him as to simply keep him on track  :mellow:   By the end of 5/4 he was getting much more independent/focuses but then we had a 3 week break .... :blink: .... and we begin again....  Anyway, my ultimate goal is for him to work mostly indpendently including correcting for a lesson per day and then on Saturdays he will do the test that is available (we have the 3 book set).  I will then mark this test.  I hope that this will give me a good idea of idea of how he is really going.  Obviously, I will also be around during the week while he is doing his lesson and (silently) checking random questions as he works/marks.  Now, if there is an issue with honesty with marking things would change very quickly and some type of 'incentive' to work properly would need to be discussed.

Thanks!
So it looks like I can get one of my three kids to mark their own work occasionally. I don't trust the other two at all!  lol since thet just isn't going to save me much time I think I will just continue to mark them all. Sigh
We arnt getting to 15-20 hours of Saxon a week. We get to 10 most weeks. Should be 10 a week from now on as life just got routined!
Robert you do a lovely job of slapping me in the face each time you visit  lol
" it just drives me up the wall to hear other parents treat Saxon as optional and gymnastic, violin and other stuff as mandatory"
well I thought my Saxon WAS mandatory but it appears even I am too relaxed. I thought i was a hard ass! Well you will be proud to hear I told my girl I wasn't driving her to gym until her Saxon was done. She knows I never say anything I don't mean so she knew I meant it. She was of course done in time.  :tongue: time to adjust the rules and expectations a little.  :yes:
Since our last chat I have changed my mind a little about the reading. It appears I do believe their is still more learning to be done in reading. I had decide de that like you once they can read well they are done with reading but I no longer think that way. I believe there is still more learning to be done WITH reading as the focus. Learning about sentance structure, creative writing, developing a sence of world experiences, history, vocabulary, developing deeper thought patterns or creativity and deeper comprehension. Now I see a need for more reading where before I was done with it. However I don't see that as an excuse to take time away from our Saxon so the girls are required to read from a selection of books I have given them each night before bed.
I also can use our dead time in the car for audio stories as since the point of reading now IS NOT to learn to read but to learn, audio stories became more useful.
The writing part of the whole thing I just can't find room for just now so that is shelved for now hopefully school will cover it well enough for now.
Yes I did think you might like that Robinson guy  :biggrin:

"Robert you do a lovely job of slapping me in the face each time you visit.
" it just drives me up the wall to hear other parents treat Saxon as optional and gymnastic, violin and other stuff as mandatory" "

LOL.  Obviously I don't know you specifics, but back in David's early reading days I was trying to teach a couple of girls his age...they could make it to my house twice a week.  It was hopeless.  Now, one of the two families that use Saxon (the Russian one, not the Hispanic one - Americans are hopeless, they just think David is a "smart" kid - you know that line)  just doesn't have much time for it either, what with Russian lessons, gymnastics, and who knows what else.  But they try, so I give them credit.

Hi Jenene,

I'll make a few comments here:

------------------------------------------------------------
"Glad to see you have read the other thread and like what Dr Robinson has to say.  The independence in learning that is fostered in the families that we are discussing is very much within a structured framework (curriculum and schedule)."

I agree, it is structured, especially the way Dr. Robinson ran his home.  And, of everything, and I mean everything, in that video, the only disagreement that I had was the self-marking...and I consider that very minor, since if the kid is honest, it doesn't matter who grades, and if he's not going to be honest, then the parent needs to either take over, or somehow make the kid understand that honest is a smoother path.  I also have to yield to a single parent with 6 kids - what was not much trouble for me with grading David can become a lot more trouble with many kids, so yes, it's important to find ways to keep time available.

Now the Unschooling stuff that was discussed is frightening to me, and is one of the few non-physical abuses that I would support CPS taking kids away.  If a home schooled kid wants to play with Hot Wheels or a video game to the point that he doesn't learn math or reading, then he needs new parents.

As far as independent studying goes, I'm about talked out...

Mandabplus3 ,

"So it looks like I can get one of my three kids to mark their own work occasionally. I don't trust the other two at all! since that just isn't going to save me much time I think I will just continue to mark them all."

Yea, and you'll get good at it, so it'll be a breeze.


"Well I thought my Saxon WAS mandatory but it appears even I am too relaxed. I thought i was a hard ass! Well you will be proud to hear I told my girl I wasn't driving her to gym until her Saxon was done. She knows I never say anything I don't mean so she knew I meant it. She was of course done in time.  tongue time to adjust the rules and expectations a little."

I like it.  Use the stuff she like to motivate her to do the important stuff (i.e., Saxon).


"Since our last chat I have changed my mind a little about the reading. It appears I do believe their is still more learning to be done in reading. I had decide that like you once they can read well they are done with reading but I no longer think that way. I believe there is still more learning to be done WITH reading as the focus. Learning about sentence structure, creative writing, developing a sense of world experiences, history, vocabulary, developing deeper thought patterns or creativity and deeper comprehension."

There probably is, I just dig into it.  But if learning this stuff doesn't detract from learning math, then there's nothing wrong it.  The point being that this can be learned later, but not math (to speak of).


"Now I see a need for more reading where before I was done with it. However I don't see that as an excuse to take time away from our Saxon so the girls are required to read from a selection of books I have given them each night before bed."

Then you're fine.


"The writing part of the whole thing I just can't find room for just now so that is shelved for now hopefully school will cover it well enough for now."

School will.  And they will fill in other stuff.  That was part of my strategy with David.  Since he was going to school, I figured any loose ends that I missed would get picked up, and they did.  Reading and Math are the really, really, critical stuff, because (in my opinion) the schools teach them in a way that they know will fail the kid, and as I always say, the kid only gets one chance to learn reading and math, and be fluent at it.  They may still learn it later, but they will suffer greatly.


"Yes I did think you might like that Robinson guy."

I'm going to watch it again and then put up a posting of what I agree with, since he says it some much better than I can.

Being that we are in an early learning forum where the emphasis is on teaching (in a fun and unpressured way but still teaching) babies and young children to read, do math, learn perfect pitch and so much more I seriously doubt that any of us would actually be unschoolers.  I'm sure we may follow the child's lead to a degree and expose them to the things that interest them but I imagine that there are still expectations and structure within this.  And it seems that those of us with older children tend to start imposing/expecting more structure as they grow older and get closer to the more formal schooling years.  To me when you see what a little structure and routine can do (have a BABY reading/counting etc...) then you are more encouraged to expose your child to good curriculum, books etc... With a structure and expectations of outcomes and not just let them decide what to do/learn and hope it works out.

From what I have read most children who are unschooled learn to read by themselves usually around age 7.  I just can't see that brillkids/Little Reader and unschooling can work together.

Are there any unschoolers here??  Any thoughts??

"Are there any unschoolers here??  Any thoughts?? "

No, sorry, I didn't mean to imply there were - I doubt it too.  The term just set me off because they're the same bunch of people that have wrecked our schools...and now they wreck their own kids even worse.

And no, if you're teaching the kid what he needs to learn (or at least being sure it is being learned), then you're not "unschooling" - even if the kid gets to select stuff outside of the core curriculum.

Sorry, Robert wasn't saying that you were implying anyone was unschooling  :blink:  Just wondering if anyone considers themselves an unschooler here as I would consider brillkids and unschooling mutually exclusive.

No prob...we're on the same page.  I agree, mutually exclusive.

Wow, I guess I need to get cracking with the math.   :unsure:

I have been talking with my husband a lot about this and what we think is an appropriate amount of math, and WHY we want it to be a priority.  Ultimately I think that the reason that math is so important is because it is a language in and of itself.  Children learn and internalize languages better than adults.  I agree with Robert on the importance of doing it early and I appreciate the motivation.

I'm not going to push for 20 hours a week though, I'm going to push for 10 hours or 5 lessons, and would be very pleased to accomplish that.  I apologize if it makes anyone's skin crawl (  ;) ), but I hold music in the same level as math in importance in my family.  I'm taking the strong emphasis with a grain of salt because there are many mathematicians in the Levy family, so naturally that's what is important to you.  Music is important to me, and like math, it is a language best learned in childhood.  My peers with the best scholarships were the ones who put in the hours during childhood.  An adult would never be able to catch up.  If a family's dream is to see their child compete in the Olympics, that opportunity comes only once.  I guess I'm just raising my hand to say that I don't think it's inherently wrong for a family to have other priorities, and we don't all need to become math experts.  (Brace for impact, Tamsyn.  :))  Still, after this thread, I'm going to give it my best shot! 

On self-correcting.  It worked for me.  I corrected my own work and did very well.  It didn't work for my brother after me.  He cheated and he has paid dearly for it.  It's sad because he really regrets it now and can't change the past.  My mom feels bad that she didn't catch it sooner.  In my home we skipped the evens, so he didn't do math at all for almost a year.  After that she tore out the answers and now my siblings do the work and they get to self correct even-numbered lessons and she corrects odd ones, or something like that.  None of us are math-whizzes, but it worked for us.  My mom has 10 kids and was never pushing for whizzes, and as mentioned, time is a big issue for her.  When you have a lot of children you have to find a give and take.  Luckily children learn a lot from each other.

Tamsyn, 5 lessons a week is a perfectly reasonable goal. Completely achievable too. We manage it most weeks. ( didn't manage it during the school holidays while I was working but mostly we do) 5 lessons a week year round ( no long summer breaks) gets you 260 lessons a year! There are only 120 lessons in each book. After the first book you don't need to do the first 40 lessons ( they are summer break revision!) so at your SLOW pace you will finish 2 books per year and still have a spare 60 days!
As the levels go up and get harder you may struggle to do a lesson in 2 hours but hey you have 60 days spare to catch up! You will zoom through it!  :biggrin:
I understand your stance on music. I won't let my kids quit their music yet either ( not that they would let me!) it's a valuable life long skill just like math. It may not make them rich ( unless they choose that musical life path) but it will. Make them interesting and entertaining people to socialise with and that is a valuable thing in itself.
My oldest does Gymnastics because she is that good it would be wrong to stop her, my younger girl is very good but does it for the joy it brings her mostly. I can see my oldest perusing Gymnastics as a life long career so it is pretty important to our family. I still see no reason she can't do both. Be awesome at math and awesome at gym and play piano! It all comes down to time management. Usually MINE lol
Your children should be able to follow their dreams and still. Be super successful in both math and reading. You know we can have our cake and eat it too!  :biggrin:

I have been 'lurking' and following this thread with great interest since the beginning.  Thank you Robert for all your insights.  One of the main impacts on me has been to make me better able to understand the need to prioritize maths and make choices about future education. I am based in the UK so don't follow all of the discussions about US curriculae though.

I was really interested to read of the 20 hours a week that you devoted to maths.  This makes a lot of sense to me following the 10,000 hours to reach expertise rule from many different sources, which would suggest that at this rate it would take about 10 years to become an expert in maths - it sounds like that roughly is a  match for your journey?  Would you agree?

I'm interested on your take on other curriculae that are available.  It strikes me that 10,000 hours on any half decent curriculum in maths (or anything else) is likely to take most people to a pretty high level.  Do you have any opinion on approaches such as Singapore math (where they have a far higher achievement in math across the whole population compared to most other countries) or Rightstart, for example?  I can see that Saxon has worked fantastically well for you, so I understand why you would advocate this as one of the best routes to follow.  I'm wondering if it is a less good fit for some children, whether you see it as a stand alone choice or one of many possible good options. 

I like the way that you raise these issues so clearly and eloquently.  My oldest is 3.8 years and not quite ready for following a formal curriculum although we do a lot of preparation and maths development work using various materials including different types of abacus.  Like you as she gets older I will be afterschooling her and I can see that the reality is that there is limited time to do music, sport, maths, reading, languages etc etc.  So there are some hard choices to be made.  Like Manda and Tamsyn, I also place value on some non-maths subjects (music in particular) and sport / exercise is to me an essential part of a healthy lifestyle.  So I think we will struggle to find 20 hours for math (I hear you sigh and shake your head disapprovingly  lol !!!).  I do have a rationale though.  Many careers also place a high value on a range of skills and expertise and I would like to equip my children to have both academic, communication, leadership and other skills for their future lives. For example, in my field (medicine) it is essential to have a very broad range of these and to be able to demonstrate them on a CV for admission to university as well as the requisite academic requirements. 

However, where we can hopefully agree is that maths is super-important to focus on, starting from early in the child's education, and that if we are to choose academic subjects to pay attention to, then this is the big area to go for.  This is the one message I have taken from this thread.  We will aim for 10 hours.  I hope this is achievable.

I'm interested in your comment about the importance of learning to read (I agree).  Once a child can read (which does not necessarily take a long time, especially if starting early as many of us have done here), then what do you see as the next steps?  Do you mean learning to read is the process of systematically learning to decode words using phonics instruction or do you also refer to the later skills of increasing fluency in reading more complex text, fictional and non-fiction etc?

Tamsyn,

No, I'm not here to dictate to people exactly how to raise their kids and what to do and not do.  Music bugged me, because my wife is like you, very talented (piano) and in her case badly wanted David to be good too.  And David was good at it too, piano and violin.  The only problem was that he HATED it, and we had screaming session after screaming session about it.  I was stuck in the middle, but had to support my wife.  So with David, it was just a matter of time before he hung up the violin and tried his hardest to forget it ever happened.  It also gets under my skin when people say music helps kids learn math.  Maybe it does, but with David 8 years ahead in math (when he started piano), how much more help did he need?

So you have violin and piano, then add gymnastics, girl scouts, and whatever else, not to mention actual school, and all of  a sudden the hours for Saxon are reduced and reduced.  That's my real point - I agree, you're right regarding music, if it can earn the kid a scholarship, it may well be worth the effort, and has to be started early, as you say.  But again it's priorities.  Music like sports, is very difficult to make a living in -  maybe one in a thousand reach that level (if that).  Leaning Calculus by age 15 (like Robinson's kids), almost guarantees the kid will make a good living providing his head stays on his shoulders (and provided his parents aren't idiots that shop him around to the media, and I don't see that here).  So my complaints about music are more to the effect that it's combined with a bunch of other activities and math is left out of that structure and has to be worked into available time.

As to number of Saxon hours, I guess the bottom line is you get out what you put in.  10 hours isn't bad, and will keep the kid well ahead of his grade level.  With that, the kid will not get messed up by "The System" and should do great.  Looking at Dr. Robinson, he did 12 hours a week and had Calculus completed at age 15, so it's hard to complain about that (I would estimate that David averaged around 18 hours).  But beware, if the kid is in school, after-school time becomes harder to get as he gets older.  I found that out with David, between homework and useless projects, it was getting hard for him to have enough time for his college math (during his first year in college, he was still enrolled at our Christian school and also taking math classes at our community college).

Sorry to hear that about your brother, and I forgot about ripping out the answers in the higher-level Saxon books.  Yes, I did that, and yes, I nailed him copying the answers after he 'finished' a section in 20 minutes and couldn't show me where he did the work.  David had the terrible disadvantage of having a father whose brain is wired EXACTLY the same as his - I knew everything he would think of (in the dishonest world) before he even thought of it.

Mandabplus3,

Thanks for your posting.  I think I pretty much said it too in my prior posting (before I read yours).  I don't want to come across as saying a parent is neglectful if the kid only does 10 hours of Saxon per week, rather than 15 hours.  LOL.  As I mentioned just prior, the key is that the math is learned properly, which means not in school (at least in the US), and 10 hours a week of Saxon will assure that (probably even a bit less).  The idea being that the proper way to do math is drilled into the heads of the kids, so when the "creative" new ways of learning math, like the Lattice Method for division used in this video (and in huge numbers of schools in the country, thanks to Everyday Math) is covered in school, the kid will look at it more as a fun game to play around with numbers, but knowing inside (his head) the real way to do those problems:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr1qee-bTZI

Achieve that, and you are a hero in my book (and will be in your kids' eyes too...even if they don't appreciate it at the time), regardless of how many activities the kid does outside of school.

Hi Lzp11,

Welcome to the discussion, as you've seen, I don't mind shooting off my mouth a bit.  Hopefully you've seen Dr. Robinson's video.  One of the most important points to get from that is to not let the schools dictate the educational schedule for your kids, simply because they've been dumbing down for decades now, but kids are not getting any dumber (i.e., the dumbing down is political, part of the child-centered trend in society).  I'll post a few comments to your posting now:
------------------------------------------------

"I have been 'lurking' and following this thread with great interest since the beginning.  Thank you Robert for all your insights.  One of the main impacts on me has been to make me better able to understand the need to prioritize maths and make choices about future education. I am based in the UK so don't follow all of the discussions about US curriculae though."

I love having people from all corners of the world on this thread (or, at least the English-speaking world).  Feel free to ask questions then.  I know from reading UK newspapers that terminology is often different over there.  But since you understand the need for math being a priority, you are where you need to be.


"I was really interested to read of the 20 hours a week that you devoted to maths.  This makes a lot of sense to me following the 10,000 hours to reach expertise rule from many different sources, which would suggest that at this rate it would take about 10 years to become an expert in maths - it sounds like that roughly is a  match for your journey?  Would you agree?"

I don't agree with the hard number, at least in math, because much of time in math is spent reviewing and testing (and doing problems slow, because of having to go back), maybe half of the time.  With David going so fast through Saxon (he covered 4 grade levels in his first year), he didn't need to review (so I skipped the early sections in each book), and I didn't need to test, because I treated every section as a test.  He would do the section, I would mark it up, and then he'd go back and fix his mistakes, every time (and every, single, problem).  Saxon's method, if used fast and thoroughly, takes care of the need for review and testing.  So with that out of the way, maybe something like a formula would work for the number of hours - something like:  Number of hours necessary = 50,000/(number of hours per week).  So if you spent 20 hours a week, you'll have it mastered in 2,500 hours, and if 10 hours a week, maybe 5,000 hours.  Something like that, but maybe not quite as steep.  I also think with Saxon, that 10,000 hours is way too long, as that would imply something like 7 hours per section for the entire series.  Now working on cars, or especially doing plumbing, or plasma physics, yes, I can see the need for 10,000 hours to be a master.


"I'm interested on your take on other curriculae that are available.  It strikes me that 10,000 hours on any half decent curriculum in maths (or anything else) is likely to take most people to a pretty high level.  Do you have any opinion on approaches such as Singapore math (where they have a far higher achievement in math across the whole population compared to most other countries) or Rightstart, for example?"

Don't know Rightstart, but l've also heard good things about Singapore Math.  My general rules for a good math book is the following:
1)  Black and white (no need for color)
2)  No calculators (or very, very, little calculator work, as in Saxon)
3)  3 authors at most (typical textbooks have 60 or so now)
4)  No diversity reviewer approval
5)  Likewise no pictures of Nelson Mandela
6)  No fancy new approaches to solving problems (i.e., Lattice Method for division)

I put the Nelson Mandela quip in there because I saw a textbook with his picture.  He actually is a hero of mine, being willing to stay in jail rather for his cause, for decades, while the South African government was willing to release him (I think based on him leaving the country).  But I don't remember him coming up with any great mathematical achievements.


"I can see that Saxon has worked fantastically well for you, so I understand why you would advocate this as one of the best routes to follow.  I'm wondering if it is a less good fit for some children, whether you see it as a stand alone choice or one of many possible good options."

I think it's the best, not based on my one case, but based on many, many other examples, starting with its popularity with home schoolers (who have no political agenda).  To answer your question, back when Saxon was independent, they had a page of anecdotes on their website.  One of my favorites was a public school where they gave the old, beat-up, worn-out Saxon books to the students who were in the "average" math level, and gave new cutting-edge math books to the honor's math class.  Needless to say, those "average" students ran circles around the honor's students at the end of the year, when they were all tested.  While one can never promise individual results, I think the best chance for success is with Saxon...now you just have to find a way to get your hands on it, over there.

 
"I like the way that you raise these issues so clearly and eloquently.  My oldest is 3.8 years and not quite rady for following a formal curriculum although we do a lot of preparation and maths development work using various materials including different types of abacus.  Like you as she gets older I will be afterschooling her and I can see that the reality is that there is limited time to do music, sport, maths, reading, languages etc etc.  So there are some hard choices to be made.  Like Manda and Tamsyn, I also place value on some non-maths subjects (music in particular) and sport / exercise is to me an essential part of a healthy lifestyle.  So I think we will struggle to find 20 hours for math (I hear you sigh and shake your head disapprovingly  LOL !!!)."

No, not 20.  And (this won't go over with the feminist crowd too well, but what the heck), I always wonder if I would have gone slower if David was a girl.  The idea of having a little girl that's 11 years old starting in college would have scared me a lot more than David, and I would have worried a lot about her social development.  So you can do less...just don't get to the point where you're doing it in your "spare time", because, if nothing else, your school will take care of filling up that time.


"I do have a rationale though.  Many careers also place a high value on a range of skills and expertise and I would like to equip my children to have both academic, communication, leadership and other skills for their future lives. For example, in my field (medicine) it is essential to have a very broad range of these and to be able to demonstrate them on a CV for admission to university as well as the requisite academic requirements."

I think that much of the other stuff you mention is just good parenting and comes over time, not something that you have to do 10 hours a week when the kid is young.  I didn't care about any of that.  I did care that my kid understood that he was NOT anything special...he was just an average kid that had math forced on him early (and yes, he thanks me nearly every day now, especially for being able to skip high school).  I made damn sure that he never denigrated anyone below him academically (except jokingly, as he would call Dr. Robinson's kids slackers for not finishing Calculus until age 15).
 

"However, where we can hopefully agree is that maths is super-important to focus on, starting from early in the child's education, and that if we are to choose academic subjects to pay attention to, then this is the big area to go for.  This is the one message I have taken from this thread.  We will aim for 10 hours.  I hope this is achievable."

It is achievable, as a kid has at least 40 hours of awake time outside of school every week.  It's only a question of priority.  If the kid doesn't make 10 hours of Saxon, it's because other things are more important to the parent, that simple (sorry, but 10 hours is about my minimum).


"I'm interested in your comment about the importance of learning to read (I agree).  Once a child can read (which does not necessarily take a long time, especially if starting early as many of us have done here), then what do you see as the next steps?"

In my case, not much.  We had David initially reading at just about exactly your oldest kid's age (3.8 years).  From there we read tougher books, and then finally, I had him read Hamlet to me, with the proper punctuation and play-acting (really just voicing) the roles, so he would sound like a woman with Ophelia and sound scary when the Ghost showed up.  It was fun, but that was the end of my instruction (about 4.2 years old) - there was nothing more that I could teach him.  I figured the grammar and other stuff would get filled in at school, and that worked out.  The key is simply being able to read, because The System's method is designed to fail the kids (i.e., Sight Words through third grade, and only then phonics).  Other stuff like comprehension isn't can't be taught, it comes over time (but being able to read first certainly helps!), and spelling was a breeze for him, I think because he learned to read properly.  We never did one spelling lesson, other than study for spelling bees, which we won handily.


"Do you mean learning to read is the process of systematically learning to decode words using phonics instruction or do you also refer to the later skills of increasing fluency in reading more complex text, fictional and non-fiction etc?"

LEARNING to reading is exactly what you said, systemically decoding the English language using phonics.  Everyone eventually does that (if they learn to read), it's only a question of when those connections are made.  If made as a 3 or 4 years old, then the kid is set for life.  If delayed by Sight Words until the kid is 10 years old, he will struggle, no different than trying to learn a second language as an adult.  In between the results are likely on a sliding scale.  The stuff after that will come as the kid picks up vocabulary and context, so I didn't worry about that at all, and I was right.

Thanks for your contributions, Robert. Highly, highly appreciated.

Robinson cautions against overloading the curriculum in the 'Course of Study' notes on  Robinson Curriculum CDs. I quote an excerpt:



Then elsewhere in the Course of Study, he says:
  QUOTE ENDS.

 lol  lol  lol  lol  lol  lol  lol  Robert, you are so, so funny!

Hi Nee1,

Some comments for you:
---------------------------------------------------------

"Thanks for your contributions, Robert. Highly, highly appreciated.  Robinson cautions against overloading the curriculum in the 'Course of Study' notes on  Robinson Curriculum CDs. I quote an excerpt:"

You're welcome, but thank you for the inspiration.  Like I've said, the people on this forum seem to understand that (nearly) all kids are created equal, except for a small number on both ends of the intellectual spectrum.  The real difference is whether the parents want to take charge of their kid's primary education (i.e., reading and math), as Mr. Robinson did, I did, and most of you guys seem to be ready to do.

As to overloading, needless to say, I agree with Mr. Robinson, and have always believed that much of what is taught in the schools is "busy-time" - which is to give the kids something to do, but not really the critical stuff.  Like he implies, why bother sticking that stuff in their heads, especially if it detracts from the important stuff, and in the end it will have to be re-learned later, when the kid understands the math.   But, if there is free time...then it's probably not harmful either.

I completely have to say thank You to everyone contributing to this thread! I have been recovering and felt unable to contribute, but have been following closely! And those of you who know me know just how much of a role Maths play in our lives...if all else fails, and we are not up for much else, we manage to muddle along with something new and exciting for math. Honestly, after Alex's progress with reading, it is the very most important thing to us.
And, if we concentrate,science, music, geography,SO many things can be worked around our Maths play!

Nee1- thanks so much for your rigorous, yet analytical review of the Robinson curriculum! I DO think that these ideas helped me clarify my teaching methods...I do tend to focus on the 3 r's, but as we are focused more on Early Learning, this takesona very distinctive style!
I would say that the absolute majority of our day is absorbed by 'math'.... But new lessons only take about 10 minutes! Everything else is incorporated into games, reading ( we do a HUGE number of 'living math books, Life of Fred, Theoni Pappas, IPad App style material). She is a prolific reader for just turning three, and we are currently 'buddy reading Charlotte's Web...

I  know that many others in the forum focus on languages, music, sports, etc.... And we do as well, butALWAYS with a Math, Reading, and now Writing (Love You, TV Teacher!!!!) focus.  Even rockclimbing on our wall has recently been about solving 'square root' puzzles:)

Thanks so much for inviting this forum into your living room Robert, as it has highly motivated me!

Here is Alex playing a game of ''Princess Math' (in her princess costume!) to calculate how long Rapunzel's hair need be for different situations:)

Oh, Jenene-
Sorry to just now be able to respond to your query regarding Life ofFred as a primary program---

Honestly, ( and I say this because I own and have used bits and supplements of every math program you can imagine!), I cannot envision using LofF as a complete program! It is so, so much fun as as a supplement, and it is absolutely awesome for gauging just how much my kiddo has gleaned from her RS, Singapore, and supplemental math....but on its own??? NO WAY for Early Learning!

We tend to read about a chapter per night,as a reward for accomplishing all of our other goals. ( I tend to hype it up and truly treat it as a reward!) and she thinks of it not as math but as an extra bonus extensive of time before bedtime!
What is hilarious and awesome to me is that I have noticed that if I 'send her to bed with math on the brain?' ...she inevitably wakes up with' math on the brain'...as in, the very first words out of her mouth tend to be an equation or math reference! So HILARIOUS to hear her dreaming a out her multiplication tables (learned over Xmas, a Googol, infinity, or giving 'binary kisses!'
Have you managed to download the Life of Fred Samples from the website???
Also, highly recommend the shorter, more amusing chapters in Theoni Pappas's books: Penrose Rhe Mathematical Cat, The Further Adventures of Penrod The Mathematical Cat, etc...Alex adores the concept of a Fractal, and a Googol, from the follow-up books...

Thanks for your thoughts, Kerileanne99.

That was what I assumed of Life of Fred.  Fun and interesting but not a math program in and of itself (for the early years at least - I think the upper level ones are different but I haven't looked into them at all).  That was why I thought maybe we could use it as a fun 'break' between Saxon books but after just having 3 weeks off between books it is taking a bit of work to get back into it so I'm not particularly sure I want to have a break between the books any more.

Yes I agree having breaks is NOT a great idea, just a couple of weeks off really slows down the calculation speeds, thinking ability, problem solving and the lessons take ages to complete until they are back in the swing of it again! No more breaks! Even a few questions in a day is better than none!

No, not 20.  And (this won't go over with the feminist crowd too well, but what the heck), I always wonder if I would have gone slower if David was a girl.  The idea of having a little girl that's 11 years old starting in college would have scared me a lot more than David, and I would have worried a lot about her social development.  So you can do less...just don't get to the point where you're doing it in your "spare time", because, if nothing else, your school will take care of filling up that time.


Hi Robert I have been lurking around this thread and not commenting yet, than I read your above comment and it struck a chord with me. I am a mother of two little girls who are early learners and so many times I have held them back because of my fear of them being so far ahead and starting Uni at 14 or 15 just scares the heeby jeebies out of me. As it is my eldest daughter has been accepted to start school almost a year early and has started reception or what you call kindergarten at age 4 instead of 5. She has taken to it with gusto but I now think into the future when she goes to uni she is going to be almost a year younger than everybody else and not being able to go do the stuff other uni kids can do or getting mixed up in group more to social naivety rather than smarts.

Unfortunately that is a real reality for girls even though they do mature quicker than boys do. I feel horrible that as a parent at times I have held her back because of this fear of what 'could' happen to her as an adult and largely felt that the reason I haven't home-schooled her is because the system will slow her down and the internal debate continues. I do send her to an excellent Montessori school which I love but have spent weeks frustrated with even to accept Sophia at the level that she is at.

I think it is a point that at times I have held her back because she is a girl and I am afraid of what will happen even if it is unlikely to happen. I have worried that she would not be accepted by her intellectual peers because the age gap was too big. But this is silly talk. You make a very valid point and I don't think it is sexist at all. Once they go to Uni and even if most Uni courses are online if they are going to do Medicine or Law they have to show up to the institution and I can no longer protect them especially when they are under-aged.

I have started her on ixl for her to do after-school and that is not that tough for her. She is flying through it and I think it is time for something harder. I appreciate you making the above point and I think I need to challenge my own perceptions and allow her to fly than to worry about what will happen if XYZ happen, and think what sex she does not matter I have no right to hold her back because of it.

Thank you Robert.

Kimba

Kimba,

Thanks for joining in the discussion.  I'll give you my comments:

-------------------------------------

"I am a mother of two little girls who are early learners and so many times I have held them back because of my fear of them being so far ahead and starting Uni at 14 or 15 just scares the heeby jeebies out of me."

I don't blame you...it would be the same for me.  I think what I would do is keep them at least 2 years ahead in math (more is fine), but still at their grade level, or maybe one level ahead.  For math, even if you finish Saxon Calculus when they're in 9th grade, it's not the end of the world...they can take a break for a few years before starting college (they'd still be playing math games in school, so they won't forget much).  Then, maybe at 16, you start them in a community college or commute to a 4-year school.  In that environment, the kids generally leave each other alone, so from a safety aspect they should be good.  When they're 18, then they can go to a 4 year and live there (if it makes sense).  They'll be freshman-aged, so they should be able to handle it, even though they'd be taking upper level classes.  That what comes to mind for me.


"As it is my eldest daughter has been accepted to start school almost a year early and has started reception or what you call kindergarten at age 4 instead of 5. She has taken to it with gusto but I now think into the future when she goes to uni she is going to be almost a year younger than everybody else and not being able to go do the stuff other uni kids can do or getting mixed up in group more to social naivety rather than smarts."

Based on what I wrote above, I would try to keep her away from living at college until at least age 18.  Being a year younger in primary/secondary school may or may not work, it probably depends on the girl.  For college, I think that living in a dorm was my biggest mistake, so if there's some way to have them avoid that, it would be best (i.e., even a 4 year college is good, if the kids can live at home while they're young).  The social end of it should be addressed outside of school (i.e., church, for example), if at all possible.


"Unfortunately that is a real reality for girls even though they do mature quicker than boys do. I feel horrible that as a parent at times I have held her back because of this fear of what 'could' happen to her as an adult and largely felt that the reason I haven't home-schooled her is because the system will slow her down and the internal debate continues."

Your first job as a parent is to protect your kids...that simple.  If you get them through their childhood without the nasty traps (drugs, pregnancy, etc.), and get them a decent education, you win (and they win).  You really won't slow them down permanently anyway - as they get old enough, they'll do great anyway.


"I do send her to an excellent Montessori school which I love but have spent weeks frustrated with even to accept Sophia at the level that she is at."

Welcome to the club.  You must understand that having an advanced kid, you (and the kid) are troublemakers.  You people are distracting the cohesion of the class.  You are the enemy.  Well, that's how the school look at it.  But that rubs off to private schools and even Montessori.  You have to get to the mindset where your kids are getting their education at home, and "school" is really daycare.  We did that with David and it made life much easier.  And we told David the same, which was to feel sorry for the other kids whose parents weren't teaching them and to be patient as they tried to learn at school.


"I think it is a point that at times I have held her back because she is a girl and I am afraid of what will happen even if it is unlikely to happen. I have worried that she would not be accepted by her intellectual peers because the age gap was too big. But this is silly talk. You make a very valid point and I don't think it is sexist at all."

It's not sexist.  The same concerns are for boys too and you have to provide for their social lives in any case (for David it was church).  As far as being accepted by older people, that is possible, but the kid has to behave at that level - in other words if he's a silly, giggly, type, the older people will quickly tire of him.  But if he speaks like an adult and acts that way, then things can be better.


"Once they go to Uni and even if most Uni courses are online if they are going to do Medicine or Law they have to show up to the institution and I can no longer protect them especially when they are under-aged."

Now that is silly, as they should be adults by the time they're in med school or law school (although I wouldn't wish law school on my worst enemy, they way that is now).  Anyway, if the girls are simply going to class and acting mature, they'll be fine.  It's when they're out of your control, like in a dorm, I'd really worry.


"I have started her on ixl for her to do after-school and that is not that tough for her. She is flying through it and I think it is time for something harder. I appreciate you making the above point and I think I need to challenge my own perceptions and allow her to fly than to worry about what will happen if XYZ happen, and think what sex she does not matter I have no right to hold her back because of it."

No, you have the right and the responsibility to hold her back, if you cannot convince yourself that she'll be safe in her pursuits.  So do what you can, but protect is always first (and yes, we were exactly the same with David).

Hi Kerileanne99,

My comments:
-----------------------------------------------------

"I cannot envision using LofF as a complete program! It is so, so much fun as as a supplement, and it is absolutely awesome for gauging just how much my kiddo has gleaned from her RS, Singapore, and supplemental math....but on its own??? NO WAY for Early Learning!"

From my 5 minutes on their site, I agree.  This is just another in the long string of attempts to make math fun.  Math isn't fun, at least for most kids (certainly most boys).  Attempts to make it fun is futile.  It might be entertainment (as you later say)...but I can't see how they're learning the subject.  I also don't like the swipes they take at traditional methods, they seem a awful lot like our schools.


"Thanks so much for inviting this forum into your living room Robert, as it has highly motivated me!"

Happy to help, where I can.

Hi Jenene,

(regarding below) Yes, one major difference between reading and math is that once a kid learns to read, his appetite for reading will be unending and he will always be practicing, as there are always things to read in his environment.  But math is just the opposite.  You stop doing math, then the kid never will think about it all (unless he's one of them super self-motivated types) and what he's learned will bury itself in the back of his brain.  We, obviously, had breaks from Saxon, maybe even up to 3 weeks (typically when we went on vacation).  I don't remember it being a problem but I'd certainly get nervous going much longer.  There's reason the first 20 to 40 sections of each Saxon book is review.  But no, we might have taken a day or two off when David completed a book, but not any longer - he got right to work on the next one.  Also, on vacations, I would sometimes bring the Saxon books, just to have him do a little of it then.


"That was what I assumed of Life of Fred.  Fun and interesting but not a math program in and of itself (for the early years at least - I think the upper level ones are different but I haven't looked into them at all).  That was why I thought maybe we could use it as a fun 'break' between Saxon books but after just having 3 weeks off between books it is taking a bit of work to get back into it so I'm not particularly sure I want to have a break between the books any more."

My oldest just got back from a 2 day school camp. I was worried the whole time and was SOOOO grateful we had the forsight to pack a mobile phone in her bag. She rang us 3 times to chat and once for advice on how to deal with another child. Since then I have found out that another parent is tarnishing her reputation (never mind I will sort that one out, plus noone will actually believe it anyway!)
There is NO WAY i will be sending my kids off to university early. NO WAY i will put them in a dorm before they are at least 18, and its unlikely I will let them go anywhere without me as a parent helper again. its just not worth it. I spend all this time and energy building confident selfassured but very well behaved children and it is sooooo easy for them to be led astray.
Anyway for uni I figured we will probably get there a year or 2 early and do the first 2 years by correspondance. SInce the kids will be well trained in independant study habits by then it should be a minor ajustment to uni life at home. If they need practicum for thier course they can do it close to home at one of the many unis we have within an hours drive.
After high school here we dont have a lot of choices. its really TAFE or University. Of those two TAFE is generally too easy and not of a high enough graduate advantage to bother with. SO we only have school and University. Doing uni degrees by correspondance is an accepted practice in Australia. doing a mix of on and off campus is also entirely possible.
It is possible for people overseas to do our university degrees by correspondance also, if you all get stuck look into that! our standards are high enough that most courses would be recognised by employers.

I'm not sending my kids off to college early, but I'm not going to hold them back either.  I remember Susan Wise Bauer once said, "Have they read the good books?  ALL of them?"  So they finish high school stuff early?  So what?  Let them master pottery.  Let them be active in Boy Scouts.  Let them practice, oractice, practice their music.  Start a business, paint a picture, get a black belt.  Pursue their interests!  There is so much learning to be done in the world that can be done in the safety of the home.  Even the most gifted of the world don't have enough time to learn everything.  I would never hold my kid back academically because of safety concerns 5-10 years down the road!  Colleges don't have a monopoly on learning opportunities.  After you finish college, then what?  College isn't the end goal, preparing our kids for a successful life is.  They might be so busy running a successful business producing their new invention that they won't have time for college by the time they're 18.  I think college is very important, but I'm keeping an open mind.  The sky isn't the limit unless we think it is, especially with these EL kids.

I agree with Tamsyn.  I'm not going to be sending my kids off to university early but I am not going to be holding them back because of that either.  My goal at this stage is for them to be finished 'highschool' level math, science, english by the time they are around 12 - 14 years old.  Then they can spend the next few years doing what they want to do (within reason obviously).  Music, art, social services/voluntary work, start a business, read more classics .....  And there are so many uni courses available by distance education now that if they do want to 'go to uni' than we will find a distance one that they can do at home until they are old enough to leave home if they want to. 

I certainly won't fault you guys for not holding back your kids.   You all are putting their safety first, so they'll be great.  To be honest, I hadn't considered the option of an academic break (in the sense of the formal flow of academics).  Ironically, here in Texas I would be breaking the law if David wasn't "Enrolled in School" through age 18, and while there are exceptions, none applied to him.  So having 2 four-year degrees just before turning 17 years old wasn't enough here, he still needed one more year of "school", although that could be loosely defined.  I actually used that law a few times to motivate him to study, since he literally would have been sent to the public schools if he didn't keep up in college.

There is also a lot you can do with them academically, outside of actually being enrolled in college.  With David, I had no promises that any college would take him early.  It's up to them, and saying "no" is always the "safe" answer for them (i.e., one college here in the states had a 14 year old girl in the humanities...it was time for a semester abroad, and she wanted to go to South Africa, and her parents wanted the same - the college said no, not safe - the parents sued...I doubt that college will be admitting any more little kids, for a very long time).

So I wondered also...and the best that I could come up with was to keep him moving at the same speed, especially in math, and if he was done with Saxon 5 years before any college would take him, so be it.  I do also have engineering math text books that pick up where Calculus leaves off, and could have keep him busy for another 2 years.   So, in that case, he could hit college and breeze through math there (and likely other subjects), hopefully getting very high grades - so it would bump up his GPA and maybe get him scholarships.  As it was, my wife knew the head of the math department at her community college (my wife had taken a class from her) and asked her to help.  She wasn't sure if a kid David's age could be enrolled, so she checked with some obscure state agency and found out there wasn't any rule against it, providing his standardized test scores were high enough.  As it was, she had to override the computer each time when enrolling him for classes because they asked for the kid's age, and the computer kept kicking it back, asking for a "valid year of birth".  LOL.

I think in the end you guys will find a suitable compromise that allows you to let your kids progress as fast as they are capable, but still allows them to get a good jump on college - so all will work out.

Maybe when you've finished school-work years before you want the kids starting uni is a good time for unschooling  lol

Perhaps after years of structure and high-level work they will be ready to make good choices about what they want to do  :biggrin:

Or you can always do what Robinson did and pull out the higher level science texts that you can't do until you've finished calculus... they might even CHOOSE to do that  :laugh:

I'm not sure I'll allow an academic break - it disrupts the flow of things. From experience, the longer the academic breaks you take, the more difficult it is to get into the flow of things again. I have a friend who completed his Masters (in one of the hard sciences), then took an academic break to go into high school teaching. By the time he came back to do his PhD in that subject (2 years after), he told me his first year as a PhD student was tough as he had forgotten a lot of what he had learnt during his Masters, and now had to spend the first year of his PhD attending Masters classes to catch up.  He was so regretful of the whole thing. One of my other friends finished her Bachelors, and was wondering whether to go into the job market first, then come back to do her Masters. I encouraged her to go straight in and do the one year Masters degree, so she won't have to spend the Masters time trying to catch up what she might have learnt and now forgotten.

And sometime ago, Ayesha Nicole started this thread on this African-American boy who was enrolled in community college at age 12 - http://forum.brillkids.com/general-discussion-b5/video-story-andgt-12-year-old-genius-goes-to-morehouse-college!/msg79554/#msg79554 . And here is another news article about him - http://www.championnewspaper.com/news/articles/21313-year-old-student-wows-morehouse-213.html.  And another one- http://www.urbannewsroom.com/2011/06/07/detroit-teen-is-youngest-ever-to-enroll-at-morehouse-college/ . And here is another one which features an interview with his mom - http://www.goblackamerica.com/Pages/education0911.html.  This is part 2 of the interview - http://www.goblackamerica.com/Pages/educationarchive1011.html.

So, I am seeing that homeschooling/accelerated learning/ early learning has the capacity to produce children who finish high school very early. (The standards are low anyway, so there is a very strong possibility that our kids will finish in record time). So what do we do when that happens? Do we let that potential go to waste? In my opinion, no. We continue to light that fire and allow the child to progress. If a child has a good support system at home, he can continue to progress academically, even in college.

If the child finishes high-school work early, he/she could be enrolled in University correspondence courses if the parents do not want early University entrance (i.e., physical presence on campus). That way, the brain remains fresh and active and ready for University when the time comes.  I will not encourage long academic breaks with my child, experience has shown that this is not effectual. I would rather he finishes University and be done with it . There are correspondence Universities like the Open University, where a child might get a Bachelor’s Degree via correspondence studies if the parents do not want physical presence on campus. There are always ways to work around things, for example, check out what the Swann family did, or the Harding family. Or see what the Robinson family did – to reduce the time spent in college, he made his kids take AP courses while at home. That way, his first 2 kids spent only 2 years in University doing a course that normally takes 4 years. Here is the link to the whole story - http://www.home-school.com/Articles/dr-arthur-robinson-kids-in-2008.php. I quote an excerpt from his comments there:


 And I strongly believe a child should be met at his level, no holding back to make him fit into the very dumbed down society that we have today. We want our children to set standards, not follow standards.

I am completely for James enrolling in Open University via Australia. He qualifies as an Australian citizen for the reduced rate. But international students around the world can enroll too.

I have almost completed a double degree through there and it is so much harder academically than any college work my husband has been doing in the US at a brick and Mortar school, OSU.  People have this expectation that distance learning is easy, or that you can cheat.... From my experience it is so much more rigourous and you are mostly on your own.

I would also have James self study so that he can complete college level credits by doing CLEP exams too.

I also have no qualms about him going to the community college here at 14. It is a small college with limited classes and small class sizes. And the campus, if it can be called that because it is a smal building is just down the road from us. Going to university would mean travelling 50 miles away and that is not an optin until he is older.
Personally I am more concerned about him attending the public school system in this town.
Either way, I am not worried if he is accelerated. But we have choices.

My son would need to still be enrolled in school until at least 16 years.  So, yes, we would have to have a plan for the year/s to submit to our authorizing body but it can be written to suit your child as long as you can show they are learning.  And I still expect my children to be doing something once they finish high school subjects it is just that they will have a lot more independence in choosing what that something is and it doesn't necessarily have to be as 'academic' as the years up to that point will be.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I don't see getting into college (university here) as the ultimate goal. We will definitely be heading and planning for that but it will depend on each child, what their talents are and what opportunities are open to them at the time. 

Gutsy.  It's really limiting not having that piece of paper, as Mr. Robinson calls it, when referring to the same subject.  Decades ago, when I was in high school and convinced that I wanted to be an auto mechanic (I was actually running a repair shop at my house in New Jersey at the time - I still have my records from it), my mother said to me:  "Get your engineering degree, and then you can be a mechanic" or whatever you want to be.  Unfortunately it's impossible for me to know how my life would have worked out had I stayed in the auto repair business - I don't think as well, but who knows. 

Due to education inflation (thanks in large part to the current education bubble), the degree is the new high school diploma. It's hard to get a janitor job now without one. Anyone out there knows vertical ascension now requires a masters, which is the new degree.

Perhaps in 12 years or whenever, the bubble will have popped which will make a huge difference. However, two things I'm quite sure of will still be true: jobs will be scarce (jobs per population ratio as bad or worse than it is today), and education inflation still in play (pretty tough to erase a few decades of entrenched mentality). Based on these two, I'd suggest to adjust your plan accordingly.

"...the (college) degree is the new high school diploma."

PokerDad, my kid said EXACTLY the same thing after I mentioned it to him, after my posting.  I'm not in a hiring position, but given so many college grads to choose, for any job, why hire someone that you're not even sure can read, much less do arithmetic.

Obviously, what Jenene is calling high-school level, will actually be full college level, by the time she's done educating her kids.  The problem is that so many resumes are now received, that many, many, employers simply jettison the ones that don't have 4-year degrees.  She'll never even get a human review...unless she has an inside contact.

Anyway, those are my (and David's) view - but excellent topic to discuss.

I want to clarify more what I meant when I said that college wasn't the end goal.  While I did suggest that I'm open minded to my kid not going to college if they are so busy running a successful business, I really do think a degree is important for the reasons Robert pointed out.  I was also thinking about Arkiane in an interview.  (Conversations, about 17:00  http://akiane.com/video).  She said "After school, what am I going to do?  There's so much more than that."  For her, it worked, so I'm open minded.  When I say college isn't the end goal, it's because I think a lot of parents in our society focus so much on college life forgetting that after college life goes on and they need to be able to support a family as well.

I'm also going to make the sexist comment that I think it's the husband's job to provide for a family and I think it is ideal for the mother to be home with the children.  I have different expectations for my daughters, and while I strive to give them a superb education and think that they should be equally educated as boys,  I am not as concerned about what their resume will look like as I am my sons.  I also recognize that a successful entrepreneur doesn't need resume- his employees will!

But my oldest is only 5.  I'll cross that road when we get there.  Right now I'm more focused on preparing him for Saxon 5/4!

Tamsyn, I don't think your comment is particularly sexist as much as sensible BUT I do hope your views on that don't continue too far into your children's education. It is fine for you to believe that a woman's role is with her family, but times have changed somewhat. Our girl children don't often find their perfect husbands during school anymore, they need a strong education to support themselves in the world for the years between school leaving and child rearing. The child bearing age is much higher now. What will your girl children do from 18 to 26 ( or even 35) when they have their first child?
I concern with you thinking like this is that you are automatically stunting the education and expectations from your girls. Whether you do it knowingly or not your attitude will rub off on them.
There is no reason to think that girls don't need to be pushed as hard as boys just because they won't use the skills for as long. The alternative thinking is that girls should know all their husbands know and a little more so that they can be the rock he needs in times of stress and struggle. Have your girls prepared for their role as supportive wife as best as you can.
I also believe mothers make the best teachers for their children, but as my children go to school I also have a career. I drop my kids off to school, pick them up and still I have a career. One I wouldn't have if I hadn't completed two degrees! The more educated you are the more say you have with your working hours and conditions ( not to mention pay!) with education children can have the best of both worlds.  :yes:
I also believe a degree is the new diploma. I have been on the hiring end many times, I screened by quality of resume writing style, education level and then personality before I looked at anything else.
It's clear to me that my oldest will go to university already and she is only 9 now! I am 90% sure my son will. It's something in their personalities. My middle girl is still ' different, creative' so I can't guess what is in her future but we are discussing possibilities already at age 7. I think talking about it now gives them motivation in their studies and avoids the potential teenage rebellion problems. If they have a firm goal teenage years will be so much easier on them all.
I just think its important that our attitudes towards our children's futures will rub off in the way we educate them. Our standards should be as high for our girls as they are for our boys. Even if our level of protection needs to be higher we shouldn't be sacrificing their educational expectations to achieve that.
Koreale thanks for that info on the open university. I always wanted to confirm what everyone here says, that our universities really are world class standard. Glad to hear it is harder than your hubbies....hmmm makes we want to sign up for another degree. I love learning  :biggrin:

I personally do think a degree is important but I also know that there are many other ways to be successful in the world.  In some ways it does worry me to think that my children may not go on to earn degrees as that is what my husband and I were both taught and did.  And that is where we will be heading.  But I don't believe that it is for everyone or it is the only way to be successful in life (and success is not just about money).  I am actually more interested in giving them a good academic foundation but also helping them to find their talent or passion.  I also imagine that by the time they finish their formal schooling years they will have done quite a few external courses through uni or similar. 

I throw in my 2 cents here.

I think that a college degree with career potential is definitely as good for a girl as a boy, although a girl (woman) may spend a decade or two raising kids, while the husband works.  In my case, I still can remember when my mom went back to work - I was maybe 5 years old.  She explained that it was only for 2 days a week, but even that was too much.  It then became 3 days, and then 5 days.

It was tough for me, as I was (and still am) very attached to her.  But it wound up being a good move as my dad got sick with brain cancer when I was 9 and died 2 years later.  She needed to work, obviously, for us to have a chance of protecting our lifestyle, so it worked out, even if I was completely out of control.  But the key thing for her was that she has a PhD in Mathematics (I think a total of 2 women got that degree in the United States that year, 1959).

But it was her degree that saved her, and us.  Without that piece of paper, things would have been very tough.

One of the best engineers that I ever worked with was a young woman (so young that she couldn't rent a car on business trips).  The company loved her and was ready to skyrocket her to the upper stratosphere.  Only thing was, she had 3 kids, and decided that homeschooling them was more important.  So she quit.  We all know that, even if we don't have budget, we'll take her back in a heartbeat (i.e., we will "find" budget for her).  But, again, the ticket for her, initially, was her piece of paper, not her brain - for without the paper, we would never have considered hiring her in the first place, even though the work she was doing required, maybe, 10% of her education (if that).

So that is my take on it.

I think everyone here is correct and making sound points.

Education is so much more than just a college degree, let alone "getting into college," and too many people out there have been focused on this to the point of demanding higher grades leading to a lot of grade inflation at the cost of reduced quality across the board. Hence Mr. Levy's point (and A. Robinson's as well) that by the time our little ones reach that age, a degree will likely be today's (or yesterday's to be more precise) diplomas.

When I was in college 10 years ago, I'd say that an easy 50% of the people there were flat out below par and didn't belong. There are several factors as to why they were there (some of which was top down mandates on disadvantaged demographics), but this observation along with the obvious college isn't for everyone is another reason why the degree itself isn't even respected like it once was (the sheer percentages with degrees is the big reason). Masters is the new college degree.

Having said all that, there's a difference between a good education and employable skills. Hopefully you can get both at the time. For others, get the education and some skills before college age (which will be my goal for my little one).

I think what Mr. Levy, Moshe Kai, the Swanns, the Robinsons have all shown us is that there is so much wasted time in the school years that it should be very achievable to have a quality education (for its own sake, to be a better person) and still have time left over to learn a trade or two if that's the route you want.

Those trades are very under-rated, and I can tell you that if you can combine the skill with the theoretical understanding, it will equal upward mobility if you have the ethic to go along with it. Mr. Levy gave a good example of knowing how to fix cars - but now he also knows a lot about the principles behind the car itself, and (I don't know if true) could perhaps go a long ways to designing one from an engineering perspective.... if not cars, then jet engines, jet parts, etc, whatever the case may be.

In short, degree is part of education and likely necessary for quality of life, but isn't the whole of education, and an educated person is what we would all want to strive for ourselves as well as our children.

 :biggrin:

Well put.
My own son is very hands on. He is likely to take a trade route to employment. However he loves math and is very bright ( age for age he is above his sisters). It seems such a waste to me to send a bright boy into a trade via apprenticeship. I understand the value of apprenticeships especially to a " master" but I can't help but think he could manage a more top down approach to the trades.
That's where university degrees fit in. If he can get his degree started early, he can apprentice and be doing his degree ( engineering, business or arts...) and be an overqualified but fully qualified apprentice by the time the other children are looking at their 3rd year of uni. Hence giving him an extra 2 years as a fully qualified tradey in the field over an above his peers. Thus he will have more experience when he branches out in his own business.
I assume most of my children will have their own business at some point as that is how we make most of our money and they are being grout up in that environment. We also talk about it all the time  lol they will have good business sence and supportive parents if nothing else!
In Australia the dumming down of students in University just doesn't happen. I never met anyone in either of my degrees at uni who shouldn't have been there by the end of year one.  The degrees start off at year one with  at least one third more students as will actually finish. If they can't hack it they won't pass and can't continue. No free rides. Degrees here are still worth their salt. A masters is just for people with a specific research interest. And very specifically valued only in certain sectors.

I agree with the course work of an Australian degree being more  rigorous. At least Macquarie vs OSU. But a BA or BS  in Australia is a shorter degree. However it is a specific degree. A BA does not have to have any math or science. There is an entire year missing of general education that the US college system requires.

I do think a degree or a trade will be mandatory for my son. I am trying to raise him to see the importance.
I tutor and my student says she will never go to college. I have heard people say things like "Gates and Zuckerberg are drop outs. Look how successful they are!" What I like to remind people is that both of those men are exemplary.

I got this in my email box today - http://www.thehomescholar.com/the-5-biggest-mistakes-parents-make-when-homeschooling-high-school.php. I felt it was relevant to our discussion, and thought I'd share.

http://www.uncollege.org/ (http://www.uncollege.org/)

I found this website to be very relevant to the discussion on college education and its importance or the lack there of.   It also has a very interesting reading list. 

http://www.uncollege.org/reading-list/

Me again.  My husband and I have been talking a lot about if/why college is important to us, so I'll try to clarify again.

It's kind of funny that I've been an advocate for alternatives to college here, because it wasn't but a month ago on my local homeschooling group that I was emphasizing the IMPORTANCE of college.  It's a different group.  There they had the same argument, that college is the new high school, but with a different twist.  High school is what people do because they have to.  We weren't very impressed by a lot of our peers in college.  It's something a lot of youth here do because they have to, and sadly, that undermines the value of a degree to some point.  A college degree is essential in the corporal world, but it isn't enough to ensure success.  There's something to be said for learning to comply and jump through hoops to get things done as well.  My dad and his brothers had a family business.  Sadly his parents didn't think college was that valuable and they didn't encourage their kids to get a degree because they had a family business and thought their kids wouldn't need it.  It was a successful family business and all of them were able to provide for their families.  However, it was my dad and his one brother that did get a degree- in spite of parents who wanted them to work the business instead- that took the business to the next level.  My dad's inventions are the best selling products, and my uncle's business sense and diplomacy in Asia, particularly Indonesia were what took the business to the next level, and everybody benefited.  My dad's degree was in public speaking, not chemistry, but he learned how to research and study in college and part-way through his masters, and that SKILL is what helped him in his business.

There was a girl that liked my husband quite a lot who wanted to be a homemaker  She didn't think it was important to go to school. She graduated from high school and started working at Pizza Hut.  He wasn't very interested in her.  Frankly, I went to school to get an MRS degree.  My plan A was to get married as soon as possible and start a family.  But I didn't get married right away and ended up getting married with just a year left of school.  I did have a plan B for a successful life where I could provide for myself and live a life of purpose.  That's the key, I think.  I studied hard and I was a good student.  I recognized that if I wanted to marry a prince, so to speak, I would have to be a princess.  Education was, is, and always will be very important to me.  Why else would I spend so many hours teaching my kids?  My husband recognized that, and he found that attractive.  He wanted a wife who would stay home with the kids, but he also wanted a wife that he could have an intelligent conversation with.  I like to think I fit the bill.  :)  I also have a skill I could use to provide for our family, if need be, and that brings us a lot of peace of mind. If needed, I wouldn't apply for a job, I would create a piano studio.  I made pretty good money teaching before I had my degree with a skill I learned before college, and while I could charge more because of my degree and certainly am a better teacher for it, I did have that skill when I graduated from high school.  I still think I would have been a well-prepared wife right out of high school.  It's nice to have that piece of paper, but if I had to go back I would have done just what I did- go to school to get an MRS degree.

I like that people have mentioned "college or a trade".  My sister hasn't gone to college, but she has traveled internationally three times to volunteer to speak English, and she speaks Chinese now- something that, for the right job, would look just as or more appealing to an employer than that piece of paper.  She's saving up to become a midwife (ie, a trade).  She is doing amazing things with her life.  My husband said that if he was still single, a young lady like that wouldn't be any less appealing to him than a girl going to school.

My sons WILL need to know how to earn money well, period.  That's plan A and B, whether they get married or not.  My girls might be single their whole life or need to provide for a family for unknown reasons, so they might need a financial career and should be prepared for it.  We'll prepare them for that.  The point still remains that ideally they would become a good wife and mother.  If they are well educated and learn to value education, I don't think I'm setting them up for failure with that attitude.  I admit that my religion plays a big role in that attitude as well.  For my girls, and my boys, I just want them to be happy.  I recognize that a superb education brings happiness.  It brings financial security.  I want that for them, and my husband and I will encourage them to do college, probably online during their teenage years.  Happiness also comes from a strong moral foundation and knowing how to work hard and being willing to "take chances, make mistakes, and get messy!"

Hi people,

Here's a British article about how uneducated people are in arithmetic.  Nothing to be surprised about, it's all calculators these days and the results show it.  As I'm sure I mentioned, calculators were out of the question for David, but even with Saxon (the old Saxon) it gets harder as you get to the high school levels.  Towards the end, I was making up trig and log tables, just to keep him from using a calculator.  But then sure enough, he would get problems with lots of digits and no rounding, which could take a couple of hours to do by hand - so I did finally relent a bit, but I still held the calculator and he had to ask to use it on specific problems.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2292043/One-adults-simple-sums-past-100-calculator.html

The article's conclusion is very sad. It's also obvious in looking at the demographics that the mathematical decline has been in the last 30 years and trending even worse recently. My guess is that the proliferation of the calculator is a big reason, which means I think you're right.

I was thinking back to my high school days (the math I took in college wasn't that difficult since I wasn't in one of the STEM) - and in my last year of high school they handed me a Texas Instruments graphing calculator. I can't tell you a single thing from that whole year of math other than the teacher sucked and I had no idea what was going on or what they were trying to teach, if anything. Prior to that, I didn't use a graphic calculator (though I did use one in trig when calculating radians and all that).

Mental math isn't my forte, but I'm not weak at it. I can usually calculate percentages in my head to within a decimal point. I can do basic stuff in my head but do get overwhelmed if there's too many digits or numbers while trying to do it my head.... but that's a different discussion. Maybe someday I'll take up Anzan.
 :biggrin:

Wow! How sad. I find it hard to get my head around just how low the standards are! I didn't even do calculus or trig in school but I can sure add numbers well beyond 100! I can calculate most things in my head, and can very quickly give accurate estimates in the middle of conversations.. I just can't understand how the results can be so low. When I finished school I was considered middle of the pack for math. ( top of the second band) I didn't need math for my career so I didn't select difficult math units in years 11-12. Math wasn't compulsory but even I could see not doing any was a stupid idea!
So glad calculators aren't allowed in my kids schools yet. Hopefully we will be far enough ahead it won't matter when they are introduced!

We were allowed a calculator in year 9 maths. I very quickly lost all my quick mental arithmetic skills. I started doing even the most basic sums on the calculator (the type, like 7+12, which is actually quicker to do in your head than punch into the calculator) and even though I was at the top of the top group for maths, my Mum (who was middle in maths) is much better at mental arithmetic than me.

Saying that, I can do a lot of sums in my head if I make some effort. More than most - calculating percentages and adding large numbers etc. I have had to re-learn the skill, though, and am not nearly as fast as I'd like.

Is anyone else completely confused why the 11x table was said to be the hardest? I'd put it right up with the 5x for simplicity...  :rolleyes:

I haven't gone through the whole post, but, have you read "Anumeric man"? It reflects the consequences of the total lack of basic mathematical knowlege in all kind of people (including the a priori well-educated). Anumerism and the general lack of scientific knowledge extends everywhere. I am a physicist and work in a private research centre. I work with engineers, chemists and other physicists, and you wouldn't believe the kind of things I see everyday. Many of them cannot understand/ perform the simplest calculations (not just mental calculation, I'm also talking about very simple programming or excel files), it is just incredible, and very, very, sad.

Mummyroo, I couldn't get why the 11 times tables was considered so hard either! Gees louse! Maybe one of those people who can't do math made up the survey?  lol  lol

NPLight, could you post the link to ``Anumeric man''? Is there a link somewhere on the web? (Google did not give me much info.) Is the book sold on amazon? Thanks.

Tamsyn,

I don't have girls, but if I had them I would be inclined to agree with you. Manda here is the thing that you might be missing - even though Tamsyn hasn't articulated it - I know she believes it: Her daughters will get a very good education because what her daughters know is roughly what her grandkids will know, including her grandsons. There is no cutting girls slack here.

While I think education is VERY important - I think having it combined with entrepreneurial skills is even better. If I had to choose, I would pick business skills over an education any day, but I see no reason for us to pick. However, I have 2 brothers - 1 graduated from high school the other didn't. One is a plumber, own his own business, has 15 employees and is doing VERY well for himself. The other is a chef - he never went to college. His makes well over $150,000 a year. He is not just a chef - he is a business person. I have a friend who can barely read who builds prefab malls, hospitals, office buildings. 30 employees and makes more money than nearly anyone I know. One last person is a pilot friend - also does not have a high school diploma. He just wanted to fly planes. He worked his way up to a Gulf Stream certification. He now owns 5 Lear jets and manages several more. 

Many of the people I know with PHDs are stuck in jobs they hate. They make decent money but they are waiting out their time so they can retire and do what they love.

Shop Class as Soul Craft is an excellent book - food for thought.

I have loved this entire thread and especially Robert Levy's contribution to it.

Since raising children is so important, I can't imagine a more important reason for a woman to have the most extensive education, perhaps even more important than a man who would ultimately be supporting a family if conditions allowed that.  The last poster indicated many ways lack of education doesn't always limit income. There is some issue of a woman owing a great deal of money on that education if they didn't get a monetary return on investment for 20 years or so, though.

I do remember thinking after I graduated from chiropractic college that my education was so valuable even if I never got to work as a chiropractor.  It was so mind expanding, motivational, practical and taught me to think out of the box. It was expensive then, but it is exorbitant now.  I owed $50,000 then. Now it is probably well over $100,000 and I might not have that same sentiment.

What difference would it make what else a person did in their life if they messed up raising their children anyway?

As for math idiocy,  I will admit to being pretty bad at adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing from lack of practice.  I knew how when it was required of me (and was very good at it in elementary school) and quickly forgot important chunks of math facts as soon as a calculator was allowed.  I absolutely loved math and left basic math in the dust when higher math hit the scene.  I did very well in higher math and I felt using the calculator to do calculations didn't limit me at all.

I will absolutely make sure my children know their math facts, but after they know them, I'm not as adverse to a calculator as others because of my own experience.

I am open to the idea that I'm totally wrong too.  Ha ha.

I'm sorry, Nee1, I have the Spanish version "El hombre anumérico" and just translated into English without checking. The original title in English is "Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its consequences", by John Allen Paulos (http://www.amazon.com/Innumeracy-Mathematical-Illiteracy-Its-Consequences/dp/0809058405/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363382272&sr=8-1&keywords=innumeracy+mathematical+illiteracy+and+its+consequences).
Sorry for that!! :blush:

Thanks for the link, NPLight. I'll get the book.

I've been pondering this problem of innumeracy among the general populace. My thoughts are that this problem occurs because people rarely get to use their math skills in their daily lives. Their skills therefore become rusty due to lack of use. It's not everyday you get to calculate the area of a triangle or find the second derivative of a partial differential equation.  And with the presence of calculators, people’s mental maths skills decline even further.

Reading, on the other hand, is everywhere. You need to read grocery labels, to read aloud books to your kids, to read traffic signs, to read complex materials in books etc. So people tend to get better at reading and understanding complex material than they are at math. To therefore become as good at math as they are at reading, they need to put in special efforts to keep their math skills and knowledge fresh.

Thoughts?

I think you're right about that Nee. I've forgotten more math than I currently know, how sad is that?

In browsing through the comments for Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences it seems that one of the themes addressed is the overall lack of understanding in probability. A few months ago, I read Think Fast and Slow, and while reading it my jaw dropped several times in astonishment at how stupid the typical person is and even experts that ought to know better.

Most people who are competent in math can still make significant mistakes in estimating probability. The "Let's Make a Deal" situation incited a lot of anger from professors and mathematicians when they disagreed with the fact that if Monty Hall opens one of the three doors after you've chosen among three, that you will double your probability of winning by taking the deal and altering your choice. For reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem

A similar problem relevant to parents: suppose you find out that you're pregnant, but with fraternal twins! You go in to get your ultra-sound and the radiologist is about to tell you the sexes. The woman spots the gender of both and is now about to reveal them to you. She says, "Okay, at least one of them is a girl, and...."....
assuming 50/50 birth rates for gender, what is the probability that the other child will be a girl, too?
Needless to say, the vast majority of people get this wrong.

The answer that most people give would be correct if the first born was a girl.

It is important to be aware of how badly equipped we are to get our heads around issues of probability and likelihood. We can all fall prey to similar traps when we are attempting to be rational.

Imagine a terrible disease that is absolutely fatal and affects only one in ten thousand people. You are concerned and decide to undergo a medical test to see if you have the disease. Your doctor explains that the test is 99% accurate-it will produce a correct positive or negative result 99% of the time. The envelope arrives a week later from the testing centre. You open the envelope, and read the contents. Staring you in the face is the answer that you dreaded: the results are positive. The test has indicated that you have this lethal disease. You are devastated.
How likely are you to have the disease? 


Chris.

Chris.... you Bayesian, you!

 lol

My response is below in white. Highlight to view

These Bayesian problems seem to give me fits, but this one only took a few seconds so hopefully I didn't miss something. My answer is 1%

The way I see it, there's a false positive every 100 test; In a sample of 10,000 people we expect one infected and 100 false positives. Therefore your chances of being infected after getting a 99% accurate result of positive is 1/100.

Did I get it right?

Sonya, you're right about my sentiments.   ;)

As this thread has touched on dumbing students down, I'm hoping that sharing Glenn Beck's recent post is relevant.  I don't normally follow Beck, but I like the panel he put together for this presentation.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/14/is-the-common-core-initiative-dumbing-down-americas-students/

I've been following Crystal Swasey on my own homefront:

http://www.utahnsagainstcommoncore.com/

This is scary stuff.

Now back to Saxon  lol
I just wanted to put out a warning to all your mummies advancing your children's math. PLease be careful to ensure your children do the Saxon books and CHAPTERS in order. Twice ( maybe 3 times) we have mixed up where we are up to in the books and my girl has done one a few chapters ahead of where she is at. It's not good  :nowink: she spends ages doing a chapter that she isn't ready for, doesn't know how to complete all the problems and makes Lots of mistakes.
On the upside once she goes back to do the ones she skipped she finds them dead easy!  lol
She hasn't gone much ahead but it seems to make a rather large difference when she is working above grade level and so each single skill is new to her. I assume if it was revision or she was working at grade level it wouldn't matter as much.
Also children who know their plus and minus math facts ( reasonably well) but are still learning their times tables by rote can get started on 5/4. My 7 year old is finding it pretty simple. Although we are moving her at a slower pace to give her time to learn her math facts at the same time. She just needed a new challenge so we got started. She is doing a handful of problems each day to keep the info fresh in her head but still slow the pace slightly until those facts are internalised.

Thanks for the info. I'm working through the Saxon 65 book, and I'm finding that book will also be easy for a child who has multiplication, division, addition, and subtraction mastered. It teaches how to tell time, metric and US measurements (and their conversion), how to read calendars, fractions, decimals, probability, arithmetic and geometric sequences, even patterns. Simply put, it covers everything Saxon may cover in their k-3 book, plus lots more. It seems that my search for the perfect math curriculum is over. And the lessons are short and their explanations very clear and understandable. I can now see why Robinson said Saxon (from 54) could be used for self-teaching by a child who can read and comprehend well.
And I would recommend people skip the Saxon K-3 books, and just start at 54 and build up from there. 
 

Yes, as you mentioned, a child that has math facts (multiplication, division, addition, subtraction) mastered is set for Saxon 54. The other things like patterns, calendar, time, measurements, etc., are covered in 54 and 65. My emphasis now with my boy is teaching  him math facts. Just that and only that; nothing else. Once he's gotten all those mastered, I'll start him on 54. He'll learn patterns, calendars, time-telling, and everything else in the 54 and 65 books. Thoughts?

PokerDad
Sorry for the belated response- yes your answer is correct. :)

You are less than 1 per cent likely to have the disease and this fact is very counter-intuitive for most people.
Generally people will fail to factor in the fact that the disease only hits one in ten thousand people.

A positive result could mean that you are one of the 99% of people who have been correctly diagnosed.
Alternatively you could be part of the 1% of people who don’t have the disease but have been wrongly diagnosed that they do.

If 1,000,000 people are tested we would expect one hundred people to have the disease. Remember that the disease only strikes one in ten thousand people.
Ninety-nine out of this hundred will be correctly diagnosed as having the disease because the test is 99% accurate.
We know that 999,900 people out of the 1,000,000 tested won’t have the disease, but 1 per cent (or 9,999 of them) will be wrongly diagnosed as having it.
So you are either one of those ninety-nine who have it, or one of those 9,999 who don’t. You’re over one hundred times more likely to be in the second, safe, category.

The answer that most people give to the Monty Hall problem is correct if Monty doesn’t know which door the prize is behind.
Chris.

We had a fun time with the Monte Hall problem yesterday.  Here's my summary:
(quick background:  3 doors, one has a car, 2 have goats)
1)  Everyone involved knows that Monte will open a door that is not the one selected, but is a goat.  That is part of the rules of the game.
2)  The contestant will pick a door (one of three)
3)  Monte will open a second door, which is a goat
4)  The contestant will be given a chance to change to the remaining door (the one not mentioned above), if he wants to.

Here's our quick answer:
a)  From (2, above), the odds that the contestant picked the right door is one in three
b)  Opening the second door cannot change the odds of the first door, since that step was going to happen regardless of which door was chosen (i.e., no useful information was given to the contestant)
c)  Therefore the odds of the that contestant picked the right door remains one in three
d)  One third door remains not open and one of the two remaining unopened doors still has the car
e)  Therefore the odds for that other door must then be two of three

As far as keeping track of the Saxon work, I had David do the work on loose leaf paper and then put it into a binder when he finished a section.  That seemed to work well.  With more than one kid, then obviously more than one binder.

I agree that once a kid is proficient on math facts Saxon will pick up from there, with Saxon 54.  As others said, Saxon covers a lot more than just number manipulation, it basically covers everything.  I think that I said earlier on this thread that, after David had been through a few books, I went to a bookstore and looked at a study guide for one of our state tests (Texas).  I was blown away by it, because it looked like John Saxon had simply copied his book - I couldn't find one question in that guide that was missed by Saxon.  And keep in mind that I had been desperately searching for something that could actually teach David math, and I looked at a lot of stuff before I stumbled into Saxon.  Just about everything talked about how much fun their particular approach was.  That sent my defenses because I know that learning math is not fun - or at least fun in the way they conveyed.  It is tedious and tiring.  About the only way it can be "fun" is the joy when the kid accomplishes something...but that still isn't fun until it's over - so still not fun while they're learning.

The saddest thing for this country was how the Big Education tore down Saxon prevented it from taking over in math - they had to know what was possible, which is why that bunch had to do what they did.

As far as Glenn Beck - I don't follow him, but on stuff I've heard him talk about, I have yet to see where he's been wrong on just about anything.  The reason that I don't follow him is that it's too depressing - depressing that he's almost always right, and depressing that he's been marginalized at the same time.

nee,
I think it is important for them to have a solid grasp of their math facts (i.e. they can calculate the right answer within a few seconds) even if they are not completely memorized. The program we use for the math facts is called sterling math facts. It costs like $10.

You can chose individual facts to work on, or ranges, or all of one type of equation or all equations or solve for an addend/multiplier (like an algebra problem). You can also chose the amount of time they have to answer each problem and the number of problems. It keeps track of missed problems so you can do a set of the most commonly missed, or make sure a certain percentage of each sets problems are the ones you child misses regularly. You can then look at their results in a pie graph or in a graph with time as the x axis to see how they are improving.

We do 250 problems a day for my 6 year old. He does all add/sub/mult/div 0-12. We use a time out of 8 seconds, but his average time per a problem is 4 seconds.

We start with the Sterling Math facts, then he does the warm up math facts page from Saxon, then he reads the chapter, he then does the mental math/problem solving, lesson review and finishes up with the 30 problems.

We use either the forms from the back of the tests/worksheets book or a form I found online for him to write his answers on or one I found online (I'll attach to this post). My husband or I correct it and then he works through the corrections on his own looking up the ones he missed if he didn't understand it, usually it is silly mistakes from having messy handwriting.

Any he misses after the second time through we watch him work to see where he is going wrong and redirect him. Usually however, when he does it with us watching he is more careful and will get it right.

Linzy - we've been using Sterling Math for my son, he was doing great on easy ones like +1 and +2 but now is struggling with +3. Did you work on memorizing the facts before having them use it, or do you just let them keep getting the wrong answer until they memorize the right one? do you let them count on fingers, use a number line, abacus, teach them the math dots, etc? just curious what your process is there. Thanks for any advice you can give!

Nee your focus on math facts and math facts only is a very sound plan. I am considering this for my boy but I think he likes math too much...he will need something else too. So I was thinking through what else is useful for Saxon success and I decided the only thing it doesn't teach is " how to think" it doesn't teach the problem solving skill of thinking through a possible route to an answer.
Basically I concluded that math facts plus a few random word problems throughout the day and a fairly solid idea of calendars is all that's needed.
Math facts should include halves and quarters of 100 ( and 1000 while you are at it) to save you time later.
The calendar stuff needed is days of the week months of the years and that 30 days has September song.
Yes it truly is a self taught math course. I almost never help my kids out. They just learn it then do it. They fix their own mistakes easily enough and I rarely have to help them get to an answer. Even my 7 year old is mostly independant. She just likes company while she does it.  :)

LDS Mom,

For my older son he had already been using flashcards before we switched over. Our problem was that he would dawdle with the flashcards forever, hence the timeout feature is very helpful.

For my 3 year old, I put the time out at 30-45 seconds. The first few times through the new problems I read it out and make it easier to understand. So I'll say for 3+1 "If you have 3 and I give you one more, how many do you have?, or What's one more then 3?, or What come one after 3?, one, two, three _____? Then I'll help him type it in. After we've done it a few times, I just let him get it wrong and see the answer and type it in right himself. I think lots of repetition will help it really sink in.

With my older son we let him "figure out" the problems, and now he often will go to calculating first even if he knows the answer. With my younger I"d rather he just learn them by heart as an instant response.

Interesting tidbit today at work:

So far, at work, and beyond, there have been a grand total of two people that have asked how David managed to get so far ahead for his age, while hundreds of people (at least) know of him.  The rest, I speculate, figure that Einstein or someone like him transplanted some brain matter into David, and therefore there is no way that their kids could ever hope to achieve the same.  The two people are a Chinese immigrant in New Jersey and a Russian immigrant here in Houston that I work with (I've mentioned the Russian before, here).

Anyway, the Chinese immigrant got a bit weird and my wife is no longer in contact with her, but the Russian woman, that I work with, seems to understand the importance of parents providing primary instruction and has talked with me a bunch about David.  So I ran into her today and she quickly mentioned that, now, 11 more people in her Russian group (I assume mothers of young children) are now using Saxon Math.  She said that was because I told her about it, and then the other 11 parents saw it, and immediately concluded that was exactly what they were looking for (keep in mind, they all, likely, speak and understand English fluently).  So they saw Saxon Math and, I suspect, the way they were taught came to mind, and they knew that Saxon was the way to go.  In Russia, they didn't waste time trying to convince kids of that Che and Mandela were great mathematical minds - instead they just taught math.

I plan to ask more questions the next time I see her.  This country may yet be saved, but it will only be due to parents that take the primary education (reading and math) of their kids into their own hands.

Thanks so much for sharing this with us.  It always makes my day better hearing about things like this.  Especially since a friend of mine who teaches in the school system has told me its no longer about educating children it's all about the numbers.  She is getting tired of fighting the system and is being looked down upon by her colleagues all because she cares that each of her students are not only becoming familiar with but are learning and understanding what she is teaching. 

Yes, I read obsessively about the state of education in our country and I don't know why. It only depresses me. Here locally there are 35 kids per a class with one teacher, a teacher I know was saying that not even half the kids even turn in their homework, so the idea of teaching kids individually or at their level or spending time trying to challenge kids that are ahead is laughable. She just wants to get most of them close to grade level and is grateful for the ones who are above grade level, because she figures they will take care of themselves and even if they don't make gains they will be where they need to be to advance. Luckily we are homeschooling, but it still is so incredibly sad to me, I just wish I could do something, I know it's not abusive but it feels like it sometimes to me.

All the Russian parents I knew when I taught in Moscow were a little scary-obsessed with their kids getting perfect grades and working hard at school, so I'm not overly surprised that the Russian group would start doing Saxon. Especially considering that the schools generally stream with a maths or humanities focus. The maths stream in the school I worked at was teaching 15 year olds what I didn't cover until 18 (and both schools were in the top handful for the respective countries).

Mandab, if you need a good source of story problems for your boy, you might want to look at Ray's New Primary Arithmetic. Excellent vintage book that teaches mastery of math facts but with use of story problems. That might serve as a stop gap for your boy while he learns the math facts by rote. There is a FREE copy online here - http://archive.org/details/raysnewprimarya00raygoog. To download a pdf, click ``All Files: HTTPS'' on the left hand side of the page. You'll find several file formats. One of those is a pdf.

I've gone through all the lessons in Saxon 54 and 65, and there are loads of word problems there. So Saxon teaches thinking. Calendars are covered in 65, with explanations of leap year, decade, century, months, days, etc. Fractions are also explained in 65, etc, etc.

As for the idea of focussing on math facts and math facts alone, I learnt that from the Robinson yahoo group. Loads of those parents focus on that alone. (According to Robinson, it can take a while for a child to master multiplication tables, division and subtraction, and addition). So those parents focus on just that, using math flashcards and programs such as Sterling Math or the free flashcard program (www.xtramath.org). Once the child masters his facts, they move the child straight to 54. And Robinson says in that video on his website  (at 29.27 minutes), that Saxon 54 was the first introductory book John Saxon wrote; and that Saxon K- 3 were simply busy work introduced by the publishers and padded out to fit the public school grade levels.

On this thread, Linzy explains more on math facts and how she used them to move to 54. Link - http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-older-child/swann-family-10-children-with-ma-at-age-16!-book-review-and-discussion-thread/msg94278/#msg94278. Thank you so much, Linzy.

Robert,

I agree with you. I've gone through Saxon 65, and it resonated with me. I kept thinking ``that was exactly how I was taught math''. I saw those standard algorithms for division and multiplication alongside very clear explanations of the steps, just the way I was taught. There was no fuzzy new math stuff or the teaching of 50 different ways to do addition.

And there is another thing I've always pondered. Despite the promises of new math proponents (deeper math understanding, conceptual knowledge, blah, blah, blah), where are the Newtons, the Einsteins, the Eulers, that new math was supposed to produce? I haven’t heard of any yet, years after the implementation of new math. Rather, we are having poorer and poorer results in math. Food for thought.

Each time I think of the ``discovery'' method for math, your amazon review here comes to mind.  lol
Link to the review - http://www.amazon.com/review/REDQUKUP25PSG/ref=cm_cr_pr_cmt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1565775031&nodeID=&tag=&linkCode#wasThisHelpful.

 lol  lol  lol  lol  lol  lol

Nee don't get me wrong I am not suggesting ANY of those things are missing from. Saxon 5/4 but just that kids will need some basic understanding of them before hitting Saxon 5/4 in order to be able to do the questions. I know Saxon has all the answers for the calender stuff. But uTube problem is there is only one line telling the kids which months have 30 days and which ones have 31. Now yes they can read this chapter and answer all the questions, even flipping back through the book when they forget it in 3 days time BUT realistically it takes more than just reading one sentance a couple of times to remember which months have how many days.
As to the teaching thinking...lets see if I can explain this one... Children need to have some idea of how to manipulate numbers and number patterns to do Saxon 5/4. Even if they know their math facts by heart they need some critical thinking ability to complete even the patterns in the 3 rd chapter. Complete this pattern 3,6,9,------,15 or 24,20,------,14. Kids who can't think mathematically will come unstuck fast. They might also read the word problems and not have a clue where to start to solve the problem.  I do believe that if you are willing to sit and work with your children thought he first 10 chapters then the children WILL learn the skills needed just by doing the questions. ( yes particularly the word problems) they just might need some initial support to learn HOW to think them through. I hope that makes sense?
Thanks for the word problem link. I will definitely check that one out!

I get it.

But I don't think it takes critical thinking to understand the sequence you posted. A child that has all multiplication tables pat down will immediately recognise that sequence (3,6,9,------,15) to be the 3's counting up and the next one (24, 20, ....)  to be the 4's counting down

Ray's New Primary Arithmetic looks FANTASTIC!  18 weeks to Saxon 5/4!  Thank you so much!  I've been ho-humming with math with no solid plan aside from "work on basic facts so we can get to 5/4".  This is the step-by-step practice we need.
I've been eying TMT's approach as well though.  I think my son would really enjoy doing the word problems in that book using the soroban to help.  http://teachingmytoddlers.blogspot.com/2013/03/learning-soroban-japanese-abacus.html

Hi people,

When I hear the term "Higher Order Thinking Skills" it makes me cringe.  The term, I believe, was popularized in the 1960s and just about everything from that time frame has been a disaster for the country, with the exception of the space program, and that was due to people educated well before the 1960s.

My first thought with the term "Higher Order Thinking Skills" (abbreviated as HOTS for now on) is that it is a term used by the education establishment to make parents feel inferior or incompetent when discussing the education of their kids.  As far as I can tell, what the establishment says is that you can either have "Rote Memorization" (RM) or HOTS, but not both.  RM includes things like learning addition/multiplication tables, doing math by hand, and, I guess, phonics.  To them, calculators take care of all RM math tasks, so why bother teaching kids that material.  For reading, they look at phonics as stupid, because they all read by sight, like us too (hence the push for "Sight Words"; how we got here doesn't seem to matter to them).

In the case of math, I didn't stumble on to Saxon until David was 6.5 years old (with Saxon 54), and he still managed to get 8 years ahead of his age level in short order.  That gave him several years prior to Saxon to get through the RM part.  My point is that there is room for both and I think one can safely say that RM skills are very, very good to have, since you won't have a calculator with you every moment of your life and you don't want your kid to look illiterate when he needs a calculator to add 12 and 17.  On top of that, there's no assurance that a calculator will always be permitted in every scenario of your kid's life.  For example, the college where my mother taught, New Jersey Institute of Technology, terminated the use of calculators on math tests while she was there.  The kids there simply did not know arithmetic and the college did not want to be handing engineering degrees to them, setting them into a profession where mistakes cost lives.  As to those kids, well, New Jersey introduces calculators in math classes in Kindergarten (or at least did, at the time), so I just feel sorry for the kids.

As to HOTS overall, I kind of look at it as a side effect from using a good curriculum...not a primary purpose.  I think that I mentioned this earlier, but in David's case, I had to make a call as to whether to stall his RM development in favor of HOTS, or to ignore RM.  Specifically, he had no clue what 3 plus 4 meant, and as hard as I tried to teach him (i.e., apples, oranges, things like that) it was was hopeless.  I finally concluded that he would be better off if he could manipulate numbers first, and then figure out what it all meant later.  Likewise with reading - I didn't care if he understood the words, because I knew that he had plenty of time for learning that.  All I wanted when he was little was to simply be able to read the words.  I feel that I was right on both counts.

(usual disclaimer:  These are my opinions, based on my experience, feel free to ignore them if you don't like them)

So I like the general idea. An di am all for NOT slowing kids down just because they don't know how to explain their knowledge but my problem with it all is this
If your child has their math facts memorised but they can't think then they actually can't solve the word problems independantly. So what do you do? Do you work through the first 10-20 problems with them talking it through until they develop the thinking brain? Or try to send them to Saxon 5/4 with these skills already?
I ask because my two girls clearly have a good thinking brain. for the record my 7 year old did not recognise the second problem counting backwards by 4....she just didn't understand what the book wanted from her..Odd. She had no problems with the word problems at all.
But my son who will have his math facts cored soon enough is no where near ready for Saxon 5/4 intellectually. Maybe I am selling him short. ( wouldn't be the first time) and I am not concerned he is only 5 we have plenty of time. But I wonder how much manipulating of numbers children can actually do if they don't understand their math facts.
I do believe a good math program should include memorisation and critical thinking or problem solving. Same as a good reading program needs whole words and phonics.

My unprofessional SWAG opinion on this: it can be math or any other intellectual content, but no one can manipulate information that they do not possess. IMO, that's the big danger of anti-intellectualism.

I don't know if this is a good analogy, but this discussion somewhat reminds me of Laplace Transforms.  For those who aren't engineers or equivalent, Laplace Transforms is about the highest level of math reached when working towards an engineering degree, a couple of years beyond Calculus.  They are used to transform what would be a very complex problem (differential equation) into a problem one can manipulate with Algebra 1, by going into some weird world of math (then once you do the manipulation, you back out and go back into the real world again).  I kept struggling with them because I tried to understand the physical meaning of what they represented (after transforming).  Finally, I gave up and just decided to do the math in the blind and see if I could solve the problems...and that actually did work, so I was finally able to do those problems.  In other words, it wasn't until I jettisoned my attempt at applying "higher order thinking skills" that I was able to do the problems.

So continue with faith?
Robert do you remember if your son could figure out the first word problems independently or not when you first started?
I think I will test my son on a couple just out of curiosity :)

I kept David's work, but can't find it right now.  The only things that I remember giving him trouble were the time problems and the cube problems (where there's an arrangement of cubes next to each other, and then the outside of the arrangement gets painted, and you have to figure out how many cubes get painted on 1 side, 2 sides, or 3 sides - it's an ingenious problem, by the way - requires higher order thinking skills - LOL).  The clock problems were more my fault, because it took a bit to develop a method for them - and then he was fine.

I'm not sure what you mean by faith, but if you mean teaching math without any attempt at physical representation, then yes, it worked great for David.  I was surprised myself, or I wouldn't have wasted my time trying to teach him the concepts first.  But he did have something to fall back on, which was that he could count.  Once he could count, then he could do the arithmetic (addition and subtraction problems) on a number line, which he did at the beginning.  Then the number line (which was on a marker board) slowly got less detailed, as numbers were erased, so he had to interpolate between what was left, then there were no numbers, just tick lines, and then no number line at all.  So, he had to use the number line in his head, which worked (He struggled a bit, so I asked him what was wrong.  He told me the number line in his head didn't have any numbers, so I gave him permission to repopulate the numbers...then he was fine).  For whatever reason, times tables went much faster, and he picked them up right away.

I realize that it defies logic, but it did work for us.

Manda,

How Saxon teaches word problems in the beginning is simple. Addition problems are called: some/some more.  So you have 5 apples and Billy gave you 2. Now how many do you have?

Subtraction problems are: some/some went away.

In the above example, you ask the child if it is a some/some more or a some/some went away. You ask the question before the child tries to solve the problem. Then let them figure it out.  It worked very well. The kids are asked the question in Saxon 1 over and over so it gets ingrained.

You can demonstrate with manipulates a couple times. This should solve your problem.

Manda, I would just start the Saxon 54. We had tried doing the word problem book that comes with Jones genius Math 3 kit and my son totally struggled with it, we started the saxon and everything is so gradual that somehow he learned it. I haven't tried going back to that word problem book, but I know that the problems he is doing now (at the end of Saxon 54) are a lot more complex, so I would just have him start on faith.

There might end up being a Saxon war in my house.  lol  if I star my son on it I will then have 3 kids doing 5/4. The younger 2 will be racing each other tot he finish and my oldest will be starting the next one very soon...possibly just to be sure she stays ahead of her siblings! Lol
No I don't think I will start him just yet. Sooner than I thought though perhaps. Math facts for a bit longer first.
Thanks Robert. A number line makes sense. In a way that is a manipulative. It gives a physical representation of the sequence. It would have helped get the answer right even if the understanding wasn't yet there.
I really want to start them when they DO have some understanding. Just to make life easier for me.  :yes: I am figuring I have some time to spare as I teach math facts so I may as well do something. I also don't really want all three kids on the same book! That will be a nightmare later on!
My daughter had some problems with the time questions also. She seems to have it all sorted now though. Practice and redoing all the ones she got wrong was the key. Telling the time was no problem but telling the time past in reverse had her stumped.

Sonya and Linzy,

Thanks for the help in answering the question and I agree with what you wrote.  You guys are much closer to Saxon than I am now.  And I agree, their word problems do build up in difficulty, but in a controlled manner so as not to leave the kid lost.

Manda,

We had our own "Saxon Wars" in our house, but of the opposite type, where it was one kid doing all he could to get away from doing math problems (LOL).  Unfortunately for him, his parents weren't particularly interested in him being happy while learning nothing (as opposed to being unhappy and learning math), so he lost those battles.  Yes, the number line approach worked very good, as he was otherwise lost.  It seems easy for us parents to think that kids should just be able to memorize 100 combinations of numbers (i.e., the addition table), but at that age and with no experience with numbers it's a total blur to them, or at least David, where he would simply guess at the answer, even if he saw the flash card 10 seconds ago...that's why many kids start out counting on their fingers.  The number line was similar, but, being on a marker board, I could wean him off it, which is what I did.  I have no clue how things would have went without it.

Question for Robert:

in reading reviews, it seemed as though perhaps 8/7 & Algebra 1/2 are redundant. Your thoughts on that? If they are, would this be about the time when David was really upset about doing math or was that at a different time if you recall?

Is Algebra 1/2 or Saxon 8/7 necessary - or, in your opinion can either or both be skipped?

Regarding Algebra 1, 2, and Advanced Mathematics - do you think I could get by with a teacher's edition & solutions manual, or would I need the entire kit? Teachers edition seems to have the answers at the back but not written in the lessons, so if you had an honest student, perhaps the teachers of these particular books would work?

I think that's as high as they go. Any suggestions on texts for higher stuff like Calc (perhaps David would have some input there)?

You could just tear out the answers in the teachers edition. You may need to remind it. Realistically I think we might cut all the spines off and turn them digital anyway. They are very bulky...more so in my case with three kids and thus 3 books to lug around.
Also just so every one knows only the higher levels have the answers at the back the lower levels of the teachers editions have the answers right next to the questions!
I am interested in something harder also. Our kids will get to the end well before they finish high school ( age wise) so something to keep them busy for a year of two would be nice. Though we could just switch to quantum physics  :biggrin:

There is a Saxon Calculus as well as a Physics book.  I thought there was a Trig book as well but google isn't confirming this for me.

Hi PokerDad,

David was so far ahead by the time he was at Math 87, I said what the heck, just do it.  As far as his anger towards the math world back then, it didn't matter which book he was using it was PURE TORTURE (to him) - that's how we both remember it.  As you note, Math 87 is basically optional in their series - if the kid is good in math, it's not really needed (per Saxon's advice).  I liked the idea of him having a chance to sharpen up his skills before advancing to Algebra, so I recommend it in all cases (unless there's a real time crunch in some way).

As far as Algebra 1/2, I said on Amazon that it is simply the best math book ever written, and I stand by it.  That book, more than any other, blew my mind away as to how it got kids ready for Algebra.  Saxon doesn't consider it option and neither do I, by a long shot.  When you get there, you'll see what I mean.

I only had the Homeschool Editions, so I'm not familiar with the Teacher's Editions.  Even the Homeschool books had at least some of the answers in the back, and being David is like me (in the bad ways), I too ripped out those pages, so he would have to do the real work.  But I only used the text book and the solutions manual, so I think you're good, based on the answers being removable.

As to Saxon Physics and Calculus, I did buy both, but didn't use either.  It was pointed out by someone that Saxon Physics is not calculus-based, which means it's not college-level Physics.  I checked my book and he's correct...no integral signs.  So the book is still probably good to learn on, but you'll need a more advanced book to cover college level (such as below).

Regarding other books.  One piece of advice I can think of is to use the ratings at Amazon starting at Calculus and College-level Physics.  Unlike the earlier grades, I don't think you'll have to deal with the bile of the public school establishment when it comes to judging those books, as they usually don't care about college-level kids on a science/engineering track (they have other ways to reach them).

For Calculus, he used:  Larson, Hostetler, Edwards, 5th Edition (50%)
For Physics, it was Serway and Jewett, 4th Edition (50%)*
For Linear Algebra, it was David C. Lay, 3rd Edition (50%)
For Partial Differential Equations, it was Richard Haberman, 4th Edition (15 to 20%)

The percentages after the books represent the approximate percentage of answers at the end of the book.  In the first 3 cases, they have answers to the odd-numbered problems.  In the last one (which is quite a way up there in the math world), it's only scattered answers...hopefully junior will be taking at least that class in college.  The Physics books also has a partial solutions manual that will help you work through around 20% of the problems (in addition to the odd-numbered answers) - I actually worked through the first half of that text book (for the fun of it) a year ago... challenging!!

Those are the books he used, and he liked them all - but we don't have any real basis for comparison, and we don't know how they'll be for a home school environment.  Also, you can try, but don't expect to have much luck getting your hands on solution books for college-level text books, as the publishers are pretty tight about distribution.  Finally, in case it's not obvious, there's no need to get later editions of any book - as you'll see the earlier editions can be picked up for next to nothing.

To Tamsyn,

I think there is now an optional Saxon Geometry Book, but no Trig book that I know of.

As it was, the original series didn't have either Geometry or Trig, but rather integrated them through their series of math books.  Saxon didn't like the idea of a kid completing Algebra 1 and then taking 15 months off before continuing on with Algebra (i.e., Algebra 2), so he built in the Geometry to the Algebra books.  Trig, I think, he just squeezed into the Algebra 2 and Advanced Math books.

This is what I've found and referred to in the past. It is from Art Reed, who is kind of a Saxon math expert. As you can see in some cases you may skip Math 87, but never Algebra 1/2 (http://www.usingsaxon.com/newsletterpage-2012.php)

FAST MATH TRACK:  Math 76 - Algebra 1/2 - Algebra 1 - Algebra 2 - Geometry with Advanced Algebra - Trigonometry and Pre-Calculus(combined make up the Advanced Mathematics book) - Calculus. NOTE: The Saxon Advanced Mathematics textbook was used over a two year period allowing the above underlined two full math credits after completing Saxon Algebra 2. (TOTAL High School Math Credits: 5)


AVERAGE MATH TRACK:  Math 76 - Math 87 - Algebra 1/2 - Algebra 1 - Algebra 2 - Geometry with Advanced Algebra - Trigonometry and Pre-Calculus. (TOTAL High School Math Credits: 4)


SLOWER MATH TRACK:  Math 76 - Math 87 - Algebra 1/2 - Algebra 1 - Introduction to Algebra 2 - Algebra 2 - Geometry with Advanced Algebra. (TOTAL High School Math Credits: 4)


NOTE 1:  YOU SHOULD USE THE FOLLOWING EDITIONS AS THEY ARE ACADEMICALLY STRONGER THAN THE EARLIER EDITIONS ARE, AND MIXING THE OLDER EDITIONS WITH THE NEWER EDITIONS WILL RESULT IN FRUSTRATION OR FAILURE FOR THE STUDENT.

                Math 76: Either the hardback 3rd Ed or the new soft cover 4th Ed. (The Math content of both
                              editions is the same)

                Math 87: Either the hardback 2nd Ed or the new soft cover 3rd Ed. (The Math content of both
                              editions is the same)

                Algebra 1/2: Use only the 3rd Edition. (Book has the lesson reference numbers added)

                Algebra 1:  Use only the 3rd Edition. (Book has the lesson reference numbers added)

                Algebra 2:  Use either the 2nd or 3rd Editions. (Content is identical. Lesson reference numbers
                                     added to the 3rd Ed)

                Advanced Mathematics:   Use only the 2nd Edition: (Lesson reference numbers are found in
                                                                 the solutions manual, not in the textbook)

                Calculus:  Either the 1st or 2nd Edition will work.


NOTE 2:   WHEN RECORDING COURSE TITLES ON TRANSCRIPTS, USE THE FOLLOWING TITLES:

                  Math 76:  Record "Sixth Grade Math."

                  Math 87:  Record "Pre-Algebra."(If student must also take Algebra 1/2, then use "Seventh Grade
                                 Math")

                  Algebra 1/2:  Record "Pre-Algebra."

                  Algebra 1  &   Algebra 2:    Self explanatory.

                  Advanced Mathematics:   Record "Geometry with Advanced Algebra" (1 credit) if they only
                                                        complete the first 60 - 70 lessons of  that textbook.
                                                               
                                                        Record "Trigonometry and Pre-calculus" (1 credit) if they have
                                                        completed the entirety of the Advanced mathematics textbook.

                                                        Under no circumstances should you record the title "Advanced
                                                        Mathematics" on the student's transcript as the colleges and
                                                        universities will not know what math this course contains,
                                                        and they will ask you for a syllabus of the course.

                 Calculus:  Self explanatory.                           

Very useful thank you all. I think we will need some extension math books. Good to store this info for later.
Just so you all know we use the lesson reference numbers a couple of times a month. They are definitely worth having and I imagine will be even more useful as the lessons get harder. If you want your children to self teach then lesson numbers are very important. The reference numbers are written in very small print next to the question, the number refers the student back to the lesson that that problem was introduced ( and thus explained) allowing them to look up things they have forgotten without asking mum ( or dad ) for help.

I have the 8/7 book and looking through it I agree it is redundant. I think my oldest could do it now with not much difficulty. In saying that if they are already ahead the extra calculations are only going to sharpen skills, so I will probably make them do at least half of it. I can see a point during 8/7 when it will all become torturous repetition and we will decide enough is enough and skip on to algebra 1/2. I cannot imagine even considering skipping algebra 1/2 unless you were doing grade level math and getting tuition through schools s well.

I wanted to let you know that my two girls were racing each other to finish their Saxon lessons today  :yes: it was the fastest lesson my oldest has ever completed yet ( today she beat her sister by 2 questions) I haven't marked it yet and I will make her redo the entire thing if she makes too many mistakes from laziness. Yes I have made her do one again before, mean mummy I am  :biggrin:

No, you're not a "mean mummy", at least if your experience winds up anything like mine.  While I talk about David screaming at me, the fact is, today, with what he knows now, he would kill to have me force him into those lessons, if he were starting over.  Your effort (and others here) will ALWAYS  be appreciated by your kids (at least when they're a bit older).  And by the way, David probably had dozens of lessons that I made him completely redo, due to laziness.

One more comment on the Russian woman that I know through work, who is using Saxon for her 2 kids.  I verified that it was 11 Russian families in her group that are now using Saxon.  She had told me earlier that when they saw the books, they knew it was exactly what they were looking for.  So yesterday I asked her if the books reminded her of Russian math books (she still has young relatives back in the old country that she helps tutor).  She said no, the Saxon books are much better.  She noted that the Russian books are still better than US textbooks (which isn't saying much), but she emphasized that Saxon was still better.  She also told me that the Saxon virus is now spreading to the Indian community, at least in one case that she's familiar with.  I'm surprised it took them so long to figure it out, as they were the closest people to being able to compete with David in spelling and math (and, I'm sure, still stunned that he cleaned their clocks).

I'm still waiting for the first American-born person to ask me about using Saxon (outside of this forum, of course)...

"Saxon virus".  May all be smitten and may we never recover!

FWIW, there are a lot of American homeschoolers that are die-hard Saxon fans, I've met several.

A comment for Mandabplus3, you mentioned lugging 3 books around once all your kids are on Saxon.  Just thought I would mention an organising tip that I saw on a homeschool blog the other day.  She took all her texts to an office store ( in the States but I assume they could do it here as well) and for 80cents had the binding cut off.  Then hole punched all the pages (again she could do this for free at the office store with a heavy duty punch - don't know what services ours have).  Stuck it all in a folder with clear pockets on the outside for the cover.  You could then remove the section/s that the kids are using and put in their own smaller folders to carry around and change out as needed.  Only thing that I would worry about would be how the holes would stand up to use or whether the pages would end up being pulled out of the folder.  But would save carting all those big books around.

Good idea! I will probably get them to cut the binding off and scan the book to the iPad though. I say this knowing I can trust my kids with the iPad and still do their work. HOWEVER your idea of filing all the pages gives me a wonderful backup for when we don't have power or my not-so-trustworthy child needs a kick up the backside and her iPad confiscated. ( hasn't happened yet I am pleased to say)
I was thinking today about the speed of progress through Saxon. We have slowed down somewhat but I calculated out that I will have one child finished all the books by the end of grade 6. That's not even high school here in Australia. My other two children have/will started at a younger age and so will be finished at least a year earlier.
 I was thinking they would be done somewhere in early high school and so wasn't too concerned as by the time we hit high school I can negotiate a distance education curriculum, early entry to university for a couple of units and grade skipping for certain classes. ( All while still attending their same school, yes I have already checked out their early graduation options  :biggrin: ) If they get there before grade 7 I am screwed!  :ohmy: I have no options for grade skipping until grade 7, no real flexible curriculum options and no distance education. I have to be honest if it was only math they were ahead in this wouldn't bother me but it is likely to be at least 3 areas they outstrip their peers in by a long way.
I can see some trouble on the horizon.  :wub: looks like my kids will have plenty of time to go through ALL of those suggested extension books.  Not just one as I assumed :tongue:
In saying all that and airing my concerns I am not going to stop doing Saxon with them. It just wouldn't be right to not give them the education they are capable of. My oldest has learnt enough through saxon now that I can see its benefit in terms of knowledge, self esteem, and even some class freedom. Even my 2 nd child who has only just started saxon can see she is learning things every day. The problem is mostly with me not them. I am a little scared at the prospect of a further 10 years of negotiated curriculums and parent teacher interviews and early university  entrance meetings. I have already been working hard on their school based education so far and was hoping it would get easier with time.  :wub:  home schooling is looking easy at the moment. I may have to spend my energy convincing the school on a duel enrolment... Half them half me  :D

Ok, I recently completed the book ``From Crayons to Condoms : The Ugly Truth About American Public Schools''. (http://www.amazon.com/Crayons-Condoms-Americas-Public-Schools/dp/0979267110). Please note, I'm not bashing the United States at all. I read such books because we have similar trends in Britain, and I want to prepare myself completely and knowledgeably for the future. I want to know what exactly is going on in those classrooms, as it is difficult to know except you are in the system.

So I read the book, and was outraged. Thomas Sowell's ``Inside American Education'' had unveiled most things for me, but it was still shocking to read the true live stories of parents and children who were made to pass through the entire rubbish called modern ''education''. As a senator of California was quoted in the book as saying: “An educational heresy has flourished, a heresy that rejects the idea of education as the acquisition of knowledge and skills…the heresy of which I speak regards the fundamental task in education as therapy.” Simply put, education has passed from the realm of imparting knowledge and skills  to the realm of therapy.

I quote an excerpt from ``From Crayons to Condoms'':

The above excerpt echos exactly what I had read in Thomas Sowell's ``Inside American Education''.  Yes, schools no longer teach. They are now therapy centres, asking children to sign ``confidentiality forms'' promising that they will not tell their parents what was done during the ``therapy'' sessions. No wonder children are more illiterate than ever, inspite of the long hours they spend in school each day. Rather than using the 7-8 hours of class time to teach kids how to read, write, and do math, schools waste precious hours on ``values clarification'' and providing ``therapy'' for entire classrooms etc.

Robert Levy once made a comment about avoiding math books with Nelson Mandela on the front. It was funny to me at the time. Now I understand why - it is all the so-called multiculturalism. What multiculturalism has to do with math I cannot tell. Here is an excerpt from the book:


Elsewhere it says:

Thomas Sowell wrote about a lot of these things, and the book ``From Crayons to Condoms'' provides complementary evidence from parent and student interviews. And watch out, most educators will never accept that it is the time wasted on social engineering that actually leads to low performance. I once cited a research article by Harold Stevenson which showed that while Asian schools spent 94% of class time on academic activities, American schools spent only 64% of class time on academics. And that article by Stevenson was published a long time ago. Who knows how much time is wasted now?

I won’t even go into the very, very inappropriate material students are exposed to in the name of English classes and school reading. It's disgusting and shocking. May my kids never pass through such places.

Mr Robert, what you once said on this thread, I read in that book. Here is the excerpt:

Very interesting. And those things that you pointed out are my biggest qualms with public education.
I have read 4th grade text books like those. There is also this "figure it out for yourself" round about way of teaching math which is not helping students that are unable to figure it out. Many of these kids needs a solid foundation before they can apply thinking to problems. 

It i like being told to knit a sweater without a pattern.... Sure one could figure it out, but they would need to know how to knit first.

I also think too much time is spent "esteem building." Where the children sit in circles and say something nice about the the person next to them. We called these warm fuzzies when I was in school. I had a class in grade 7 that did this. We call it a warm fuzzy car wash. We walk past people and they give us a compliment. I HATED it. After 20 kids told me that they liked my blue eyes, it didn't do a thing to build my esteem. It isolated me from my peers, because I knew they really didn't know a thing about me. And even at 12 I knew forced compliments weren't genuine.
I tutor a girl who is unable to do her work. She doesn't write down her homework because she wants to have her turn at getting a compliment that day in the compliment game they play.
Wasted time to me....

Korrale, yes.  According to the book, ``students are promoted and given ``A's'' to help their self esteem without being taught the essentials of American history, government, and arithmetic''. And the book makes an excellent point about the self-esteem syndrome. It says:




And here is one parent's testimonial about the self-esteem syndrome:

Here is other parent's testimonial of how self-esteem and ``feelings'' trumped actual learning of math in his child's classroom:

My son is 3. And he hates getting things wrong. He gloats when my husband or I are wrong, about anything.  But I want him to be wrong.... A lot. I want him to learn that being wrong is okay. He needs to learn from being wrong.

I do correct him as he reads. I do tell him simply that he is wrong when he answers a math question incorrectly. I then have him try again (if I know he knows it) or I will take the moment to help him by reteaching the concept.

I completely agree - praise is getting out of hand in schools now. I was lucky - the praise/experimental maths and spelling was only starting when I was in school and seemed to follow along in the year groups below me without affecting me too much, though I still remember when I took my 12+ (grammar school entrance exam) the teachers told us there 'is no pass or fail' but only those who got over a particular score could go to the grammar school - how is that not a pass-fail situation? Now it is at the point that the newspapers are writing about these 'amazingly talented' young people who PASS GCSEs (tests for 16 year olds) at 6/7/8 and get F or G grades. Since when was an F or G a pass? Since when did they introduce grades below F? In my day, worse than an F was simply 'ungradeable'. I mean, sure, taking an exam 8-10 years early is impressive, but if I was ever to put my son in for an exam early, I would at least wait until he is able to pass it properly. Getting an A grade at 10 -six years early- is way more impressive than a G at 8 in my opinion.  :blush:

Should I even mention that when we took our GCSEs and ran out of past exam papers (we would generally finish the 2 year syllabus 4-5 months early to have plenty of practice for the exams) the school gave out the old O level papers - the exams my Mum's generation took - and we could not do them. They were so much harder we couldn't believe it. And the exams have been getting easier and the pass grades lowered every year since. I think it is possible to get an A with 60% in some exams! And even in ENGLISH exams there is only a small number of the questions where they even bother to deduct marks for bad spelling and grammar - you can understand the odd longer word or tricky spelling being overlooked, but kids are getting passing grades with textspeak!  :ohmy:  :ohmy:  :ohmy:

And no 9 year old should be of the opinion that you don't need to know how to add long numbers because "that's what calculators are for"  :mad:

OK, rant over  :wub:

what a great thread, i must admit I only managed to read the first 5 and last 5 pages so hopefully my questions are not redundant ;-). I will read the rest soon.

Robert, thanks so much for sharing your experience, this is great. It's really interesting you mentioned "forget about the concept, just say that 5 and 2 is 7", I started this recently with my 2.5 year old just for fun (just saying things like "one and one is two" or "five and five is ten!") and this is suddenly when she started to get it. Just a few days after I started  asked her how many dolls were there (there were three) and she said "Three. Two, and then one more". Long-term, I've always had to understand everything though, I could never do the faith part at least in high mathematics (which is why I got stuck at some point, probably!) but I think you're right that if you want to start early it's the only way to go, otherwise you can't advance.

My questions:
1) since you like the fact based approach, have you heard of or have you used the Jakow Trachtenberg system of speed math? I am ambivalent about it because it provides a short cut in the calculations, I think I want my kids to know the old school way before using these tricks, but I think it's helpful later to gain speed. What do you think?

2) also, any views on Saxon Math vs Singapore Math? So many homeschoolers/afterschoolers seem to use Saxon Math. From reading lots of reviews about it, I understand Saxon Math is more about thorough grounding in the basics and operations, and Singapore Math more about problem solving and concepts. I am undecided now. I like problem solving and critical thinking but also think you can't do that without very thorough basics. Any thoughts on this appreciated! And sorry if you have covered those things already!

It is interesting that Saxon and Singapore have that reputation. In practice Saxon has lots of word problems, many more than most school curriculums contain. There are multiple problems to solve in each lesson.
We have been using Saxon here for the past 8 months or so and I am quite pleased with the results my kids are achieving. We want to do more but unfortunately they attend school and actually have to do their school homework. Which is of course easier... :(

Mummyroo,

Someone once shared this short, yet interesting article titled ''Parents are you ready to teach your children Arithmetic?'' Link to the entire article - http://www.eagleforum.org/column/2000/mar00/00-03-29.html.

An excerpt from the article:



My guess is that the ``inventive'' spelling phenomenon follows along the lines of ``discovery'' math. So rather than kids being taught spelling rules, they are now told to ``construct'' or ``invent'' or ``discover'' their own spelling.  lol 

Utah says that Saxon math is inadequate.  Constructionist math is great.   :mad:   My brother's math class changed mid-year and my mom changed her mind about letting him do public school.  He is now okay with that.  Math at the public school isn't fun for him anymore.  So if "fun" really was their primary goal, they failed there too.  Anyway, this is something going on in my neck of the woods.

http://www.utahnsagainstcommoncore.com/stem-is-dead-in-utah-courtesy-of-the-usoe/

How things change - I seem to remember getting into arguements with my A level teacher when a friend and I would work together to try and figure out how to do the problem (because neither of us understood the textbook explaination she gave us)  :rolleyes:

I do think exploring rules and figuring out solutions to problems are fantastic skills to have, but not at the expense of actual learning! How about they teach the kids the proper algorithms that their parents know and understand and only then give them a small part of the class (or an occasional lesson) to explore other ways to do things. At least they would be able to check their answers, then!

Or maybe there should be a compulsory course in common sense added to teaching degrees  lol

This thread is eye-opening. Luckily, I think in the UK things are much better than the US (and the government is trying to go back to a 1950s style national curriculum which I think is the right thing but the teaching unions are up in arms about it). But still everywhere we're fighting the same problems. The private schools here are quite good and tend to work 1-2 years ahead of the national curriculum, so you would think you can trust them, but recently I had an experience that really shocked me. Friends of ours (very smart educated couple, the equivalent of Rhodes scholars in their country) have a great daughter at a top private school (not the absolute top but pretty good), she's 9 years old and among the top students in her class. We were there with our toddler, they started playing with scales and she weighed herself at 23kg and I told her my daughter was 14kg. Then I just asked for fun "so how many more kilos do you weigh?" and she couldn't tell me, first she thought about it for a while, then she ran to get her calculator and I said "come on, 23 - 14, no calculator, what's the answer?", then she started guessing... "12? 10?", then she went into her room, came back and told me the correct answer (she probably typed it into the calculator in the next room). I was so shocked. I was thinking am I later going to be paying $30k per year for a fancy private school and aged 9 my daughter can't do a simple problem that in the 80s any 7 year old could do? Now when I choose schools I will always ask at what age they introduce calculators (and I hope there is a school that doesn't use them at all!).

And the modern textbooks are a disgrace, I agree. I actually just ordered the first hardcover edition of Saxon Math 54 used on amazon (for $4 :-) ) after reading this thread, I'm worried in a few years time you only get some modern version. I experienced this with Latin textbooks. i loved the Latin textbooks introduced at my school when I was 10, it had 50 lessons, everything was in Latin, black on white with a small beautiful drawing depicting the story. it started out with simple stories like Aesop's fables and other short Roman/Greek myths, then went into the history of Rome, then short excerpts from comedies and poems, and then legal texts, Seneca's letters and so on. This was good for about 4 or 5 years, doing one lesson per week. it was so perfect and no-frills that last year I decided to buy it before it is phased out. to my horror, I found out it's not available online and probably out of print. Then I went to the bookstore that sells the Latin textbooks for the school I went to, but they only had modern textbooks. I checked them to see if they were equally good and was horrified that it was full of colours, text boxes, all in English with little pieces of Latin here and there, and texts written by the editors (rather than real Latin texts) about things like "going to the market", "what houses in Rome looked like" and everyday things like that, just like modern language textbooks.Luckily I found my old edition of the textbook back home when I visited my parents and took it to London with me (along with an old school Ancient Greek grammar book). It's so sad that they are trying to make everything more interactive and fun and in the process, they just confuse everyone. I don't know how I would ever learn Latin with a modern textbook. In my time, you could pick up a Latin grammar book of 90 pages, and it was so concise that when you had memorised all 90 pages, you knew all there was to know about Latin grammar. Now you can read 300 pages and still have no clue about anything. So I decided to teach my kids Latin myself with my old textbook because I am sure even at the nicest private schools it's going to be a total disaster nowadays.

Oh phew. Both my 9 year old and 7 year old got the answer with no calculator.  :biggrin: my son even started to figure it out but he had to leave with daddy. I shall see if he gets it later tonight ;) I would be devastated if I was spending money on education and my 9 year old count work that one out in her head!
$4! Bargain! My shipping is $36 on top and I still think they are worth the money!
Definitely ask about the calculators but reword your question. Here in Australia they HAVE to introduce calculators in grade 1 as part of the curriculum. My kids got an " introductory lesson" which involved me buying a $12 calculater, the teacher showing them how to turn it on, do a simple sum and then shelve it til high school! Lol perfect lesson!  lol you just need to ask when they begin using calculators for regular computation during math lessons and make sure it isn't before grade 7 at least.
Very  few schools teach Latin these days at all. There is one school near us that does, I wasn't at all interested in having my kids learn such and old and unused language, so overlooked the school quickly. Boy would I reconsider that decision now knowing all I know. They teach a classical education...which i used to think meant outdated and boring. Oh well, we live and learn. I am keen to start teaching them some Latin route ( root?) words but haven't found a simple text for it. We just want a word a day type text. A basic coverage to help cement the French, Japanese and Spanish and english they are learning. ( ok dabbling in  :D ) check if the book you have it out of copywriter. You may be able to share it around.
Keep collecting your Saxon books you will be quite happy with the results from using them. We certainly are. The school my kids attend has a REAL meaning C point average grade. ( C is the grade you get if you are working at grade level and passing, A and B are above grade level marks and rare) my daughter doing Saxon is sitting on an A- she could get higher but they haven't actually tested her on anything higher than a B, so they are assuming her abilities based on that. Her teacher has commented that she doesn't always understand HOW my daughter gets to the answer but if its right she isn't going to re teach her another method and confuse her. (Wooooohoooo!) but that she often just KNOWS the answer and although that is great we need to encourage her to show her working out. This year it's not so important but for high school they get marks for the working out and marks for the answer ( yep even if the answer is wrong the working out gets you points in your tests) so we will need to work on that over time.
This discovery fuzzy math is a perfectly acceptable way to teach math.....to 3 and 4 year olds only!  lol

"We told her that we wanted our son to learn how to spell, and we wanted him corrected in class. She stated she would not do that because it would damage his self-esteem."

First, sorry all for being such a slacker, I needed some time off...

Anyway, the above quote from Nee's posting (May 9) is very enlightening.  The word brainwashed is used a lot by critics of our education system and I try to stay clear of it.  But I'll use it here, but not in the usual way.  What this quote tells me is that the teacher is brainwashed into thinking that she is an absolute expert, above reproach, and that parents are a bunch of dimwits.  And that is true in the vast majority of cases, as this hapless parent found out.  It is futile to get into a discussion of methods or curriculum selection with them, they will simply tune you out and do whatever it takes to get you out the door.  As far as they're concerned, they have the degrees, the training, and the experience to teach properly.  Having read Thomas Sowell, I knew this was not the case from the beginning, which is why I only attended one parent-teacher conference during the 7 years or so that David was in his Christian schools, and only then because the teacher (a real basket case) demanded both parents show up.

The bottom line is that your kids' primary education (math and reading) has to be done under your control.  Public schools are not under parental control because their money comes from government, so that's who they answer to (and sometimes, as we learned in Texas with CSCOPE, that is may not even be the case).  Private schools are somewhat better because they know you can walk away, but the major issues with public schools rubs off on them to - and often due to other parents.  I may have mentioned it before, but my wife was a substitute at one of David's Christian schools.  Now I still remember from 40+ years ago how happy I was when I saw a "sub" because I knew it was a day off.  But not with Susan - she had the kids work in class, do homework, and was about to test them (she had the class for a week).  Then she got fired, because too many parents complained...

You really have to do it yourself, or do it through a learning center which doesn't claim to be a school in any way.

To GeniusExperiment,

I don't know anything about the Jakow Trachtenberg system of speed math, so I could only find what you found.  Regarding the faith method, it's interesting that you mentioned it as stopping your progress, as it very nearly stopped mine too.  In my case, it was getting into complex analysis (for engineering, beyond Calculus).  You have to simply forget about understanding anything when you go into that world.  An example is Laplace Transforms.  You start with a differential equation from the real world that's understandable, then you do a Laplace Transform, do some algebra, and what you get makes absolutely no sense at all.  But then you do an Inverse Laplace Transform and enter the real world again and your answer makes sense.  So why do the Laplace Transform in the first place?  Because the problem is either very difficult to solve in the real world, or impossible to solve - but you go into a system that makes no sense, then come out of it, and you easily get the right answer.

Not much posted here lately, so I'll add a bit.  In meeting with several Brill moms recently one thing we struggled with was figuring out was how kids could spend 6 to 7 hours per day in school, and learn next to nothing.  We wondered what they were doing with their time, when we parents can double or triple the speed of their development with around 3 hours per day of concentrated work (and no training), which is even possible with the kid still enrolled in school.  For example, as I've mentioned before, David was in 2nd grade when we started on Saxon (Saxon 54), and we got through 4 grade levels (through Saxon 87) in one year.  He did this while enrolled in school full time, traveling to visit relatives around the country, going skiing for a week, and doing some things that other kids do at that age (karate and piano).

So I'll list a few things, some I've likely mentioned before:
1) Summer Vacations (2 to 3 months to forget things)
2) Field Trips (lots of fun, but no educational value for young kids)
3) Substitute Teachers (understandably) unable to pick up the work
4) Non-Academic Subjects* - like art, music
5) Premature Academic Subjects* - like science and history
6) Watching Movies
7) Diversionary Curriculum*
8 ) Physical Education*

*see below for more info


Non-Academic subjects:  I think are just to tweak the kids to see if they have any talent in those areas.  At least that's the best that I can come up with.  Touching on these areas might be ok, but dedicating a large chunk of time means other subjects are missed.

Premature Academic Subjects:  These are academic topics that are not doing the kid any good at his age, and will be fully repeated later, as in high school.  There is nothing gained by these subjects in grade school and little gained in junior high.  In David's case, he didn't have Biology or Chemistry until he was in college (most people have them in high school), and did well enough in both - so if he had them earlier, even in high school, the additional benefit would have been marginal.

Diversionary Curriculum:  This is my term for teaching core subjects in a way that will not work effectively for most (maybe all) kids.  I call it "diversionary" because reading is still called reading and math is still called math, but they are taught in ways designed to fail (I would use weaker language - but the people at the top levels have had enough time to figure out that they simply don't work).  So, for reading, it is the use of Sight Words, instead of phonics, from Kindergarten through Third Grade.  For Math, it is "Discovery Math", sometimes called "Fuzzy Math", often with calculators, and never with memorizing of addition and times tables or long division.  So, in both cases, the parents are told that their kids are learning math and reading, so they typically walk away happy.  For the parents that did their own research and are on to this scam, they are told that the these new ways are "tested" and "proven" and the results won't be seen immediately, just "trust us".  That probably takes care of nearly all of those parents.  Of course your kids are only kids once, so it's too late when these parents realize what's really going on.

Physical Education:  It seems that we are constantly being told that kids need PE and without it they turn into fat, useless, blobs.  Well I don't think that's the case because exercising actually burns very few extra calories, compared to just sitting around doing nothing (for example, to burn off an extra McDouble, an average person has to walk 12 miles or run about 4 miles - that's a lot for a small sandwich), since but I'm not a nutritionist, so I won't go any further.  As to the kid really needing the exercise during school hours, I don't see it, providing that he's not simply going to his room and playing video games constantly after school or on weekends.  If he's doing that, then he'll need Army boot camp and other help - school PE just won't do anything for him.  So, for a kid that gets around a bit after school, and is otherwise normally-active (as it was understood prior to video games and facebook), he's probably getting all the exercise he needs.  This leads back to David and his physical development.  He was enrolled in his Christian school through what would have been 6th grade, based on his age.  During that time, he did have PE, and that was fine.  But once in college full time, starting at what would have been 7th grade (again based on age) he no longer had any PE or other organized exercise (Karate was long gone by then).  Did he get fat? - nope.  In fact, just before he turned 18, we went to Yosemite National Park and I pretty much challenged him to climb the Upper Yosemite Falls Trail.  It was considered an 8 of 10 as far as strenuous day hikes are rated, about 3,000 feet vertical and 7.5 miles round-trip.  We both made it.  My knees were feeling it at the end (having also descended that elevation).  But even though he violated every rule in the book for a kid, he still made it, and probably could have done quite a bit more.  So I think this PE push is bull.

My head hurts  :wacko:
I know for a fact school is a time sapping capsule. I teach, I am with my kids 5 hours a day and only 2.5 of that time can I actually teach them! Of course I teach 4 year olds and we shedule morning tea, lunch, rest and I have to make it look like they are playing at times too....  :D its just that groups of children create problems that take up time. One child having morning tea takes 10 minutes. 24 kids eating pre cut fruit takes 30 minimum! Same with lunch and EVERY other transition between activities takes 5-10 minutes. Rather than 5-10 seconds as it would with one child.
I think I would agree with the idea that science is a waste of time before grade 8 but I have a differing view of what school should be like to you. I think children should be taught reading and math intensively for the first 3 years of school. They should all know math facts, times tables and be able to read anything by that time. Ralistically it shouldnt take that long but we knownwhat the real world is like  :tongue: Saxon 5/4 should be finished with by grade 3.
 From years 3-7 I think they should have a go at everything. An introduction to science, history, languages, art, drama, music, sports, nutrition, farming, cooking, sewing, IT, I mean EVERYTHING. By the time they hit year 7 they should have a very solid idea of their strengths and preferences and be able to select a high school path way that will suit their skills and future employment opportunities. A pathway that doesn't have them doing art if they have no interest in an art career.
I am not suggesting English and math be ignored during these exploratory years BTW.  A School day can include an hour of both and still fit in everything else. That way even the children who don't find a strength or interest will still be progressing in skills for life long benefit.
I think children need time to dabble in different skills and subjects I just don't think any dabbling should be done in high school ( grades 8-12) as is done here. By then the kids should be confident in all the basics and on a pathway to their career. From grade 8 PE should be an offer for those interested in an active career or as an after hours sporting/social option.
On top of this, I think it is ridiculous to move 30 kids to a teacher when its quicker to move 1 teacher to 30 kids! I think food breaks should be just long enough to eat and no longer and I think schools should finish earlier in the day, so kids can play outside and receive extra tuition where they need it. ( or us parents want to give it) I think age should be irrelevant to ability in class grouping.
Of course all of this can be accelerated if done at home but a comprehensive literacy and math focus in the first school years will excellerate the majority of children. Why waste time on PE with 5 year olds who are naturally endlessly active any way? Why do art when they are still learning to hold a pencil properly? why dabble in language at age 5 when we all know 30 mins a week wont teach them anything?
Science can be started earlier in a child who is a voracious reader by age 6 by giving them quality science concept books to read. Art can be self studied by interested children who can read how to draw books, economy can be studied by 8 year olds who like math and can read.

I have been mulling this one over.
Mind you, my education was in Australia, where things are done differently to the US.

Something's that stand out to me that I just ant agree with.

Taking away P.E education cuts to the quick. Maybe it only really did that because I was an athlete and I was active in track ans field, swimming, cross country, softball etc and I was on track for the pan pac games and one day the commonwealth/Olympic games. I only made it to states before I moved to a school that did not have a comprehensive P.E program and I stopped running, swimming, and any other sports altogether.
Maybe there are extra curricula programs? But there wasn't where I lived, with the exception of Nippers

Now here in the US sports are often a gateway for kids who don't excel academically or go to college with scholarships. To take that path away from many kids who aren't academically adept, and are often lower income students is a shame.

Also, from pure observation, I have noticed that my friends who are healthy and active are the ones that were involved in a sport or enjoyed P.E as a kid. The reason I have focused on trying to teach my son to catch, throw, hit, and have a myriad of basic sports skills is so that he can enjoy playing sports and games with his friends without feeling like he is that kid that can't play. I think the sole purpose of P.E should be fun. 30 minutes a week may not teach much. But it should get kids involved in active fun.

I am sure the same argument could be said for art and music. I played clarinet and violin and did verse speaking ans choir through school. I leant enough to have some music fundamentals but I am not as passionate about it as I was about running. Art? I was a lot cause. And I never liked art class. But I don't think that 30 minutes once a week hindered my education.

I really don't think 1.5-2 hours a week for the extra curricula stuff that can make school bareale for a young child is that much wasted time. I think the wasted time is when the students are sitting around making penguin crafts for a week in an attempt to learn about arctic animals. A range of biomes could be covered in a week via reading  and writing exercises.

I also don't feel that science, history, geography et al  need be neglected in the early years. My 3 year old learns a lot from many subjects. Mostly from reading books. He will read a low level reader about a variety of subjects. We will disucss those subjects. Then as his reading and his compreshension improves we are able to revisit the subjects in more depth. Non fiction books, including encyclopedias are essential to my son learning to read.

Somethings I do agree with.

Summer vacation. In Australia we had 6 weeks off and that was more than enough time I thought. And.more than enough time for scholastic  regression.

Fuzzy math. Haha. Love the name, hate the concept, and big waste of time. I tutor a child going into 6th grade in the fall. Her school uses Everyday math She is learning Very little. At fhe rate we are going son will be at her level in a few years. And I spend less time with him on math than I do tutoring her each day.

Watching movies? Not sure what this is about. There is a lot of edutainment out there. But I find minute for minute the educational value is often not as good as reading a book, or direct instruction. Now there are some amazingly educational movies (ahem. Peter Weatherall. Ahem.) But I am not sure that teachers would use the good stuff.

I agree about the summer vacation loss. Homeschool.com is currently hosting a massive freebie deal (http://www.homeschool.com/freebie/deals/) and on there, I found downloadable articles on summer learning loss (http://www.thinkstretch.com/research/articles-to-share/). The 4 articles showed that there is a lot of research that shows children regress seriously in their learning during summer vacation. I read all 4 articles on that page, and the article titled ``Doesn't Every Child Deserve a Memorable Summer'' was particularly interesting. It cited the research, and I quote an excerpt below:


The fact that student lose about two months of grade level equivalency in math was especially scary. So Robert, you are right. And so were Joyce Swann and Arthur Robinson. And still on that page, the article titled ``More Than a Hunch: Kids Lose Learning Skills Over the Summer Months'', was also very interesting. Here is an excerpt:


Very scary statistics, if you ask me. So Robert, you are completely right. Kids lose a lot of learning during the summer vacation months, and math is one of the things that suffers most.

Thanks all,

As usual you guys have given this more thought than myself.  What I was really getting at were just the early years in education, when the kids really need to learn to read, in order to be good at it, and likewise with math.  I should have included, for sure, learning to speak a foreign language in those years (thanks Mandabplus3).  What was bothering me is that math and reading are put on the same level as the other time-fillers, which then ends up meaning that relatively little math and reading get done in those years, and thus it gets dragged out over many more years.

After those early years, if you keep going that way, you wind up with 10 to 12 year old kids that are ready for college, which is probably too much for society (and them) to handle.  So, like you say, Mandabplus3, you slow down the pace of the academics somewhat and let them see and try out the rest of the world.  I like it.  My kick on PE is mainly restricted to having PE displace time in the classroom, as it does now, right through high school.  On after-school sports, I'm kind of mixed, but I would agree that anything that gets kids active, rather than spending their late afternoons playing video games is a good thing.

Good point here, Korrale4kq :  "I think the wasted time is when the students are sitting around making penguin crafts for a week in an attempt to learn about arctic animals."  Good point also on pointing out that reading can (and should) be used to learn other subjects, like science.  Maybe where it gets carried away is when kids have to make "penguin crafts" (LOL) rather than simply read about penguins.

I think part of my narrow focus is due to my own experience with David, where I concentrated on reading, and then math, and at that point basically let his schooling (being it the Christian school, or college) take over from there.  We did do other things (tee-ball, violin, piano, karate), but I didn't see David get much out of any of them...so I would tend to not treat them at the same level of what worked for him - although for other kids, they may get much more out of those types of activities.

Finally, thanks Nee, on the summer break info.   For kids, and most adults, math simply isn't necessary or useful day-to-day, but reading is used practically non-stop (for good readers), so it makes sense that math would be pushed back in the brain over an extended period of time (i.e., summer break).  As most people know the concept of a summer break originated from having the kids "help out at the farm", but has since worked its way into union contracts.  I doubt that there was ever any academic justification for the breaks, just the slow inertia of changing things keeps them intact.   Saxon, at least in the earlier books, lines up perfectly with your data, where they spend the first 40 sections reviewing the prior material at the beginning - which works out to 9 to 10 weeks, at their standard pace.  So, to really get a feel of how summer break affects math development, you have to pretty much double the time of the break - and at that point, you see more and more months disappearing and it becomes easier to see why math drags out so long, when we all know it doesn't have to.  Reading is kind of interesting too.  I think the slower-paced children probably just turn off attempting to read during the summer, as it is such a struggle - so they regress there also.  But good good readers will gobble up everything in sight.

For you out there looking to change things (and I know who you are), getting rid of summer break is probably the fastest way to get results.

Nee1's post above about summer break really made the light bulb go off in my mind this morning when I read it. Yeah yeah yeah, you can save some time by skipping summer, right?

Well, hold on there cowboy. That was a truly insightful post in response to Robert's question of "what the heck are they doing all day"? Here's the way I interpreted the post...

Summer break here in the States is 3 months long. K-12 has 12 summer breaks (I'll exclude anything beyond graduation). That's a full 3 years. But it's even worse than that because the average kid slides back 2 months per summer break! That makes it a full 5 years!

For the kid that just graduated this month and is 17, it means he could have gained the same academic achievement at the age of 14 with no sliding effect, or at the age of 12 factoring in the sliding effect.

Therefore, if you just skip summer - you can legitimately gain the academic achievement of a typical 17 year old by the age of 12 just through this method alone.

Add early learning and skip another 2 or 3 years. Plan and homeschool and skip yet a few more!

Just ponder the math for a moment as I have.... It's quite profound.

PokerDad, the day I read those summer loss articles I was very shocked. Completely shocked. The article said that: ``At best, students showed little or no academic growth over summer. At worst, students lost one to three months of learning.''

This means that in the BEST CASE scenario, they showed little or no academic growth. In the worst case scenario, they actually LOST 3 months worth of what they had learnt before. This simply means the first few months of school would be spent trying to get them to remember what they had learnt in the last 3 months before the vacation.

I now understood why Joyce Swann (mom of the accelerated Swann kids) was able to move as quickly through school as she did. With her doing 3 hours of focussed homeschooling each day, and doing school all year round (with no summers vacations), her kids could finish the entire k-12 system in very little time. And remember, she did no formal early learning.

And she gives very good advice here - http://www.home-school.com/Articles/to-maintain-control-maintain-a-schedule.php. Under subtitle ``School First, Field Trips Second'' she said:
``Remember, no schedule will work if it is not followed. Therefore, if you want to have a successful school year, you must be willing to put your school first. Save field trips, visits to museums, etc., for Saturdays. These activities may be educational, but they are no substitute for a day spent working at the books. Only when you are able to separate all other activities from class time and adhere to a schedule that concentrates on structured study, will your students make genuine progress. Then you will be able to maintain control, and you will meet your goals. ''

And more good advice from her here - http://www.home-school.com/Articles/joyce-swanns-homeschool-tips.php
On there, she says: ``We have specific school hours (8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.) and everyone is in the school room seated with his materials in front of him at 8:30. We also have a highly disciplined school room: No talking about anything that does not pertain to school. No going to the bathroom without permission. No food or drinks in the school room. No wasting time.  These rules actually give my children a good deal of freedom that they might not enjoy in a less structured setting. After all, they know that they will be finished with both their routine housework and schoolwork by 11:30 a.m. The rest of the day is theirs to spend as creatively as they like.''

And more VERY good advice from her here - http://www.home-school.com/Articles/dont-go-back-to-school.php. This article is titled: ``Don't Go Back To School - Five Reasons To Consider a 12-month School Year''. What she said in this article echoes almost word-for-word what PokerDad said and what I read in those summer loss articles.
   

Thanks people.  PokerDad - yea, I wanted someone else to do the math regarding summer breaks, because it was even too much for me to handle.  You're looking at possibly being able to double the rate of math learning without even increasing the intensity used today (i.e., something under an hour a day), just by eliminating extended breaks.  Then double the hour to two hours per day (maybe up to 2.5 hours), and you get the 4X rate that David was able to move at in the early Saxon books.  And just to reiterate, when you're going at that clip, and using Saxon the way we did, there is no need to be testing the kid, as Saxon does that by default.

Also, I've noted that our pace went down after the first 4 books, to 2 books in the next year.  From there, it didn't make much sense to keep rushing on, and I also promised him a laptop once he finished Algebra 2...so I stalled him as long as possible to wait on prices to go down (LOL).  Anyway, I think the pace does slow down after the 4 books, as the problems get more complex and time consuming and the sections are designed, I suspect, to be used to also assign homework to the kids.  No big deal in the end.  Just racing through the first 4 books means the kid will be at least 3 grade levels ahead and likely more if he starts prior to 4th grade.

Bottom line - this isn't rocket science, it's just the combination of a extra time each day (an hour or two beyond the one hour the kid should be doing anyway), not having extended breaks, and using Saxon properly.

Does any one else here follow Doman Mom's blog?  Www.domanmom.com.
Her son is 7 doing around 5th grade work. She schools year round. I love her schedule. She does homeschool year round. She cuts the years into terms.

I will just provide the link.
http://domanmom.com/2012/04/year-round-homeschooling-and-how-we-organize-it/

Her blog has some amazing stuff to check out. One thing I really admire is that even though her son is accelerated, he is also learning depth. She covers a lot of encyclopaedia Kowledge with him.
If anyone takes the time to look around her site she has some amazing resources. She makes some grea YouTube videos and has even been working on creating a memory program.

Robert,

1)  Please could you give a timeline of how David was able to complete the 4 Saxon books in a year? He started 54 in second grade (that's at about 7 years of age). In  one year,  he had completed the 4 Saxon books - 54, 65, 78, and 87. Could you give some more details how you did it? Saxon comprises 120 lessons in each book. Did you skip the first 40 lessons (since it was mostly aimed at public school review after summer vacation)? Did you have him do every single problem in the lessons he did? Saxon has ``practice'' questions and about 30 ''problem set’’ questions. The practice questions are based on the particular lesson that had just been taught. The problem set questions are based on lessons that had just been taught plus a review of previous lessons. Did you have him do the practice questions only? Or did he do a combination of both practice lesson and problem set questions? If he did the  problem set  questions,  did you have him do even-numbered problems only? Or odd-numbered problems only? Could you give more details on this?

2) How many hours do you estimate he spent on math each day? The Ahmed brothers (Zoihaib and Wajih) spent approximately 3 hours on math each day after school hours on weekdays and approximately 5 hours on weekends. Did you aim at 3 hours a day too? Or was your aim the completion of 2 lessons per day?

By the way, here are some articles on the Ahmed kids –
1) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hampshire/7941327.stm
2) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/4979604/Nine-year-old-becomes-youngest-ever-to-pass-A-level-maths-with-Grade-A.html
3)  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1164614/Britains-cleverest-family-They-got-maths-A-levels-primary-school--thanks-hours-study-night-75p-Dad.html.
4) http://www.channel4.com/programmes/child-genius/articles/video-interview-with-wajih-and-zohaibs-parents.   

3) When did you notice a slow down with David? Was it at algebra 1, algebra 2, or Advanced Math?

4) When did he start algebra 1/2? How long did that take? And how about Algebra 1, 2 and Advanced Math? When did he take the SATs? Was it after he completed Algebra 2? Did he work through the Saxon Advanced Math book too? Or was he in community college by this time?

I'm basically asking for a timeline, and more details and explanations on how one could model your acceleration method. I've got the Saxon books (from 54 to Advanced Math), and I've studied them in depth, so I know how they work. Further, I went through GCSE math papers and realised that a child that has mastered Saxon Algebra 2 would pass GCSE math with very good grades without breaking much sweat. It sort of puts what David and the Ahmed kids did into context. I now see that most children could achieve what the Ahmed kids and David accomplished.  Thank you, Robert.

I did the math a while back with accelerating a child and came to the Sam conclusion as PokerDad a child can fit in 13 years of schooling in by the time they are 11-14. And that is without early learning.

The US public school year is only 180 days. I know if is more in Australia.

This was taken from my State's Department of Education site.
360 teaching hours a year for Kindergarten
720 teaching hours a year from 1st to 4th grade
1080 teaching hours a year from 5th to 12th grade.

So....

10800 teaching hours from K-12.

Now... Take an accelerated homeschooling schedule.
5 days a week 50 weeks a year is about 250 days of schooling a year.
4-6 hours homeschooling a day would be about 1000-1500 hours a year.

So it would only take about 7-10 years to achieve the same teaching hours.
So if the kids started at 4 they could have completed 13 years of schooling hours equivalent to the public school system between the ages of 11-14.

Now... If you take into account the amount of group, busy work, games, review ans sillyness, that the public school system does. The time could be done even faster. Or with less schooling hours a year.

Korrale4kq,

Don't forget to include the extra time spent reviewing material, due to the slower pace.  I also think the hours you have listed are pushing the definition of "teaching hours" a bit, as 6 hours per day is about the total non-lunch hours in a school day - so study halls and PE are included in those 6 hours.

So the amount of time needed drops significantly even from your numbers.

Actually I thought those are meant to include lunch time.


1st-5th graders are at school for 1170 hours (6.5 hours a day) at school a year. That makes it about 2.5 hours of free time a day.

5th-12th graders are in school for 1260 hours (7hours a day)  a year. So they get 1hour for free time  a day.

But yes, I do believe that the true instructional hours at school are much less than mandated due to class interruptions, stragglers being late for class and a whole slew of other transition issues. Especially in the early grades.

Basically my thinking is, if kids were able to spend 4 hours in school doing dedicated class work with good self teaching programs like Saxon. They could cover a lot of school work in 4 hours a day.
An hour dedicated to math, a hour for science/technology an hour for social studies (history, geography, civic et al) and a hour for writing instruction. Reading need never be a separate subject beyond the lowest grades. Reading fluency, reading comprehension can and should be covered within all subjects.

If students are taught early on how to learn independently there would be less need for direct instruction. Students can work at their own pace. And teachers and higher achieving students can assist the lower slower students.

Even allowing a 30 minutes recess every hour, and still offering PE, art, music, library and foreign language  for 1 30 minute session a week each. And 1 30 minute study/homework period for high school students each day.  The students will be in school for the same amount of time a day but will be learning more efficiently. And getting more breaks.

An example of a school schedule. Sure, there is lots of downtime. But my idea is that the engaged 1 hour blocks would be intensive.

8:00- Math
9:00- Free time*
9:30- Extra curricula**
10:00- Science
11:00- Lunch
11:30- Social Studies
12:30- Free Time*
1:00- Writing and Speech instruction
2:00- Study, tutor and homework time. 30 minutes for elementary and an hour for high school.
2:30/3:00- School out.

*Free time could be used to play games, do those infuriating penguin crafts, give the kids a chance to run around, watch an educational program.... Just lighter stuff. Or it could be used for students who wish to extra credit work. Or for students to catch up on work.

**Extra curricula programs like PE/health/nutrition, music/dance/drama, library program and art.

Hi Nee,

Lots of questions.  I'll need to review my records in more detail, which I can do when I get back home in a bit.  For now, based on my notes, I actually show David as completing 5 books (i.e., through Algebra 1/2) in 12 months.  He started right at Age 7.  He did skip the first 40 sections of at least the first 4 books, but then skipped only 20 sections in Algebra 1/2.  Starting at Algebra 1, he didn't skip anything.  I based that on what the material was, and the first 4 books clearly were review for the first 40 sections - maybe with a few new concepts sprinkled in, but not enough to warrant doing the entire sections.  The later books had a lot less review, so he had to do more (or all) of the books.

As far as which problems he did, we would work the practice problems together, and then I would cut him loose on the 30 or so problems in the for that section.  He always, and I mean always, did every problem of each section (other than the sections we skipped at the beginning).  He would give me his work, and I would mark off the ones he got wrong, and he would have to try them again, until he got them right.  I made sure that he was able to do every problem in a section before we started on the section.  Also, because he didn't like doing the work very much, I suspect, I made him check every problem he did, as he had tons of careless errors.  If it was bad enough, I tore up the paper and made him do the section all over again (but that was rare).  Saxon is also very clear on this - the kid must do all of the problems in each section.  In fact, I think the biggest stumbling block to success with Saxon was teachers (mainly) that thought they knew better and would try to cherry-pick problems.  Do not try that.

As to hours, I estimate that we averaged about 3 hours per day, maybe 2 or 2.5 during the week days and 4 to 5 hours on weekends.  I didn't set a goal as to the number of sections per day, but my recollection is that we were doing about 3 sections per day for the early books, 2 sections for the middle books, and 1 section per day for the later books, as those problems got complicated.

As to slowing down, that was more me than him.  My notes say that in addition to the first 5 books in 12 months, he finished the next one, Algebra 1, in 2 months (he can thank having done Math 87 and especially Algebra 1/2 for being able to speed through Algebra 1).  At that point, he slowed a bit, with my notes showing him completing Algebra 2 in 4 months, and I really need to check that, as I was trying to slow him down at that point.  Assuming that timeline holds, it means that David had finished Algebra 2 at 8.5 years old.

Finally, we went through the Advanced Math (pre-Calculus) book.  It is a thick book with a lot of tough problems, but once you finish that you're ready for college-level Calculus.  We really slowed down then, and he took around 1.5 to 2.5 years to finish.  At that point, he was ready to take Calculus in college, and did so, starting a bit after he turned 11.  There were several reasons we slowed down so much - first, we were building a house and running the project, so that took a serious amount of my time and second, he was just too far ahead for his own good.  There comes a point of negative returns, and finishing Algebra 2 (i.e., 10th grade math, if on honors track for Calc in high school) at the age of a second grader is just too young to be useful in the real world, so we actually regressed a bit, purposely, to give him a chance to grow a bit.

Those were great questions Nee.  Thanks for answering them, Robert.   That clears up a lot for me.  My 5 year old just finished up 1st grade math (using mammoth math).  I don't think he is ready for Saxon so I am taking him through 2nd grade using Mammoth Math, but the first 40 pages are review, and I had wonder if review is necessary when there is just a week break between workbooks.  Then I had wonder if the same is true for Saxon books. 

You have given me a lot to think about.

Do you have any familiarity or opinion of Harold R. Jacobs Geometry text. http://books.google.com/books/about/Geometry.html?id=XhQRgZRDDq0C

Thx

Hi Nee,

I'm going through your links, and the quote below stood out to me.  It is one of those brilliant insights that you get from immigrants that are not poisoned by the culture they now live in.  I definitely see the same thing in the states, where immigrant families understand that they have to take control of their kids' education (especially early education), because they know no one else will do that.

"‘Most people think that you should let your kids go out and discover the world on their own, and decide for themselves what they want to do, but my answer to that is No,’ says Usman (Ahmed) emphatically...‘If parents don’t influence them, they don’t become independent, they simply become susceptible to other influences instead - their friends, or what they watch on TV, or what they read in magazines."

Our shorter summer break here in Australia is not without its problems. The kids get between 6-9 weeks off oer Christmas in that time I see almost every child in grades k-4 drop 2 whole reading levels. They forget their math facts and forget h to tell the time too.
When working with Saxon with my daughter I can see if she has one week off she starts finding things harder for a while until she is back in the swing of it ( usually 2-3 sections later) even small breaks count, clearly not as much as losing 2 months of learning but our shorter holidays don't work either.
Throughout the year Aussie kids get 3 other holidays of 2-3 weeks each. I don't notice any loss of ability from these breaks other than in the very early stages of learning to read. What we do see though is it takes the kids a full week to settle back into classroom rhythm and stop disturbing everyone else in the room. So for a 2 week break we loose 3 weeks of effective teaching plus the last day before the break ( when the kids can't focus cause tomorrow is a holiday!) at a minimum Aussie kids loose 12 weeks to holidays private schools loose 15 or more as they have more holidays. Plus the extra 5 weeks of unproductive schooling days.
Yep even we have problems!  lol
When I calculated out what David did I decided it wasn't for us. I do want to accelerate my kids but I decided I didn't really need a kid doing calculus at age 9. What I needed was a child constantly working above grade level enough that they couldn't be taught wrongly. I also wanted them done with math by about age 14.. I don't really want them in collage by 12 but at 14 I think it would be great. I have a nearly 10 year old now and the idea of her doing university in 2 years is far too scary for me to consider. She isn't ready at all and has some growing to do first. I know its possible but its isn't what I want for my kids. S I calculated out the pace we need to work at to get there and we work at that pace. It's just a book and a half a year. It is so easy to achieve that we will be ahead of schedule by the time the hard books hit and she will have time to slow down for the harder ones.
She is zipping through lessons in 20 minutes at the moment so we arnt so time pressed as before when it was taking her 2 hours, 90% of that time spend staring out the window daydreaming!  :ohmy:

Robert,
I have been following this thread and pondering heavily...
We also live in Texas, and the more I read and research, are going to have great difficulty in finding a suitable solution for my daughter as far as schooling.  I have already decided that homeschooling is the ONLY option for us.  We do have a few things working in our favor, which I will mention.

Alex is now 3.5, and she lives and breathes math. Part of this is contrived via EL, and part of it seems to be her idea of fun.  We are hitting some stumbling blocks now as her ability to sit still/write are light years behind her knowledge/understanding.  For this reason, we have a wide range of skills to work on...she can find the perimeter and area of many polygons for example, yet is just as thrilled to play math games aimed at speeding up her addition/subtraction fact recall.  We are working on Soroban at home, although she will have a weekly tutor come fall.  She thinks Hands-on-Equations algebra work is a reward for tidying her room in the evening, and literally BEGS for a card game called Multiplication War, where the greater product wins the hand.
So far, this is perfectly acceptable.  We are working our way through Life of Fred math books, have done a unit on fractions, decimals, and percents, and she thinks that the Art of Problem Soving books, Beast Academy (Level 3A-D) are for three-year-olds rather than third-graders.
Great, She is having fun, we are having fun. Most of our work is total play. There is no way she could sit down and do an hour of independent work, so there is very little chance of skipping grades later...Not to mention the fact that her December birthday has her scheduled to start Kindy just prior to her sixth bday...

So.  Is there such a thing as too much?  You intentionally slowed David down, but would you have chosen to do this if your were able to primary homeschool him?  Or would you have simply expanded the scope, as we plan to do/are doing? We include living math books daily in our reading, her favorite of which is the Penrose the Cat series. This introduces much more advanced concepts in a 'survey' fashion...say, binary numbers one day, Mobius strips another, and math with different bases yet another.

To add to the mix, we are based at a private central Texas uni (you can probably guess by my discription of abysmal elementary school options and general location!), and as hubby teaches there will have general access to free uni-level courses as she is ready...even if only on an auditing level.

How would this have altered your plans with David, if at all?  What do you think he would have chosen to do, assuming he was old enough to actually have an opinion in the matter:)?  I cannot imagine slowing down drastically, although her writing skills are seemingly a natural roadblock, but can envision greatly increasing the scope of learing and hopping a bit to things that are less writing intensive:)

What say you and the collective wisdom of the forum?

Just wanted to let you know those blasted writing skills are James' current roadblock too! So I completely understand that. :)

Mandabplus3,

"When I calculated out what David did I decided it wasn't for us. I do want to accelerate my kids but I decided I didn't really need a kid doing calculus at age 9."

No argument from me.  Unless you, as a parent, have some need to have a kid being that advanced, there's really no reason for the kid to be there (and if you have that need, I feel sorry for the kid).  In our case, as I mentioned, we backed off a bit, so he was 11 when he started Calculus.  Still, of course, very young, but at that point we were getting nothing out of the Christian school, our attempt to home school had failed, so we figured why not try college full time.  He went to a day school (2-year college) about 10 miles from us, so my wife could drive him to classes and drive him home.  Not much chance to get in trouble.  But a key thing for him was that he absolutely loved being in college, relative to the Christian school, and no one bothered him, ever at the college, whereas he was having some trouble towards the end at the Christian school.  He also loved the idea of not having to deal with a police state (the way our schools are now) - if he didn't feel well, he packed some Advils and took them when he was supposed to - no nurses or shrinks to deal with at the college.  Little stuff like that meant a lot to him, as heard plenty of stories from his church friends who were in the public schools.  He then went to his 4-year school, which was 20 miles away, but again he was driven there every day, until the happiest day of his mom's life, when he got his driver's license.  But still no issues there.

So that's the good side.  The bad side we avoided, which would have been sending him away on his own, in any form, to college.  He simply would not have studied (and proved that, as I mentioned earlier).  So, we played it careful, but it was easy when you had one kid, and one parent available full time for that kid.  I realize that most people have/want more than one kid, and that would have greatly complicated things in our case, possibly making the logistics impossible - so delaying would definitely help there.

Overall, you got my message.  It's not how advanced you can get the kid, it's whether you are the one in charge of how they get their early education, because, in my opinion (and opinion is putting it very gently, I consider it a fact in this country), the education system we have, especially at those ages, is designed to fail, or at least hinder, the kids.  I base that on my understanding of the people that run the system and what their overall goals are for this country (and likely most of the West), and having well-educated kids is simply not in their interest.

Kerileanne99,

Tough questions, but I'll get through them.

"There is no way she could sit down and do an hour of independent work, so there is very little chance of skipping grades later."

I don't agree with the above.  Getting any kid to sit down and work independently at age 3.5 is a losing battle, but she seems already ready for Saxon 54, which is meant for 9 year olds, and which David started right when he turned 7.  So you definitely have time for her to settle down a bit, and still be ahead, and that's only when you start Saxon 54.  From there she'll be able to whip through the books and get further ahead.  You didn't mention reading, but I assume that she also reads well by now too.  If that's the case, she will be bored to death if she stays at her grade level, based on age.

For me and David, the hypotheticals are tough as I have to go back to my mindframe back then.  I do remember vividly thinking: "wow, this kid is so far ahead, what on earth is his future going to be like", rather than planning anything out and knowing what apartment he will be living in when he goes to MIT.  I do remember asking myself what to do next with a kid who has gotten as far as he had gotten.  I didn't actually expect him to end up in college that early, as I didn't think he would be accepted, based on his age.  So I would have basically kept trying to advance him in my area, which is engineering, by having him do higher and higher level math, and then engineering work (from text books) - with the idea being that when he finally did make it to college, it would have been a breeze for him, and with that, he may have been able to really learn the material well.  If I wasn't an engineer, but I wanted him learning engineering, I probably would found an engineer to use as a guide/tutor (and it probably would have been much cheaper than an early-learning tutor, LOL).   But that was how I saw it.  In college, he would have been able to take a large load of classes and maybe finish up to a year earlier than others his age.  He would have had a high GPA, which is critical when getting a first job or going to grad school, and doesn't hurt for later jobs.

Sorry, but I know nothing of the books/texts that you're referring to.  My background is limited to Saxon, and prior to that, looking at other stuff and not being able to see how it would have helped David (I did try some, but don't remember anything about them).  The other stuff looked intended to keep the kid happy and smiling, but not having to learn.  Obviously your child is much different, and those materials seem to work great for you.

I agree with your assessment of your public school options.  The advantage you have is that you already understand your schools are junk, instead of having to learn it the hard way (i.e., after it's too late for the kid to recover), like 90% of the well-intended parents learn.  So you do have the right mindframe going in.  But also keep in mind the spillover effect into private schools - that was something that I wasn't ready for and could have hurt David.  I figured private schools would be fine, but they are not so hot either.  It's great having the hook into college, and if she stays ahead, just slowly wean her into that school when you think she's ready.  We started by keeping David enrolled in his Christian school, but going to the community college for one class (Calculus).  The next semester, he stayed enrolled, but then 2 college classes.  After that we tried at our failed home school attempt and I think he was also taking 2 college classes.  Finally, we just dumped him full-time into the college, and that worked fine.

As to what David would have done if he had been left to his own devices is a great question.  It would have been great if he had a clone, so we could have done a study, but that's life.  Considering that he showed absolutely no motivation to learn prior to me force-feeding him reading starting at 3.5, and then only liking to read after he had learned it, and never showing any motivation to learn math, I would say he would have ended up pretty much like the kids of nearly all of my non-immigrant co-workers (and even some immigrant co-workers).  They're essentially spending most of the 20s now, living at home (mostly), trying to figure out what to do for the rest of their lives.  They generally have basic jobs (service industry type), and they dabble in college, but often find they don't like their path, so they double-back and try again.  David's love for video games would have made even finishing high school difficult, and college impossible - so he would have just been another statistic, maybe finding something that he liked, much later in life than necessary.  I also base it on my past, where I just barely able to get the distractions out of my way long enough to get my college degrees (I essentially moved 2 miles from campus my junior year, and lived in housing that was dominated by senior citizens, with no TV or stereo).  In today's Internet/Gaming world, there would be simply no way I would have gotten to where I am, not even close.

That's why I say it's the job of parents to steer the kids and straighten them out each time they veer off course, even slightly.  Facebook, video games, and other stuff out there is focus-group tested and proven to take kids away from studying.  For most kids (maybe not yours, yet, LOL), studying is about one step up from torture.  In the past, it wasn't as bad, as you had schools that actually wanted the kids to succeed, and you had much fewer distractions.  But today, if the kid is self-motivated to learn, he still does fine.  If not, either parents step in and make the kid learn, or it's game over.

Alex might not be ready for an hour of sit down study but I don't see that as too much of a barrier to her starting Saxon. She is ready ( or very close to) so I was thinking how it could be done with our younger el kids...whose parents are happy to do calculus with 9 year olds  lol I have a 9 year old and I am struggling to get my brain around that kind of thinking from that age bracket.  :blink:
Anyway, if I was doing ti with a 4 or 5 year old I would break up the lessons into chunks. First thing in the morning teach the new concept and work together on the questions for the new concept.
Later in the morning do 10-15 of the 30 practice questions. If 10 is too many then do less. Have a break and finish the rest later in the day. Even doing 5 questions at a time will get you to the end of the book eventually! Starting early gives you plenty of time.
I do think it will be important to questions every day. If you work too slowly there will be too long a time period between when you learn a new concept and when you next practice that concept. If you think you are working too slowly  then just revive the recently introduced concept quickly before you start each day. If you could finish a lesson in either 1 or 2 days you probably won't need review. ( unless you take a break)
If I sat with my then 6 year old she could easily do all the questions but wasn't able to work independently on it. I decided that since I am time poor, and we have plenty of time, to hold her off Saxon for a while. If you are home schooling then there is no reason to hold them back, or to make them work independently through it so starting early is a valid option.  :yes:
If you get to a point where you are finished math at age 12 then worry about that then. Opportunities will present themselves to you when you need them. I only recently started looking for options for advancing high school and found many distance education college/university options that would be safe for kids.
Personally I want my kids to be more well rounded when they start university courses. We aim to achieve that by having them read more quality literature and gradually introducing media. starting with National Geographics magazine and readers digest I was thinking. Your thoughts? My kids are very sheltered at their private school and home life. . I also considered introducing my eldest to regular movie viewing to broaden her horizons....

Robert,

I'm finding that most of the things you say are being confirmed elsewhere. You gave great insights on vacations, and you also said that it was important for an accelerated child to remain level-headed and humble. I was re-reading Alexandra Swann's book titled ``No Regrets: How Homeschooling Earned me a Master's Degree at Age Sixteen.'' She made comments about vacations, and about level-headedness and humility.

This is what she said about vacations:


And this is what she said about her mom (Joyce Swann) teaching her level-headedness and humility towards peers:
(emphasis mine)


By the way, Alexandra Swann is the oldest  of the 10 Swann children. All 10 Swann children got their Masters degrees by age 16. PokerDad started a review thread on the Swann children here - http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-older-child/swann-family-10-children-with-ma-at-age-16!-book-review-and-discussion-thread/.
Joyce Swann (their mom and educator) authored a series of education-related articles here - http://www.home-school.com/Articles/columnists/joyce-swann.php

I know we keep moving back and forth on topics here, but I'm currently working through the short book Homeschooling for Excellence by David & Micki Colfax. It's an older book, but so far cogent none the less. On page 46 under the heading "Efficiency," David Colfax makes the argument that school, public in particular, is woefully inefficient. This speaks to Robert's curiosity of what in the world all that time is being spent on...


Colfax goes onto say that this leaves a substantial amount of time for other interests.

I'm not sure if it's been pointed out or not, but school suffers from constant distraction. Anyone that has studied efficiency can tell you that distractions are a large percentage of waste because it takes time to get back focused. In a typical classroom, the class might be distracted several times per hour - and therefore, Colfax's 220 hours might be overstated.

Article on Lee Binz's website  with interesting insights from a University professor on the importance of Math. (I also noticed the mention of Saxon Math in the professor's bio.).  Link - http://www.thehomescholar.com/blog/homeschooling-curriculum-why-is-math-important/

Kerri, I know this is a late reply,  but I just read what you said about Alex.  I love reading about her math progress!  I think it's wonderful, and honestly, I don't think you need to worry about slowing her down.  Not that I have any experience in the subject :-).  But look at the Robinson Curriculum: when you finish Calculus, you start physics and chemistry, which both keep the math coming.  Life of Fred goes through Linear Algebra, and then she can do professional-level computer programming.  OK, yes, she'll be doing all of this at, what, age 7?  But then she can decide which one(s) spark her interest and start going into depth in that.  With your access to university professors, she can meet mentors who can help her go deeper into whichever one(s) she picks.  It's not like she'll be unable to have a fun time playing with other kids just because, when they're doing their multiplication tables, she's programming AIs.  And once you're into that professional level, there is no upper limit to math.  (Assuming, of course, that you have those mentors available.)  I mean, people out there make a living doing math all day, so there must be more left to do!

Thought I'd bump one of the all-time great BrillKids threads to point out how constructivist math has hit the news this week in a BIG way (constructivist math is the arch enemy of Robert Levy).

http://hechingerreport.org/content/common-core-math-problem-hard-supporters-common-core-respond-problematic-math-quiz-went-viral_15361/ (http://hechingerreport.org/content/common-core-math-problem-hard-supporters-common-core-respond-problematic-math-quiz-went-viral_15361/)

I saw the problem on Facebook many days ago and immediately recognized it as a constructivist approach, while the ignorant parents (on facebook) could only blame "Common Core". I'm not here to defend Common Core, but to point out just how frustrating constructivist math is for parents. They rightly see it as confusing and adding steps.

My wife is a big constructivist believer and yet even she admitted to me the other night (when I told her this was a big problem with constructivist math) that low IQ kids have a really difficult time with the approach. She says "true."

If the approach is inferior for someone with lower capabilities, you can ask yourself why. The reason is because it builds artificial complexity that is both superfluous and harder to grasp. Additionally, those with lower working memory can quickly exhaust their stores and get lost (the same problem happens when trying to do traditional algorithms in one's head). The problem with the lower capable student is simply that the approach surpasses their mental ability. I would argue that this presents an inefficiency in the teaching method.

When working with our kids, we should be looking for the most efficient ways to teach - not the most complex.

This is not to say that learning place value isn't important (that's the primary purpose of this anfractuous method), only that there is likely far more streamlined methods. Heck, I never had to do this convoluted "Every Day Math" style learning and I get place value quite well.

Anyway, I post this to show that the pendulum is still swinging in the wrong direction in math education today. If you're looking for your child to gain an advantage in math, my guess is that this will get easier in the years to come but that remains to be seen.

Hmm...I have to say I disagree on this one, I do not feel the problem is constructivist maths - rather the problem lies with the book publishers interpretation of contructivism. I believe experiential learning is crucial and even more essential for children with lower ability, especially those who are kinaesthetic learners. Most people learn best when they get some hands-on experience the phenomenon they are studying. I feel that the constructivist V rote learning debate in maths is a little like the phonics V sight word debate in reading. Both approaches have their merits and I believe a combination of the two leads to deeper understanding.

BTW The math question in that article is not experiential learning, it is simply complete nonsense.

That's an interesting view (the parallel with reading). I think it's insightful and likely right on.

For clarity's sake, I'm talking more about grades 4+ and especially 9+. I'm not diminishing the value of using manipulatives with our EL and younger kids. My post was more about the "Everyday Math" style approaches to solving problems, which would mirror the viral math problem.

I'm also not for dogmatic approaches on any side. I'll give you an example. A few years ago, my wife had a learning challenged student with "normal IQ" but low working memory and (can't recall the exact learning in-proficiency) and this young girl could not gain any ground at all in math. None. My wife went against the norm of the school and just taught her the more traditional methods and the girl was able to make progress. The math specialist at the school couldn't believe it (because his dogmatic mind wouldn't accept it). In the end though, they had to dismiss the student from the school (it's a private school) because they lacked the resources to help her (she had issues in pretty much every subject).... my wife was in tears over the whole thing.... and I have to remind myself that "normal" IQ probably means within 1 standard deviation and she was likely below the norm but within that range, which could mean an IQ as low as say 87.

There are other examples where the approach has colossally failed. In Ravitch's Left Back, I read about a school in inner-city Philadelphia a few years back that had to completely abort the constructivist approach at the school. The school went from child-driven to military style within 8 years. The change had to be made because the students just couldn't do it. It's easy to forget sometimes that not everyone has the background, home environment, or genetics to make the learning experience what it can be. Some teachers have overcome (Rafe Esquith, Marva Collins) but neither of them use a constructivist approach and both stress(ed) systematic logical style reasoning to problem solving.

With that said, I can agree that the different methods can co-exist. Math is math.  :yes:

This really is an interesting area worthy of discussion. I have been mulling this over since this thread was started way back when.

Over the years, I have worked with many children with Average to Above Average IQ scores struggling with basic maths. In almost all cases, using more constructivist approaches was the key to remediation. I feel that they were moved on to abstract maths too soon without having sufficient time to explore and experience concepts hands-on. I ran a maths club last year and it was incredible to see the kids learn concepts they had been struggling with through playing games. I know if I had tried the drill-and-kill method with them, they would never have grasped what I was teaching as it would have been more of the same. But, through playing games, they became interested by and excited about maths.

I also believe that experiential learning is very valuable even at advanced levels. A watered-down version of it is drawing a picture to break down a difficult problem - I was still doing this when I was studying maths at uni!

Sophie started Singapore Maths recently and I am very interested in the way they lessons are laid out going from concrete to pictorial to abstract for each task. I do not know if they continue this throughout the levels but it is certainly there in the early levels. This is constructivist teaching at its best.

Constructivist approaches are also crucial in science. For example, many people with understand a concept simply by reading it, most people will understand it better by also doing a hands-on experiment, and a few people will ONLY understand it once they have done the experiment.

Here in Ireland, constructivist math has been around for a while but I don't feel it was ever TRULY adopted, to the children's detriment. Children still learn maths facts off-by-heart, which I believe is a good thing; however, some kids, especially those with working memory difficulties, cannot hold this information in their minds long enough to successfully manipulate the problem in their heads. I feel that if they were following the concrete-pictorial-abstract format of SM, they would be able to overcome this deficit.

I haven't read the book Left Back. However, I do have some thoughts on the area. Some authors confuse teaching methodology with school philosophy. Constructivism/discovery learning does not mean child-led, it simply means to explore the world in a scientific manner, testing hypotheses rather than accepting what you are told as dogma. It does not mean loose discipline. In fact the opposite is true as it takes discipline to operate as a scientist, working methodically, thinking creatively etc.

The story about the math specialist in your wife's school is very sad. It shows the danger and arrogance of believing there is one right way as it blinds you to other possibilities. It's like the anti-EL people, they believe so strongly that kids are damaged by EL that they cannot take in any evidence to the contrary. In a similar vein, I was reading an old thread on the WTM forum discussing the Robinson curriculum. It quickly descended into a heated debate re whether using the RC constituted neglect simply because the child was expected to work autonomously. I found the whole thing bizarre as the posters minds were so fixed on their own position it meant there was no possibility for them to learn from one another's viewpoint. Thankfully, it is the opposite here on BK and I feel I learn most from those who hold different viewpoints to my own as it helps me to think critically about my own position and to see the merits in other ideas and methods.

ROAR!!!!!!!!!!   Did I hear "constructivism" somewhere?

Nice to see this thread light up a bit, it's been a lot of fun.  As always, I have to qualify my comments by stating that my sample size is one person for math (and basically one person for reading).  In David's case, I tried and tried to teach him addition using drawings and objects to allow him to visualize the very basic number facts.  I'd ask him if there were 2 apples here, and 3 apples there - how many total applies are there?  SEVEN! (of course).  I even have a video of us at a Miniature Horse farm counting the horses.  He says "one", "two", "three", "four".  I ask him how many total - he says TWO!  Hopeless.

I gave up on that approach and then hit him with the raw numbers.  No dice there either.  Finally, I used a number line - so he could count his way on the line to help him get to the answer.  That actually worked.  Then I started deleting numbers from the line and leaving tick marks - he adjusted.  Eventually I told him to use the "number line in your head" - he did, and then slowly he learned the addition facts without having to count.  Multiplication tables, for whatever reason, was a breeze for him.  Anyway, that's my little story.

By the way David's doing fine.  He's living in New York City, working for a large company as a computer programmer (about the only skill I didn't teach him, at all).  Without getting too specific, they are paying him well, as he has his own 0.5 bedroom apartment (kind of a cross between a studio and one bedroom) in a really nice neighborhood in Manhattan (although it is a 4-storey walk-up), and a 5 minute walk to work - he's also saving up a bunch of money.  And he (finally) gets to see his grandma in New Jersey a lot.

He's visiting us (here in Texas) this week to work on our cars and do some plumbing repairs (my back's a bit messed up, so we put him to work).  But he is having a great time here and it's really nice to have a 19 year old come home to visit without asking for money (LOL).

it's great to have you back Robert - I was wondering if constructivism would be enough to bring you back!

Congratulations to David on his job, you must all be very proud. He really is a shining example of what is possible with dedication and planning.

So, back to the controversial topic at hand...I am in no way saying that experiential learning is the only or even the best way, simply that for some children it helps them to solidify concepts. I can say this with confidence as my informal sample size is in the hundreds. I fully appreciate and respect the fact that it did not work for David and I feel his case is a good example of how you need to explore different methods before finding the best way for each child. My daughter is just beginning her formal maths journey and, at this stage, she benefits from using her fingers or draw pictures to aid her computation. She is quite motivated to drop these aids so she sometimes needs a little prodding to use them if she is stuck. At some point in the near future, I expect that she will progress to visualisation along with  automaticity in maths facts.

BTW, I would consider your approach with the physical numberline moving towards the visualised numberline a little constructivist as it involves experiential learning to grasp an abstract concept! (Now I really will hear you roar)

Naa...valid point.  Using a number line is a manipulative, at least based upon my understanding.

One thing I meant to mention was that I worried that he would not understand the meaning of what he was learning...be it math or reading.  Sure, he might be able to add 2 and 3 - but what does that mean?  Likewise, maybe he could read big words - but he might have no clue as to what they mean.

Then I figured his school and social activities would fill in the gaps that I was leaving - and that did work.  In fact, it becomes a lot easier to expand vocabulary if you're not struggling to be able to simply read the word (similarly in math).

I have an old saying, "Do whatever works"

That's the message I take from the discussion. Thank you seastar & Robert. I didn't realize you were able to transition to a mental number line - that's great! I know that Pete Weatherall incorporates the number line on one of his DVDs.

Last I had from you Robert, it sounded like David was pondering the big move to the Big Apple. I'm glad he did and it's all working out; I especially liked the part about him saving money. Just think of it this way, at 19 years old most of his peers would be going into debt and foregoing wages to do it. David gets to live independently, enjoy a nice stroll to the office, gain work experience, and make connections where they count: in the real world!

I'm currently working on the phonics with my (he's now 21 months!) little boy and he's doing well - though lately he's needed a bit more work to get the patterns down than he did earlier. I think it's just because he had a lot of exposure to the easier stuff for many months but now it's getting real... words like "boast" and "grind" which are fairly complicated ideas for a kid still one year old. I mention this only to say that I'm already looking forward to the day we read Hamlet! I'll make sure to take a video and put it in this thread for you (but give me a year or two to do it)

Poker dad! Shame on you! Two year to hamlet! you are short changing your son  lol  lol  lol
So my two cents....
Well I think math needs to be a bit of both. The way I see it kids need to be given a good solid dose of just do these sums. The purpose being to build memory, speed, resiliency and to continue the march forward. This is where Saxon shines. It is constantly moving forward. Still reviewing but my kids get to learn something new each day as well as consolidate and improve depth in learnt skills. It is endless math questions building mathematical thinking and giving solid practice in copious amounts.
Now constructivist math is real world math. It's the type of math we face in our everyday lives. I believe that's what it's supposed to be anyway. We can see the apples we bag, we can hold the milk and cream and determine their weight. It has merit in the real world. It has less merit in the classrooms of the bigger kids. Usually because the questions are so far removed from the children's realities they could never actually experience them. It is valuable for the first couple of years of school. But shouldn't be all that is on offer. Constructivist math takes too long to do enough problems to ever become fluent in numbers. It can help a child learn to think mathematically, so they might be able to tell you how to get the answer but perhaps they don't have the skills to get there in a reasonable time. This is of course assuming it is even being taught properly...which sadly rarely happens as the kids have always got the manipulatives and step by step procedures that TELL them how to get the answer. Rather than giving them the manipulatives and having them figure it out themselves. ( which clearly has more value)
It's interesting that as soon as you mentioned the number line I realised that at is how I always did my math facts, on a number line in my head. Learning math facts by rote was never in my school curriculum so I never learnt them. I figured them out on a number line in my head until my first child was born and my brain went very soggy and I started playing math computer games to get it working again ( brain training really works on baby brain, lol ) now they are automatic I see the value in my kids learning them, so we do :)
Now as for working memory deficiencies, well unless it is a specific brain injury ( and then only in some cases) it is a developable skill. If it's working memory holding kids back then teach them that skill first! Spend the time working to increase their memory, then teach the math. It's bound to be quicker.

Interesting. I do math facts with my fingers when I am doing it mentally. I tap my fingers where no one can see. And I use dot formations, like those on a dice, if I am writing them. I just lightly tap my pen down, not marking, on my paper in the dot formation. Number lines are awkward for me as they are a relatively new technique, but I see the merit.  I used to have really automatic recall but over the years my brain is sloppy. Honestly, I seldom ever use math. Pretty much only when I am shopping and I round up prices so much as it is easier and if I forget something I am not too far under.  I always underestimate the final price. It feels like winning the lottery at the check out. :)

To a less controversial topic: Robert, which version of Saxon do you think is the best one to get? I won't need it for quite a while but I would like to keep an eye out for it second-hand. Thanks

This is an interesting four part write up by Saxon Author Stephen Hake. He talks about the history and purpose of Saxon.

http://homeschoolingodyssey.wordpress.com/2014/02/27/saxon-math-author-stephen-hake-part-1/

supposedly Robinson says avoid 1st edition? http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/173624-older-versions-of-saxon-math/

Excellent links! K2U all.

I already have all the Saxon student + teacher editions that I bought off Abebooks about a year ago, BUT I will go through the links later tonight and make sure I did okay by my purchases.
 :yes:

 I got most of the Saxon books on E-bay for a very decent price.  I think I paid less than $50, including shipping, for 5/4 through Algebra I.  The best part about getting them second hand is that the older, hardbound books are much more sturdy and I'll be able to use them for multiple children.

I used Art Reed's advice to  know what edition of Saxon to buy. (Art Reed is the guy referenced in the WTM thread TeachingMyToddlers posted above). Art Reed does monthly newsletters on Saxon Math, and his April 2013 newsletter was on the correct editions of Saxon Math books to buy. Here is the link - http://www.homeschoolwithsaxon.com/newsletterpage-2013.php#0413.

I used his advice in the above link to know what editions to buy. I recommend the hardback copies over the soft-cover copies. Since the books are quite large, the hardback copies will be sturdier than soft-cover copies. You can get all the correct editions of the hardback copies used (and very cheaply too) on Amazon or Abebooks or Alibris.

Thanks nee that's a. Great link. I was wondering what the differences were with the new ones and the old ones. Now I know. Means not only do I know which ones to get but some of them will be easier to get answer sheets for now too! Very useful. karma to you!

 :biggrin:

Thank you Tamsyn, yes that is who I meant, Reed, not Robinson. But now that I think about it, I wonder which he prefers. I am only vaguely familiar with Robinson's stuff. Do you know?

I am listening to this blog talk radio show right now with Leigh Bortins (creator of Classical Conversations) and guest speaker Art Reed. http://www.blogtalkradio.com/1smartmama/2009/04/08/leigh-for-lunch-with-art-reed Start at 7:52 and skip a lot of B.S.

I am still not sold on Saxon yet, but all of this discussion has piqued my interest so I need to learn more.

When I tried the link nee posted, I got the following message: 404 Not Found Attention: The administrator has blocked your country from gaining access to this network.

Would someone please post the content for me as I would love to read what he says? THanks

Also from Art Reed's newsletter (I think this is worthy of posting in addition to the edition info)


What came to mind when I saw this was my sophomore year of high school. I took Algebra 1 my 8th grade year and was one of those students that never did assigned homework. The concepts I understood okay, but I was a horrible student (I tested near the top in ability to "learn algebra" the year prior which placed me into the "advanced" class). My 8th grade teacher told me to take the class again my freshman year. I was disappointed, but I did it. We even had the same textbook. Another guy was with me in both classes and let me tell you that we immediately had a reputation for "being amazing at math" when it was really just we had already taken the class. I don't recall being challenged in the slightest in that freshman course.

Because I wasn't able to take Geometry (for whatever reason, they needed the Alg 1, Geo, Alg 2 sequence intact) my freshman year, it meant I was going to have to "double up" on math classes one of my years. The good news was that I was able to take Algebra 2 & the Geometry courses concurrently. I may have even had the classes back to back that first semester. I aced both classes, again barely being challenged (I recall it taking me some time to figure out matrices though).

The reason I'm posting the quote and then telling you this story is because of what I noticed between myself and the other students in Algebra 2. That was the class where the instructor allowed me to work ahead in the book at my own pace. I took off. Meanwhile, most (2/3 or 1/2 of the class maybe?) struggled.

Struggled.

We all had Algebra 1, right?

Well, perhaps the difference was that I had a three month break and they had a 15 month break.

Something to think about, no? John Saxon was onto something that I hadn't really thought of before today.

In Australia math is integrated. Frankly I can't tell you the finite  differences between geometry., trigonometry, statistics, algebra, calculus, because it is all just called Maths. It is a brilliant idea and I can't figure out why the US does not integrate math.
We do 2 years of Maths in 9th and 10th grade and then in 11th and 12th grade we have the choice to do 2 more years of Maths. There is Maths A, (basic Maths) Maths B (slightly more advanced but still general) and Maths C (Maths for those who wish to do a math related career).

I have read that Singapore. Math is integrated..... But I am not sure if it really is.

OK now I get it! Thanks for the country comparison.
Yes in Austrlaia all math is intergrated right up until university studies and I couldn't even imagine doing it the US way and passing. All my kids do geometry every term of every year. In fact I am quite sure they are well ahead of the US kids age for age. My grade 3 kid is very solid on all geometric shapes, prisms, pyramids, all terms and area calculations. Some of this stuff is in the Saxon 8/7 book. I can Randomly ask any of my three how many sides a ?agon has at any time and they know. I have to credit the schools for this as I never considered EL in shapes.
The reason I like Saxon as much as I do is because revisits everything over a few weeks. It is constantly refreshed in the mind. You learn how to calculate the area of a rectangle one week and you will never forget it because you practice it for the next 10 days and it will pop up again further down the track as part of a more complicated problem. Pulling the geometry out is a VERY UNSaxon thing to do. Leaving it in as part of a wider math curriculum just makes sence to me. Also if a kid hates geometry then doing it separately for 6 months would be pure torture! And while they are tortured they forget everything else they have learnt all year. It's quite rediculous when youth ink about  it.
I can tell the difference in my kids math ability if they even take a couple of weeks of their Saxon. A few months would be FAR worse.
( i really shouldn't chat here while i am Cooking dinner! I just burnt the tacos shells  :ohmy:  :ohmy:  :ohmy: )

Looking at the Saxon sample pages, it looks so familiar. I wonder if they have a french version of their elementary textbooks. If so I may have used it in third grade.

Two more articles for Robert Levy's amusement:

It's Everyday Math's Fault (http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/04/confusing-math-homework-don-t-blame-the-common-core/360064/)

That article cites this one from a few months ago, also posted for Robert's amusement:
Is Everyday Math The Worst Math Program Ever? (http://www.forbes.com/sites/emilywillingham/2013/12/10/is-everyday-math-the-worst-math-program-ever/)

In this second one they cite the "what works clearinghouse" which I had forgotten all about! It's like coming full circle sometimes.

Also in the second article, they cite actual research that illustrates Everyday Math's ineffectiveness.

I hope you get a chuckle out this Robert. I did.  lol

That's too funny, thanks P-Dad.

I thinking, just this week, about Everyday Math and just how hard it has been to wake people up to just how terrible it is.  The vast majority of parents simply feel unqualified to take a stand and figure that the "experts" will take care of it.  Then Common Core comes around and the people that have been fighting Everyday Math now have a much easier target to shoot at...even if it's not the reality.  When I saw the articles and example, I said to myself “I’ve seen stuff like that from the first days of Everyday Math, nothing new here”.

But just having people saying that Common Core represents the Obama Administration shoving these crazy ideas into our schools will get half of the parents on board, and actually looking hard at the curricula, usually for the first time.  From my standpoint, I could care less whether the two concepts are being confused (intentionally or not), only that horrendous materials, like Everyday Math, get some light shined on it.

As to Common Core itself, it may have started as a "collaboration of the states", but once the federal government offered $4.35 Billion to the states to implement it, it did become federalized (i.e., Race to the Top, as they called it).  It should also be noted that many of the people involved in Common Core have been trying to federalize education their entire working career.  It's just that they finally realized that they could not get away with shoving down a federal curriculum (which may be illegal too), so they had to make it look like a state-led effort.

By the way, if you're wondering why there is such a strong drive to centralize curricula, it is because that is much, much, easier to control (you don't have to fight 50 battles, only one), and it is much harder for parents to fight, as everyone can simply blame the next level up, right up to Washington.

So what would I do now if David were 2 years old?  Exactly what I did, as I keep coming back to the same conclusions.  For reading, you teach him to read – that simple.  As you guys know, he was an excellent reader by the time he was 5 years old.  There is nothing that a future teacher can do to him to make him “unlearn” reading.  They can just throw garbage at him and he’ll twiddle his thumbs all day.  Likewise with math.  By being able to do math right, he then has a way to check his work that others don’t have (even if he has to erase his work on tests, so the teachers don’t know he’s doing it that way, since that would be ‘cheating’).  Once he’s good at math, the right way, then he should be able to do fine in the silly ways that Common Core (or whatever) demands, as it is still based on math, it just that you have to do 50 steps when 6 steps would otherwise be required.  In other words you’re kind of forced to play their games, and they are just that and nothing more.

This gives some very good background on Common Core and its development…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjxBClx01jc

…and this article looks like it could have been written by me.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/12/10/american_student_pisa_scores_math_has_to_be_at_least_a_little_boring.html
 
It talks about how math is “boring” and there is no way around it.  It basically says that Pythagoras’s Theorem was true 2,500 years ago, is true in the Andromeda Galaxy, is true whether you’re black, white, Chinese, or a cow.  You have to learn the same stuff in cases, and you might as well learn it the most efficient and direct way.  One thing to always keep in mind about math – the people “redesigning” math, the people that wrote Everyday Math, are EDUCATORS, not mathematicians, not scientists, and not engineers.  They are the people that hated math from day one and that’s why I will never, ever, trust them with the subject.

Sorry for taking a while on this, but here's my info on Saxon Math:
-----------------------------------------------------
Saxon Math was created by John Saxon, a retired air force pilot in the early 1980s.  He had developed supplementary materials while working at a junior college, teaching math.  He put these materials together and started publishing math books, under his own company (Saxon Publishers).  As he got busier, he added some help, and their names, in some cases, show up as co-authors.   Regardless, in the versions of the books that I recommend, you will always see John Saxon’s name as an author (or co-author) – if you don’t see his name, then I’m not recommending that book.  Below is a listing of the specific books that I own, used with David (except for Calculus and Physics), and therefore recommend, along with their edition number and publishing date.  As to Calculus and Physics, I don’t see a problem at all with the editions below either.  Note that these are NOT the latest editions:

BOOKS  USED  BY  DAVID
Math 54:  Hake, Saxon;  Second Edition, 1995
Math 65:  Hake, Saxon;  Second Edition, 1995
Math 76:  Hake, Saxon;  Third Edition, 2002
Math 87:  Hake, Saxon;  (first edition), 1997
Algebra ½ :  Saxon;  Second Edition, 1997
Algebra 1:  Saxon;  Third Edition, 1997
Algebra 2:  Saxon;  Second Edition, 1997
Advanced Math:  Saxon;  Second Edition, 2003
Calculus:  Saxon, Wang;  (first edition), 1997
Physics:  Saxon;  (first edition), 1993

Some notes on the above list:
1)   All books are hardcover, with black and white text and pictures (believe it or not, kids can actually learn that way)
2)   Stephen Hake is an co-author on the first 4 books.  However, he is also a solo author on later editions of this series (which I do not recommend), and to avoid confusion, always look for John Saxon's name on each book.
3)   As pointed out above, all of the books that I own (above) have John Saxon’s name as an author
4)   There are later editions to these books, some are acceptable, and some are not, so be careful and read the other recommendations here.
5)   The first edition of his books do not say “first edition” which is why I’ve shown it in parentheses.
6)   Again, always check the editions and the publishing dates, and especially the authors.
7)   On a related comment, using the list above, the first introduction of calculator use is right near the end of Algebra 1.  While this is still too early for my taste (I would avoid calculators right through Calculus…after all billions of people were able to learn math without them), it is still much later than conventional math curricula, and only used, sparingly, in certain areas, like graphing.  In my case, I did not permit David to use a calculator until well into Advanced Math, but instead had him use log and trig tables that I developed and printed out…and this seemed to work fine.  As to the problems that were meant to be done on calculators (like multiplying very difficult numbers), he would borrow a calculator just for them.  Learning how to use a calculator is not hard at all and does not have to be dealt with at all in math class.  Now, if you do the Physics text, then, by all means, use a calculator, or slide rule, but use something, as the purpose of that course is not to teach math, but to teach science.
8)   The books in this list start at the 4th grade level (hence Math 54 is really 4th Grade math, at least when math standards had some sanity to them).  Don’t ask why they named them this way.
9)   The Physics book is not calculus-based, meaning that it is not a college-level, engineering track, physics book.  So your kid will still need college-level physics at some point.  Some people have questioned the need to even cover this book – I don’t know, but I will say that we did not cover this book and David still did fine in college-level physics.

While I'm no fan of teachers, or especially their unions, on this I agree with them 100%.

For you parents of very young kids who will be sending them to schools (at least public schools in the United States), it's imperative that you understand EXACTLY what the the schools think of parents that try to take (some) control over the education of their children.  And keep in mind here that the people running the schools (and implementing this policy) are almost always from the same background as the teachers (i.e., degrees in 'education').  This one article does more to get that point across than anything I can think of.

http://www.nysut.org/news/2014/february/nysut-strongly-condemns-sit-and-stare-policies

Once you understand just who these people are and what they think of you, then dealing with them becomes a lot easier.  I have a Russian immigrant friend at work who is shocked by the standards in the United States and by the way she's treated by the teachers of her kids (she has nieces and nephews that are considered "average" in Russia that are still years ahead of what the best kids learn here).  But I know the system and there is nothing she can say to me that surprises me, at all.  (thankfully she's using Saxon, so her kids will be fine)

So be prepared and don't waste energy trying to fight it as a parent...the schools (at least the public schools) don't answer to you, they just tolerate you and try to humor you.  They answer to the people that pay them, and that is the government, always.  I could go on and on...but I won't.

I also found a Washington Post article on the same thing - to be honest, I actually am surprised a bit that they would go this far:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/03/14/why-schools-are-forcing-some-kids-to-sit-and-stare-for-hours/

One final comment...it took me some time to figure out why the teachers' union would have such a problem with sit-and-stare, when they are almost always in lock-step with the people that run the schools, and the last thing on their minds is the welfare of the kids.  And then, after reading a few more articles, it dawned on me that the teachers are being evaluated by these exams, and therefore hate them as much as the parents that opt-out.  So it's in the interest of the teachers to minimize the number of students that take the exams, as that discredits their results.

Point 5) first editions do not have it printed on the book.
Why oh why did I not think of that sooner! I have 2 first editions and couldn't figure out what they were. I assumed since it was printed as recently as 1997 that it would be a newer one and was considering another purchase. Feeling very blonde right now!  :ohmy:
Thanks again Robert

"Feeling very blonde right now!"

Sorry, blonds don't use Saxon Math.  I'm not buying it.

I had to think a bit too to figure out what I was dealing with.

Re: Sit and Stare/opting out of testing. Have you seen this article about the mother who got "suspended from school" after giving her kid opt-out forms for distribution?  lol  (I didn't even know schools could SUSPEND parents?! Ban someone? Sure. But "suspend"... what is she, 12????)

http://caffeinatedthoughts.com/2014/03/california-mom-suspended-sons-school-passing-test-opt-form/

I would have been livid if my kid asked to call me in this kind of situation and was denied.

"Have you seen this article about the mother who got "suspended from school" after giving her kid opt-out forms for distribution?"

She was caught off guard.  As a parent, you do have to understand how you're viewed by the schools (and it's not pretty).  The best thing for her to do, to the extent that she could, would have been to distribute those forms to the parents outside of school.  But sending in the kid with the forms was not that unreasonable, and the school's reaction was to be expected.

She pushed her luck with them and will probably survive, but could just as easily be facing huge legal bills and jail time.  The school can tell the police anything they want, and the police will listen to them (i.e., the 'experts', as opposed to a lunatic parent).

That's funny and so sad.
Our kids here only do one national test each 2 years in grades 3,5 and 7. It's 3 hours long for three days in a row for math, writing and English conventions. When I found out our school was sending emails to parents of the failing kids giving them an opt out as it may cause undue stress on their child I actually emailed ALL the parents in the grade encouraging them to have their kids sit the test. My reasoning at the time was that this is quite simply THE ONLY chance for us as parents to hold our school accountable for the education (or lack there off) that our kids received. My comments were if your child has only been at this school since prep and they hit grade 3 and can't read there is ONLY one place to blame. If you sit the test it will harm their reputation ( test results as a whole school are public knowledge) and they will do better next time. By opting out you help them lie about their results. The school had no comeback on me as encouraging parents NOT to sit the tests is illegal and they would have got a big old slap on the wrist  lol
I doubt I would think the same if my kids had tests as often as American kids seem to!

Serious Question for Robert:

Did you have David only go through the textbooks, or did he also take the "tests" - stated differently, text book only or homeschool kit?

I'm more interested in knowing how this worked in the upper mathematics, Alg 1 +

Hi PDad,

Simple answer:  No.  I figured, for a number of reasons, that the tests were not needed.  Here's my rationale:

1)  The spiral method of Saxon automatically works in the entire reason for a test, which is to review material an additional time, with the objective of understanding it.

2)  Our pace was so quick that David was not going to forget material anyway.  If you do 5 hours of math in a week, it is a side hobby, if you do 15 hours, it's a profession.  David was obviously closer to 15 hours (if not a bit more).  Also, the idea of a summer break didn't happen for him - and it was actually an opportunity for us, as he had more time to work on the material.

3)  He actually did every problem twice, in that I made him check his work.  He didn't care whether he got them right or wrong, as long as he put something on paper - but I cared - so instead of getting an average of 70% right, by checking he was closer to 90 to 95% right.

4)  He did every problem and he eventually got every problem right.  In almost all cases where he was stumped, I could give him clues so that he could get to answer.  In a very small number of problems, I did actually work it through for him.  But, unlike schools, getting "enough" right was never sufficient, he had to be able to do every problem in a given section, before we moved on.

Also, I took advantage of the lack of summer breaks to let him skip the early sections in the earlier books - in the earliest ones, such as Math 65, he skipped the first 40 sections.  It was all review, and he was just doing that work a few days prior - so why do it again.

I'd recommend that approach to anyone...in 12 months we completed the first 5 Saxon Math books.  At that point I purposely slowed down, simply because I had promised him a laptop after Algebra 2, and I didn't feel like spending the money then.  Yes, it was a high workload at the time, but the net hours he spent learning the material was half (or less) than what he would have spent at a "normal" pace.

The thing to keep in mind is that your kid only has to cover the material once - so if you cover 5 years of math in 12 months those are 5 years that he doesn't have to struggle through later.

For the later classes, same thing, although we didn't skip as many sections at the beginning, as the overlap was not nearly as much.  For the Advanced Math (pre-Calc) book, he did every section, starting at the beginning (lots of material in that book...forget about getting through 2 or 3 sections in a day).

Just to clarify some stuff. Stephen Hake actually wrote the books what he is co author for. He came across John Saxon's controversial articles in some teachers or Maths publication when he was searching for idea to teach his middle school students. John Saxon hit home for him because the Saxon method was how Hake was already teaching his students successfully with. Hakes was a teacher and had experience in the classroom, Saxon never did. Hake approached Saxon and offered to write a series for middle school. Saxon said okay. After Hake had written the curriculum, or adjusted what he had already been teaching, Saxon approved and published it. I think that credit is due to Hake too. Some of the books have been amended over the years to fix flow issues and any typographical errors. And a series has been written and published for the schools. Hake says it is very similar but due to copywriter issues they have to change things.
When Saxon publishing changed hands though, that is when the editions changed. And then, Nancy Larson was enlisted to write the elementary books, which have a very different format. Hale also wrote several intermediate books for between elementary and 5/4.

I really don't understand the hullabaloo about testing. Here in Ohio they tests aren't that hard. The tests aren't tricks. They are just testing what the child should be competent with. Children with learning disabilities or cognitive delays get accommodations. The kids get chances to practice past tests so that they are comfortable with them. The girl I tutored who was a D grade student all around was able to pass the tests with proficiency.

We had tests all the time when I was a kid, in Australia.  They weren't these big giant tests. But almost weekly or at least once a month our teachers gave us tests. It let them know where the 25 or so students in their classes were academically. I don't recall anyone suffering from test anxiety. We did our tests, then went out to play. There was no detriment. If a child was sick, there would be a make up test. It was no biggie.

How else are we going to know how well our kids are doing in school. We wait too long and then children start to lag in class.

Not to start a debate, but the hulabaloo about testing has very little to do with parents not wanting their kids to be tested.  It is more about not wanting to take national tests, not wanting to be part of the data mining the common core tests do as far as questions about religion, political preferences, etc, and wanting to keep things more local.  All I'm saying is that it's a lot more complicated than test anxiety.  I don't know enough about it to give solid facts or references at this point, but I do hear enough of the discussions in the homeschooling community to know that these are the common objections.

Another reason parents oppose it is that teachers' bonuses or school bonuses may be based on the the scores, which creates a high pressure environment for teachers and administration. Then teachers spend the majority of their time "teaching to the test" in a very contrived fashion without the freedom to allow good teachers to teach in the manner they teach best. And people question the educational value or feeding kids answers to a test so they can regurgitate it for the sake of a score.

It would be like someone coming in your house and telling you that you needed to parent your child in a specific way...you know you're a good parent and you're being asked to parent in a way that is not your natural style (be it authoritarian, authoritative, uninvolved, or permissive), or that this style might not be right for the child, and that they can learn better another way, but hey, rules are rules. So that's what you have to do. And instead of capturing teachable moments, you basically are required to follow the script and parent-by-number everyday....becoming a sub-optimal parent and creating sub-optimal children in the process who are having the same cookie cutter experience as every other "equalized" child across the nation.

From what I can tell it is similar for teachers. First, they must "follow the recipe" to teach to the test to get their individual and/or school bonuses, or just not get fired. It's enough to even encourage some teachers and administrators to go in and change the bubble answers after hours....it's happened more than once!  Then later, when enough schools are "following the recipe" to get their race to the top funding (which dribbles in like cocaine fixes for lab rats) these methods/curriculum/watered down educational approaches can be turned into law on a national level because there is so much buy in already and now the schools are depending on the money. It is no longer treated as bonus in their budget, they've come to expect it so they are going to do what they need to do to keep it rolling in. And like Robert Levy posted, if you think that "fighting" with your local school board is a nightmare, then try and "fight" a garbage curriculum on a national level. Forget it.

So the testing is just part of this big, ugly scheme to keep the hamster wheel turning. I don't know enough about it to fully debate it, but these are my initial impressions from what little I've read. Maybe I'm full of it. But nationalized education just allows SO MUCH control as to what kids are/are not exposed to. Call me a conspiracy theorist or whatever, but say over the next 20 years they water down education every couple of years a little more through textbook revisions....the population could be fed anything the "powers that be" want them to be fed. I am not saying the majority of people in positions of power are bad, but it would allow sooooo much room for abuse! Think about the agriculture industry, or the pharmaceutical industry, or government contracting....those deals are HUGE. There is some BIG MONEY involved. And when there's big money involved, there is almost always corruption. Introducing a bad math book on a national level because someone was offered a nice, fat check on the side or a new sports car could impact the outcome of an entire generation.

Now, I know there are bad teachers and maybe they need these kinds of regulations, but the effective teachers will have their hands tied behind their back....most likely cutting all the tall poppies in the process.

I think that somewhere along the way people have got it into their minds that what is tested is the Maxium that each child should be taught. In some low performing school districts that may be the case.  But it shouldn't be the norm across the nation. But this is not the case at all. CC are MINIUM standards. And the test should not be a challenge to an average performing student. Even a below average student should be able to be proficient.
 I just have such a hard time wrapping my head around if being a bad idea that a child can walk out of any 3rd grade classroom anywhere in the US at the end of the year, iand right into any 4th grade classroom anywhere else when the new school year starts, and be on the same level, with the same skill set as the majority of their new peers. My teacher friends are actually loving the idea of CC because of this. No more inheriting children that are all over the place academically.
CC and standardized testing does not stop a teacher from inserting their unique teaching style. It is at the  discretion of the teacher to push a child, to challenge them. If poppys are being cut, they are being cut in individual classrooms, not due to a minium benchmark that each student needs to rise above. I had teachers that pushed me, teachers that didn't, and this was a different country with different educational goals.

Tamsyn, I think data mint in has always happened. I don't think it is anything new... But that is one area I am not familar with.

Since everyone else weighed in, so will I.  David had an experience in 3rd grade, at a Christian school, that would have been debilitating had we not taken control of his education.  He had the nicest teacher in the world that year, but she loved birds, and that was pretty much what she concentrated on the entire school year - lots of projects, field trips, etc., all to study birds.  By the end of the year, I could point to any bird in our part of Texas and David could identify it by its look and chirping, and tell me a bit about how it lived (where it made nests, how many eggs it laid, etc.).  The kids loved her, and she loved teaching.

Of course the problem was that there are only so many hours in a day, and this very sweet teacher didn't have much time to be bothered with teaching math and reading - at least based on his lack of homework and what he told me about his class days.  Obviously that didn't affect David, but the idea that the rest of the kids pretty much lost a year of their education because of her was not a pretty thought.

I suspect that she was not alone, and that there many other teachers like her, in one way or the other.  Maybe they watch educational movies for much of the day, or do other fun activities (extended arts and crafts, for example), but in the end the kids are not learning and the parents, generally, either don't know that or are intimidated enough to not challenge the schools.  I believe the push for testing was to once and for all identify those teachers hold them accountable.  The resistance to testing, at least initially, was from the teachers unions, which, like all other unions, exist primarily to protect their least productive workers.  The complaints from them about being forced to "teach to the test" always struck me as a bit odd.  If the test is determining whether the kid meets the state standard of being able to divide fractions by the end of third grade, for example, then I would want the teachers to "teach to the test", rather than be free to be creative and have the kids out bird watching once or twice a week.

But in the end, there is so much blame to go around, I don't think it will matter...as there are so many parties to blame for this mess we call education in the United States that it will not be cleaned up, at least not in my lifetime.  For example, teachers blame the parents for not caring.  I didn't think that was true until my wife spent a week as a substitute at that same school.  The kids figured they would have a free ride that week, but she had none of that and assigned home work and pop quizzes.  For that, she was "talked to" by the principal.  The kids complained to their parents about such a "mean" teacher, and the parents complained to the principal.  Again, this was a private school, and the parents were paying to send their kids there.  My wife was never invited back to substitute.

So, from an individual perspective, my suggestion is that you simply don't rely on schools for anything more daycare and you take care of the rest yourself.  When your kids are young they are either not in school yet, or they are in school, but don't have much homework.  Either way, there is actually a lot of time to take care of their primary education.  As they get older that time gets filled...often with homework, and of course, busy work (i.e., "group projects").  So don't let the opportunities slip away.

In Chicago public schools they are usually dealing with extremely low income students. I am generalizing here, please forgive me for that, but I am going off what a teacher friend explained to me. The at-risk children (which is most of them in many areas) are constantly missing class, and when they do come to school they haven't had their basic needs met so they are not prepared to learn (good nutrition, sleep, hygiene/clean clothing, emotional support at home, abusive homes, single mom situations, etc). Basically they miss so much school that they just can't miss anymore or the parent will face criminal charges. So to avoid fines and jailtime, the child goes off to live with an aunt, friend, grandma, or mom moves in with new boyfriend, and so on and the cycle continues. Just totally unstable. So the teachers pretty much have to be on page 72 on a specific day to accommodate the kids playing musical schools.  They actually created a Chicago public school truancy task force to deal with excessive absences....something like 32000 kids missed over 4 weeks of schools in a year. And that's just K-8!

Anyway, some districts like Chicago have been doing this previously, just not in a national level. Does it help? Their schools are still really terrible....maybe doing things this way makes them slightly less horrific. I would imagine so.


In regards to standardized testing....wow. 25 district mandated standardized tests in a school year :mellow:   ....Now that's a lot of bubbles to fill in. No wonder they had no time to learn anything. They have since dropped down to 10.

http://www.cps.edu/Spotlight/Pages/spotlight461.aspx

A year ago I purchased most of the Saxon collection - I was only missing the Calculus & Alg 2 books. However, I did see that my 76 books were 2nd edition. I went ahead and bit the bullet here and ordered the 3rd edition (about $30 total). I'll review the content and post if I notice anything interesting.

For the upper math books, I purchased only a teacher's edition. It will have all the answers in the back. I also purchased solution manuals.

If you use Abebooks and Amazon (and I'm sure there are other sites like ebay, etc) you can acquire the collection fairly affordably. If you want the full kit, then it's significantly more costly.

I know it might seem silly purchasing all these now, well before they're needed, but my worry was that since they're mostly out of print, that the supply would be significantly smaller as time goes on. Homeschoolers seem to love these enough that I don't foresee demand shrinking all that much.

Thank you for your response Robert. It was very helpful!
 :)

You're welcome P-Dad.  I recommend that to everyone here.  Buy as many of the original Saxon books as you can, as soon as possible.  Math isn't optional - your kids will be taught math one way or another, and I can't imagine a better way than Saxon.  The books are getting older by the year, and more and more are being tossed out.  The ones that I used with David stay in a box and will (and have) come with me during hurricane evacuations.  I keep them now for his kids.

After John Saxon died, and especially after his kids sold off the company (I'll never forgive him for not leaving the company to his #2 man, Frank Wang instead), most schools that used them, private and public did away with them - since there was no longer anyone pushing back against Big Textbook (as I call the "mainstream" publishers).  At that point, or so I read once, China moved in took possession of the books at no cost, since they were headed to landfills anyway.  What that all means is that the supply is dwindling and it's going to get tougher and tougher to find the right editions, in good condition.

The supply is already dropping. I still don't have any of the algebra books or the calculus book. Not from lack of looking...just a bit harder to get a reasonable price PLUS shipping to Australia. I will probably have to use newer ones if I don't get some soon.

Am I wrong that the editions recommended (in the earlier post - copied by Poker Dad) are easily available new?  Besides being more expensive, what am I missing here? For example - here's the third edition of Algebra 1 by John Saxon.  Obviously, I really must be missing something because there's lots of talk about the editions... http://www.rainbowresource.com/product/sku/000628/ebd11c79070f21c0909c1575 (http://www.rainbowresource.com/product/sku/000628/ebd11c79070f21c0909c1575)

Also, I did buy the 7/6 hardcover 3rd edition book and now I'm regretting it because I can't find a solutions manual anywhere.  Was it called something different? I can't find any listings for one on Amazon (or anywhere else).  Does anybody have a link??   Thank you!

Yes I think many of those in that post are still available new as in they are the current edition. The issue I have is shipping is about $40 on top per book to me. Which I don't mind paying but it annoys me that it's more than the book itself,  :ohmy:
Answer keys are still tricky to get for me too. I am marking them all now by doing the problems myself. Not an ideal solution that's for sure! It takes me too long to get the marking done, and the kids get too far ahead before I spot their mistakes.
Geez it would be good to get the entire set in PDF with an answer book set also in PDF! Or even just the answers in PDF!
Homeschool editions and teachers editions have the answers in them. Some have them in the he back of the book other teachers editions are question with the answer printed right next to it. You want the ones with the answers in the he back, oh it would be fun to go to an American 2nd hand book sale and pick them up!  :biggrin: 

More details about Common Core essay questions: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/04/23/parent-to-obama-let-me-tell-you-about-the-common-core-test-malia-and-sasha-dont-have-to-take-but-eva-does/

I had a longer post that just got wiped out by a browser crash, but it's probably just as well.  To summarize it in simple terms - if you beg the people that have given a broken system to fix that system, you will be waiting very, very, long, for results - and unfortunately your kids are growing up and will lose the only chance they have to be proficient in math and reading, if you wait for "the system" to get fixed.

This lady's kids would be much better off if she spent her time trying to get her kids out of that system, in some way, rather than hoping the president will come to her rescue.

Wajih Ahmed, one of the Ahmed boys, admitted to Southampton University at age 14. Aims for a first class degree. If all goes according to plan, he'll be graduating at 17. His father's plan worked.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/maths-genius-14-to-become-one-1263934   (According to Mirror News, Wajih will be able to concentrate on his studies as he isn't old enough to enjoy the student's union bar lol)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-19294779

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2210093/Child-genius-14-Britains-youngest-university-students-picking-A-levels.html

I was reading this article on The Love-Hate Relationship with Saxon Math.  In light of what has been discussed here I thought this was interesting.  What are your thoughts?  You can read the whole article here.  http://homeschoolreviews.com/forums/1/thread.aspx?id=92223

MIXING OUTDATED EDITIONS WITH NEWER ONES: There is nothing wrong with using the older out-of-print editions of John Saxon’s original math books so long as you use all of them – from Math 54 to Math 87. However, for the student to be successful in the new third edition of Algebra 1, the student has to go from the older first edition of Math 87 to the second or third edition of Algebra ½ before attempting the third edition of the Saxon Algebra 1 course.

But when you start with a first edition of the Math 54 book in the fourth grade and then move to a second or third edition of Math 65 for the fifth grade; or you move from a first or second edition of the sixth grade Math 76 book to a second or third edition of the seventh grade Math 87 book, you are subjecting the students to a frustrating challenge which in some cases does not allow them to make up the gap they encounter when they move from an academically weaker text to an academically stronger one.

The new second or third editions of the fifth grade Saxon Math 65 are stronger in academic content then the older first edition of the sixth grade Math 76 book. Moving from the former to the latter is like skipping a book and going from a fifth grade to a seventh grade textbook. Again, using the entire selection of John’s original first edition math books is okay so long as you do not attempt to go from one of the old editions to a newer edition. If you must do this, please email or call me for assistance before you make the change.

As someone that just upgraded from 2nd to 3rd edition of 7/6 I can verify that there is a HUGE difference in content (quality and quantity). The book is about twice the size. As long as you're not using 1st edition of the prior books, you should be okay.

From that article, I noticed this quote:
As John would say, ”Doing precedes Understanding - Understanding does not precede doing.”

It seems like something Robert might say... and I might point out, completely disagrees with modern pedagogy and "best practices" that attempt to teach understanding before doing (or doing complicated methods in an attempt to understand)

Are you saying that the 2nd edition is thicker than the 3rd?

No, 3rd edition is twice the size of the 2nd edition. According to A. Reed (who posted that article), as long as you don't use 1st edition of the prior books, you should be okay once you get to 7/6 3rd edition.

"It seems like something Robert might say... and I might point out, completely disagrees with modern pedagogy and "best practices" that attempt to teach understanding before doing (or doing complicated methods in an attempt to understand)"

Thanks again PD, that is exactly what I stated and I stand by it.  And not just for little twerps - I remember getting hung-up in my engineering (and related math) classes trying to physically understand what was going on when I was doing calculations.  It was driving me mad and my test scores were showing it.  Thankfully a friend of mine told me to simply give up on trying to understand the physical meaning, and rather just get to an answer.  And the answers would then make sense.  The methods (such as matrix calculations or Laplace Transforms) made no sense at all in the physical world - rather they were simply tools to getting to the right answer, in a way that was easily done.

This push to "higher-order thinking skills" really makes no sense at all, if you don't know the lower-order stuff.  If you don't know understand addition, how on earth will you understand what multiplication means?  Same with division versus subtraction.

Another great point from the article is when John Saxon notes that people don't learn how to play piano by learning "piano theory".  They learn it by practice.  But I would add a bit here - in piano, it is actually "drill and kill" because you're mostly playing the same music, over and over and over and over, again - in order to try to get good at it.  In Saxon Math, if you look carefully at the problems - they do get harder as you go later into the book.  For example, Section 42 of a book may be division of fractions and in Section 42 you'll do a half a dozen of them.  Then in Section 43 you might do 3 of them.  Then in 44, 2 of them;  45, 1 of them; then 48, 1 more; then 55 one more.  If you compare the problem in Section 55 with the half dozen in Section 42, you'll see that the problem in Section 55 is significantly harder than the ones in 42 - so you are not repeating, you are learning.  What Saxon did was figure out that the way math was taught for the past 2,400 years (until about 1970) was actually right, and that is why he will always be hated by people that think they know better.

Jeez getting the right versions of the books is getting harder and harder every time I read a post. I was just learning about this edition switching problem on the Robinson curriculum Facebook page and need to check yet again what I have and what is missing  :confused:

Higher order thinking skills. Hmm yes. Was just at some professional development where this came up. Must say I was discussed overall about the ridiculously low standard these teachers were aiming for ( yep I told them so). There was some talk about higher order thinking skills  as this school runs a the international bachelorette program from prep to grade 6. Incidentally i didn't realise this was even an option for these ages! But part of this training is teaching thinking skills. Of course math came up ( I may have prompted it  ;) ) I wondered how a school who expects me as a preschool teacher to send them kids who can recognise their own name ( NOT kidding that was the hardest skill they asked me to teach the kids!!!!) incorporates thinking skills into their math. Frankly it wasn't much of an answer. Basically they said " we want them to be familiar with manipulatives and not afraid to use them" honestly how they get from there to international bachelorette baffles me.
Personally I DO believe in teaching higher order thinking skills. Especially in math. BUT ( yep it a big BUT) I don't think this should slow or replace memorisation or just doing it. I just can't see why both can't be taught as separate ideas. Do he the math facts by rote for half the lesson and do them with manipulatives for the other half. In school it's very possible to do the manipulative work in school and send the memorisation work home for homework even!
Anyway feeling very disappointed in the education system again as I could graduate my ENTIRE class tomorow and I am only 2 months into the school year  :ohmy:  :(

I was struggling with finding the right edition books. The once I found them ensuring that the homeschool packet (the answer key with the problems worked out) and the test forms (which has the daily fact practice and other non-reusable rescources for the lessons) corresponded to that book.

As you may know I am pretty type A, so I complied a list of the editions I had researched and found to be best (I mostly referrenced Art Reed's website for info on the books) and found the corresponding ISBNs so that when searching on amazon and other book sites you can be sure the books go together. When there was an option between 2 books I choose hardcover over softcover and corresponding chapters listed if possible. I hope this helps some of you.

One happy note, my 7 year old finished Saxon 6/5 today and will be starting 7/6 tomorrow. He is thrilled with his progress :)
                             
Math 76: Either the hardback 3rd Ed or the new soft cover 4th Ed. (The Math content of both editions is the same)
3rd edition ISBN:1-56577-153-2, Homeschool Packet ISBN:1-56577-156-7, Test Forms ISBN:1-56577-157-5             

Math 87: Either the hardback 2nd Ed or the new soft cover 3rd Ed. (The Math content of both editions is the same)
2nd Ed ISBN:1-56577-188-5; Homeschool Packet ISBN:1-59141-168-8; Test Forms ISBN:1-59141-169-6                       

Algebra 1/2: Use only the 3rd Edition. (Book has the lesson reference numbers added)
ISBN:1-56577-149-4, Homeschool Packet ISBN:1-59141-172-6; Test Forms ISBN:1-59141-173-4; Homeschool Kit ISBN: 1-565-77499-X

Algebra 1:  Use only the 3rd Edition. (Book has the lesson reference numbers added)
ISBN: 1-56577-134-6; Homeschool Packet  ISBN: 1-56577-138-9; Test Forms ISBN: 1-56577-139-7   

Algebra 2:  Use either the 2nd or 3rd Editions. (Content is identical. Lesson reference numbers added to the 3rd Ed)
3rd ed ISBN: 1-56577-140-0;Homeschool Testing Book ISBN: 1-60032-014-7

Advanced Mathematics:   Use only the 2nd Edition: (Lesson reference numbers are found in the solutions manual, not in the textbook)
ISBN:1-56577-039-0; Homeschool Packet ISBN:1-56577-159-1; Test Forms ISBN:1-56577-160-5;

Calculus:  Either the 1st or 2nd Edition
2nd ed ISBN:1-56577-146-X; Answer Key  ISBN:1-56577-182-6; Homeschool Testing Book ISBN-13: 978-1-6003-2015-6;  ISBN-10: 1-6003-2015-5

Brilliant! Linzy. You have the same criteria as me but clearly WAY more patience! Thankyou! Slapping you with some karma for it  lol

No problem, I was struggling with committing to buy books and then not being sure if I was purchasing the correct edition until I was able to actually look at it first hand. So I was hoping this would help a few other people.

Here's a gem of a video, if you have a couple of hours to spare.

Pretty much tells the story of Common Core...you'll think very hard before exposing your kids to this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si-kx5-MKSE#t=0

Thank you for the video Robert.

I took the time to watch it, plus I watched another talk Duke Pesta did in Illinois recently. YouTube has a new feature where you can stream and watch a video at normal speed, 1.5x or 2x - which means someone can get through the video a lot faster.

Someone could chalk up many of his points to "fear mongering" and I think this would be missing the point. Perhaps not every school will succumb to the social engineering taking place, but the point is that the schools spend far too much time contemplating social issues instead of focusing on educating.

The standards themselves are suspect at best, but I think we could have easily guessed that. Pesta points out that Jason Zimba (one of the main authors of the common core) has admitted that the math standards will produce substandard math students. Also in this video, Pesta shows the clip from the mother against Every Day Math (constructivist math program). It's funny, I watched that, and even at high speed was able to calculate the addition problem in my head in under a few seconds. The poor girl spends 8 minutes on this and gets the wrong answer. I personally think Pesta is correct that this sort of math was designed for people that aren't so good at math. The people who "get" math don't need to break problems down to understand what's happening when doing some rote process, at least not at this most basic level.

Diane Ravitch, a former reformist who is against school choice and the charter movement (I certainly don't agree with her on these) posted an email she got from Jim Milgrim (Stanford Math Professor emeritus) to her blog:
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/09/11/james-milgram-on-the-common-core-math-standards/

It's certainly worth a read.

It's a Brave New World out there.... I'm more and more finding that I sympathize with the "savage" (one that elects to withdraw from the government social order, in this case, the schooling)

Hi people,

Here's an article that basically summarizes what reading 10 books on the subject might say (and no, I didn't write it).  Saxon is mentioned in a good light, needless to say.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/06/reform_math_must_be_destroyed_root_and_branch.html

By the way, my Russian friend, who's teaching her kids math, now uses the term "Magic Books" when talking about Saxon.

Hello Mr. Levy,

I haven't read this whole post so please forgive me if this has been asked already but did you teach your son to play chess and if so at what age?
 
Thanks

Thanks for the article, Robert.


This excerpt said:

So true. My friend was telling me that methods used to teach the simplest things like arithmetic and basic year 4 math were so complicated that she found it very hard to understand, talkless of helping her kid with school work.

When she complained to the teacher, she was told to ``leave it to the experts (the teachers)  - they know best''. She was also told that she may confuse the child if she teaches the child with the traditional methods she was brought up on. Why basic year 4 math should be so complicated that only teachers know how to teach it is beyond me.

My greatest concern with this is that when you leave it to the ``experts'', and the child receives no tutoring at home (since the parents don't understand the method themselves), the child gets further and further behind. Heavy parental involvement and at-home teaching is the key to educational success. When that factor is absent, everything falls flat.

I also found this article on that link you shared.- http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/04/common_cores_dirtiest_trick_dividing_parents_and_children.html.   Exactly what is happening to my friend now. The child is failing, but the mother can't help because she can't understand the unnecessarily complicated methods herself. And worst of all, the child rarely gets math homework. Hence, my friend finds it hard to even know the child is learning in school.

 Here is another article online: http://www.chinahush.com/2013/01/23/teachers-from-uk-shocked-by-chinese-multiplication-table/.
An excerpt:
QUOTE ENDS.

The above method of solving 72 ÷ 3 is unnecessarily complex and inefficient. Like that Chinese student said, the answer to the question can be easily deduced from the multiplication table.


So, how does a parent solve this ``New Math'' problem?  Any suggestions for my friend will be highly appreciated. The child is in year 4 (4th grade). How does the mother remediate this problem? Should she get the Saxon math books? The problem is, she does not know what the school is teaching (due to the near absence of math homework), and consequently does not know if the Saxon sequence of topics differs from the school's sequence. How do we go about this? And do you have any ideas she could put to work immediately? She really wants to help but feels totally helpless.
 

Thank you for ideas and suggestions.

Hi melodym,

Nope, never made an effort to teach my kid chess.  I think he knows how to play it, but I never played against him, I just don't like the game (used to play it though).  I have my doubts about the theories that learning non-math skills will help with math.  While David did play violin for a while, he was already 6 to 8 years ahead of his age in math...so it certainly wasn't needed, at least in his early years.  With music, I tend to think it's people trying to sell their services and products that push the idea that music is helpful.  With chess, I don't they care either way, as the market just isn't that big.

Hi Nee,

David and myself recently went through the Common Core test for Florida (I think), in 4th grade math, and we found some interesting things.  The  was that some 75% of the test was actually traditional math questions.  Another 15% or so could be found by learning (or re-learning) some basic mathematical terms (like ordinate, associative property, etc.) - the stuff we're taught at some point and then quickly forget, since the terms themselves are obscure and basically useless, even though what they represent is very important.  The remainder dealt with some of the far-out (and stupid) methods associated with the way math is taught today (like "Use the Box Technique to multiply 45 by 82") - for those you have to know the method to get credit.

Now, here's the 6th Grade Common Core Math Test in New York:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCIQFjAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.engageny.org%2Ffile%2F8541%2Fdownload%2Fgrade_6_math_released_questions.pdf&ei=lD-5U9_gOcj_oQTetILYBg&usg=AFQjCNFX285BpdqMhQXNd6e0UKDy-dRogw

Virtually all the questions could be in a Saxon Book.  If you learn Saxon Math, you can answer virtually every question (same with Florida, although you have to also know the terminology and some stupid methods too).  But if you know the real math, you then can easily answer the question, and then backfill with whatever garbage they're demanding.  In other words, you basically have the answer key, and since most questions are multiple choice, that's all you need.  For the others, you may or may not have to show some freaked-out method of doing the problem - but even then, if they don't ask for a freaked-out method, you can make one up by playing with the numbers until you get the right answer, which isn't too hard, since you already know the the right answer.

Back in Engineering School, I had used that technique in an advanced class and aced it (one of my two "A's" in engineering - I was far from top of the class).  What happened there was very fortunate for me.  I had bought a calculator that was so advanced that even the teachers didn't know what it could do (I don't even remember buying it, and it was costly).  So I programmed-in most of the grunt-work, like multiplying polynomials and adding vectors, and other stuff that takes a lot of time on tests.  The calculator not only enabled me to whip through my tests, but also whip through my homework, and actually learn the material.  I also learned the grunt-work thoroughly because I had to write and test the programs for each technique.  I can still do that stuff in my sleep, even though I never used any of it, for anything, for the past 30 years now.   In one case, having been liberated from the grunt work, I developed a single-step means of doing what was considered a complex problem involving control systems.  I basically was able to pick up the patterns in the problem illustration and have the equations ready to go in one step.  I taught it to a friend of mine and told him that he must backfill the steps when he does it on a test.  He didn't - he wrote "by inspection", and the teacher thought he was "inspecting" his neighbor's test, so he got no credit (even though he had the right answer, LOL).  The bottom-line here is that you have to teach your kid to backfill if you teach him how to do the problems right, at least for the problems where you have to show your work.

So, to answer your question, yes, definitely, have the kid learn math in the traditional way.  I think it will pay dividends from Day 1, as knowing even the basics will speed up stuff.  The teachers are now being told, at least in the US, to tell parents not to "confuse" the kids with the old methods.  Don't believe that for a minute and keep in mind that the only goal for the teachers is to keep everyone in the class at the same level.  Smart (or advanced) kids are just as much of a "problem" for teachers as slow kids.  Also keep in mind, at least in my (strong) opinion, that the techniques used now are meant more to "level the playing field" for girls and minorities that don't do as well in traditional math, likely because they get less help from their parents (certainly true for blacks and Hispanics in the US, and likely true for girls due to gender stereotyping).  Get the parents out of the game, and things become a lot more level.

My opinion of what the education establishment is trying to do to children has not changed in 30+ years of studying it.  They keep morphing, but they seem wedded to assuring failure of kids that are not fortunate enough to have parents to actually educate them.  I will never trust them, at least in US.

Thank you, Robert.

This post is not directly related to Saxon or math per se, but it is very relevant to education, learning and high expectations for our children. This weekend I read ``The Marva Collins Way: Returning to Excellence in Education'' - http://www.amazon.com/Marva-Collins-Way/dp/0874775728.


I was very inspired and encouraged by this book. Marva Collins' work as a teacher had been cited several times in the book ``Mindset'' by Carol Dweck. Mrs Collins had a growth mindset and believed that all children could learn, regardless of whatever negative labels had been previously placed on them. The more we learn, the brighter we become. Intelligence isn’t fixed in stone. Those were some of her guiding principles. Labels like ``learning disabled'', ``attention deficit'', ``mentally retarded'' did not matter to her. She took in these cast-off children who had been given all sorts of negative labels, taught them phonics, introduced the classics to them, and got them doing very, very well.


In her book, she said that every 4 year old entering her school in September must be reading by December. No excuses. Otherwise the teacher gets replaced. Talk about high expectations. The 3 and 4 year olds in her school studied vocabulary using a book titled ``Vocabulary for the High School Student'' by Levine. The other students used the book ``Vocabulary for the College Bound-Student’’ by Levine. Talk about very high expectations. All this was coupled with reading of classical literature.

At the back of ``The Marva Collins Way'' was the reading list for 4-6 year olds. I was awed. There was also the school's reading list for the other children (i.e., the children older than 6). I was amazed at what these children were required to read. Most of those books are only found on college reading lists. These children did so, so well, and what makes it more amazing is that these were the same children that few years back had been given all sorts of negative labels and were said to be unteachable. These same children were now celebrated by the media and the public. This simply showed what dedication, love, high expectations, and a growth mindset could accomplish.


At http://www.homeschoolfreebie.wholesomechildhood.com/page/11/  (the homeschool freebie folks), you'll find link to the movie ``The Marva Collins Story’’. You can read some background about the movie on the link above. It is said to be one of the best educational movies ever made.  Here is the movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=n-2Ovk7cuHY


Based on the information I got in the book ``Marva Collins Way'', I decided to search on youtube for the ``60 minutes'' segment on Marva Collins. ``60 minutes’’ had tracked down some of Mrs Collins' former students to see how they had fared after graduation from Westside Prep (Marva Collins’ school). And they were all doing very well. The best for me was Erika. Erika had been mentioned in ``The Marva Collins Way'', and I was very happy to see how she had turned out. She had been labelled ``unteachable'’, in the former school she attended, and was about to be placed in the special education class. Erika had believed the label and acted the label.  This is what the book said: ``She [Erika] staggered into the classroom, knocking desks and turning over chairs. She was behaving like a severely disturbed or retarded child. Clinically she was neither. Somehow she had been made to feel that she was supposed to act like that...''


How did this happen?  Ericka was previously at a parochial school and according to the book ``Marva Collins Way’’:

  ``Each afternoon, when Mrs McCoy [Erika’s mother] picked up her daughter at the parochial school, she would faithfully ask the teacher how Erika was doing and whether  there was anything she needed to help her daughter with at home. Each day, just as faithfully, the teacher told Mrs McCoy, ``No, everything is fine.'' Then came the phone call. The teacher was requesting a conference to discuss ``Erika’s problem’’. Mrs McCoy was beside herself. It was only three weeks into the semester. What could be wrong? She drove to the school that evening. The teacher said: ``Erika cannot read and she will probably never learn to read. We are taking her out of first grade and putting her into a special class''. Mrs McCoy didn't hear another word. Her daughter was only 5 and a half years old and already these people were writing her off. Dazed, Mrs McCoy went home to work with Erika. Erika shook her head: ``No I can't do that. My teacher said I can't learn how to do that''. No matter how much Mrs McCoy tried to coax her daughter, bribing her with ice-cream, candy, and a new toy, Erika would only repeat: ``Oh, no, Mommy, my teacher said I can't do that. I can't learn that…'' QUOTE ENDS.


Yet, this same girl, Erika, after spending several years at Westside Prep (Marva Collins' school) went on to graduate from college summa cum laude.  Here are the clips from ``60 minutes’’ follow-up of the early 33 graduates of Westside Prep.

Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4qqnBazyeA

Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmW_Qu3yhjA


Thoughts?

This likely deserves it's own thread.

Here is my recent book review:
Book Review on Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/907673805?book_show_action=false)

I gave it 5 stars (the second rarest rating I give)

We could easily have a very good thread on the subject of Marva Collins and the category of book (classical education)

I mentioned this a while back, but one of the things that we'll never forget when David was in Math and Spelling competitions back when he was maybe 7 to 9 years old.  He was going to a Christian school and they had competitions with other Christian schools.  There was one school that always beat the daylights out of the other schools in both math and spelling (although David could still beat them, but not by much).  They were incredible...and all black.  Their behavior, also, set the standard at those competitions.  Dressed beautifully and the ultimate in class - yet they still didn't have a problem cheering as they kept winning.

I'm sure plenty of their standouts didn't come from Leave it to Beaver backgrounds either.  The funny thing is that I never heard about them either before or after (other than checking up on their website once in a while after).

Apparently they're also unbeatable in chess also:

http://imanischool.org/714444.ihtml


Here is a typical performance by them in math (same as David competed in)...keep in mind there are something like 10 to 20 schools competing in each category...

http://imanischool.org/714011.ihtml


I don't know what their secret is...but I suspect it's similar to mine.

The Imani school also uses the program "Reasoning Mind"... I looked it up and it looked like it was only $20 a month for one student.  Does anyone else have any info on this program?  Maybe this is also part of their "secret".  Sorry I don't know how to create a link to the web site "Reasoning Mind", but If anyone takes a look at it I would love to know what you think. Thanks (I am not as good as everyone on here that knows how to evaluate programs... they said a couple fancy words and I was sold lol)

Thanks!  Just enough to get me started.  I did some reading on "Reasoning Mind" and I have to say, at first, it looks a lot different from the way that I taught David, but actually it may not be.  It's totally Internet-based and adaptive, so it tracks what the student is able to do, and then adjusts what is taught. In a way, it's like how I taught David, in that he didn't "progress" to the next lesson until he fully understood the one he was working - easy to do with a one student (or maybe a few), much tougher to do with 20-30 students...but if it's computer-based and adaptive, then it can be done with any number of students.

The person that developed it is a math and physics professor, unlike the "Education" majors that write today's math books for the public schools.  Additionally he's from Russia, so he obviously learned math properly.  He came here, put his kid in public school, and immediately discovered what a disaster it is (like all Russian immigrants that try out our schools).  So he developed Reasoning Mind.

Here are a few links that I found:

The classroom at Imani - not your typical-looking classroom.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/35491648@N07/sets/72157625008216680/

A couple of articles:

http://defendernetwork.com/news/2009/jan/28/a-reasoning-mind-innovative-math-program-bridges/?page=1

http://www.sramanamitra.com/2009/08/12/teaching-k-12-math-online-reasoning-mind-ceo-alex-khachatryan-part-1/

In the second one (just above) he states that he adapted the Soviet system for teaching math to his Interactive/Adaptive format.  If that's the case, it would explain why the Imani kids are running circles around just about everyone they compete against.


Their website:

http://www.reasoningmind.org/

Interesting!

My wife's school uses an online based math program for remediation, and that particular program is good for review purposes but will leave a student with huge holes if it's all they did. I will show her this site for future reference.

I doubt they were using this program back in David's day and am guessing they now use it to supplement or augment what they were already doing. I also doubt that photo is their actual classroom - my guess is it's the computer lab for working with Reasoning Mind. If all their classrooms look like that, then they are one well funded school. I'd be curious to talk with one of their longer tenured teachers there to get their opinion on all of this (and what they attribute to their long standing success)

EDIT:
Then I read this snippet and have to admit I was wrong. They did have this back in David's day.

The timing is close.  I was trying to figure it out also.  I think the while the school may have had this program when David competed against them, it was just starting - so David was competing with people that got most of their math education prior to the start of this program.  It's hard for me to remember the timing, but I think the math competitions ended in 6th grade (at least for him), which was when he would have been the 2003/2004 school year (he was 2 years ahead by then).

I still point to the school, however, as they continue to do really well in these competitions.  There is someone there...or probably multiple persons there, that wasn't immediately dazzled by "technology" and instead understood how to effectively use it.

Thanks so much for taking the time to look that up and tell me about it. I really appreciate it!! I think I will also do the reasoning minds program with him also. I just ordered the Saxon 65 (1995), and I ordered a bunch of Kumon math books. I also got Professor phonics gives sound advice  from the library. I think we are set. Thanks again Robert Levy and PokerD!!!

My son is 6 and he should be finished with Saxon 4/5 by the end of this year or early next year.  I have all the books up to 7/6.  I plan to end with Saxon here though.  I like Harold Jacobs books for high school level math and I was also able to pick up Elementary Algebra (It's like 3 books in one: pre-Algebra, Algebra 1 and 2) and Mathematics: A Human Endeavor plus workbook for $20 all together.  I felt like I robbed a bank.  I am still on the hunt for Jacobs' Geometry but I think I have a couple of years to find it for a great deal.  Harold Jacobs does a wonderful job drawing a person into math in a fun and real way without being hokey like other textbooks.  Saxon is great for getting the rote memorization down and even number sense.  I am really seeing the benefits.   It does fall short in making math exciting sometimes.  Fortunately, my son finds what he has accomplished enough satisfaction, but I want the world of math to continue being exciting.  I hope it will be an easy transition from Saxon to Jacobs. 

Has anyone compared Jacobs to Saxon?  There are a few engineers who homeschool their kids in my area and they all seem to favor Jacobs over Saxon for high school math.  I would definitely be interested, Robert, to know if you have an opinion on Jacobs' math books. 

Thanks for the info - I never heard of Jacobs until now, but they have been around for a while.

I read some reviews on Jacobs, and it does seem pretty decent.  The Algebra book seems to meet my first requirement, which is not using calculators in any way (I know that the 1979 edition would not...but not as sure about the newer editions), and the reviews generally match what you've said, that Jacobs is more engaging than Saxon for kids, but a similar approach (i.e., always reviewing) and also not flashy.  There was some concern that the level of Algebra in Jacobs was a bit insufficient (i.e., too easy and therefore may not be learned as thoroughly).  I don't have any pages from Jacobs, so I can't compare myself and there weren't too many of those reviews.

So, my thoughts, based (again) on my limited experience:  If I were teaching a classroom of kids, I would probably choose Jacobs, since it looks more engaging, and it's still likely of a sufficient level.  If I'm homeschooling, I would think differently, since I have more 'flexibility' in 'motivating' my kid to do his work (and believe me I used that flexibility with David), so what looks like the main attraction to Jacobs wouldn't have been necessary for me.  The bottom line was that given the importance of math, he was going to learn it the way I demanded and there was no debating that issue.

Another way to look at it was that David was going to hate learning math regardless of how it's taught, just as he hated learning to read, and even hated learning programming, initially (but loved reading and programming once he became proficient, math...so-so) - for some kids (especially boys) there simply isn't any interest in sitting down and learning (anything), when there are much more fun things to do.  So, with the enjoyment benefit removed, I would then, given my experience, go back to Saxon, since I now know, 100% certain, that if you do every problem, you will not have a problem with college-level engineering math (and by doing every problem, that means doing every one until you get it right).  Obviously I can't say that with other programs as I never used them - although they may work just fine.

So it may come down, somewhat, to the parent - if you're not bothered with having to watch the kid every moment he's doing problems (as I had to), then Saxon will work well - if you rather be able to have the kid work more independently , Jacobs may be better.

I learn a lot from this thread. Instructions and Information is really important. Our goal is to help you find a starting point in the Math curriculum that is challenging, but not too difficult.

Very enlightening thread. Thank you poker dad for starting it and thanks RobertK levy for all your contributions. I am now seriously considering Saxon math for my children. Will let you all know how it works out.

Hi.

I just thought that I would share an interesting link that I came across. Author Stephen Hake of the Saxon series writes about which editions to use

http://homeschoolingodyssey.wordpress.com/2014/02/28/saxon-math-author-stephen-hake-part-3/

he specifically advices people to stick to the older editions from algebra1/2 through advanced math

You can read his responses about his association with Saxon, Everyday math
John Saxon's philosophy

"John Saxon had a starkly different philosophy, which he clearly stated. Our job to teach students what we know until they can stand on our shoulders. Most students do not care why; they care how. We will teach them how, and they will gradually learn why along the way. We are teaching concepts. We are giving them a bag of tools that they will know how to use to solve problems. And my favorite: Creatively springs unsolicited from a well-prepared mind."

http://homeschoolingodyssey.wordpress.com/

 and also his latest Grammar series

Good posting, nice to see him talking about the books he was involved with.  Now I just need to find a few hours to read through it (LOL).

In any case, he seems to confirm what I mentioned earlier, which is to be sure John Saxon, himself, appears as a co-author (or only author) on any of the books you use - you'll get a good book (although some early editions are better than other early editions, as long as his name is there, it's going to be a good book).  If his name isn't there, you're rolling the dice.

A new study came out of Canada about discovery methods verses memorization and higher mathematical thinking.

The shocking conclusion was that memorization led to more higher mathematical thinking after the year-long study.

Rote Memorization Plays Crucial Role in Complex Calculations (http://ww2.nationalpost.com/m/wp/blog.html?b=news.nationalpost.com%2F2014%2F08%2F21%2Fmath-wars-rote-memorization-plays-crucial-role-in-teaching-students-how-to-solve-complex-calculations-study-says)

If that link doesn't work try this one. (http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/08/21/math-wars-rote-memorization-plays-crucial-role-in-teaching-students-how-to-solve-complex-calculations-study-says/)

hat tip to Waterdreamer (http://forum.brillkids.com/profile/?u=21929) for finding the article.

Some Quotes from the article:

* my addition


This looks eerily similar to Robert's review (http://www.amazon.com/review/REDQUKUP25PSG) where he says, " When I went through my education, we learned the great names in math, like Pythagoras, Newton, and Euler, who had made great discoveries contributing to the field. I noted that my kid's name was not among them, so I decided that it was probably best to leave the discoveries to those people, while my kid simply took advantage of the discoveries and had the material taught to him."

You've got to love Robert's keen sense of humor  :heh:


Now, on a different note and address the recent links above:

The Stephen Hake emails (blog post/interview) are definitely worth the read. I will point out that he does disagree with Robert some regarding the newer Saxon textbooks and in opinion about Saxon Algrebra 1/2 (the pre-algebra book). In Robert's Amazon review of it, he felt it was perhaps the best book in the entire series. Hake thinks it's the one book in the series that can be skipped. It was interesting to get a slightly different viewpoint.

Come on now, PokerDad, that study was in Canada - we're talking about American children here (primarily).  Of course their study methhods will get different results, since the children are completely different up there (for example, they get more snow and live in smaller houses).  How can anyone have have doubts about the US educational system, when it's put us where we are relative to rest of the world?
[end of sarcasm]
--------------------------------
My thoughts have always been that you unless you get proficient at the basics, you simply cannot enter the vaulted state of "higher-level thinking skills".  It just makes no sense to me that a person struggling with addition will be able to master the field of Differential Geometry, for example.  I never bought that argument, but I suspect that it was found to be effective at getting parents to stop asking questions such as "why aren't my kids learning their multiplication tables".   And I certainly don't have a reason to doubt that now.
--------------------------------
My (immigrant) Russian friend, who thinks I'm a God because I showed her Saxon Math (ironically, I see her the same, as she's the only person that's ever taken my advice to use Saxon, other than hopefully on this forum) - her daughter is spending 2 months with relatives in Belarus (just started), which for people that may not know, is very similar to Russia in many ways (was part of Soviet Union, uses the same education system, speaks a very similar language, etc.).

She finished her Saxon Math 65 book, and started 4th Grade math in Belarus.  She was also born here and only her father is Belarus, so she is still trying to learn the language there, while being having math fire-hosed at her, Russian-style (no discovery learning there - direct student-on-student competitions instead).  Saxon had her completely ready for their math.  In fact, had it not been for the Saxon prep, she would probably be back here now, it's that different.  I'll keep you guys informed on how that goes.  I'll also ask my friend if there's a Russian word for "calculator", as I doubt it...at least as it pertains to learning math.
------------------------------
I still laugh at that posting (at Amazon).  I was on a roll that day.  But seriously, take the example of Sir Isaac Newton, who gave us Calculus (and Physics).  He is undoubtedly one of the greatest minds in human history, and guess what, he learned Calculus through the "Discovery Method" simply because that was his only choice, as it hadn't yet been discovered (obviously).  But how did he learn Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry, and Trigonometry?  I can assure you that it wasn't through the "Discovery Method" as no one used that method back then - it was Direct Instruction, and obviously without calculators.  So Mr. Newton, one of the smartest persons to ever live spends half of his adult life coming up with Calculus via the "Discovery Method", while colleges can teach that same Calculus to people of average (or maybe slightly above average) intelligence in 12 months (3 semesters).  Had Mr. Newton been expected to also learn the precursors to Calculus by the "Discovery Method", it's doubtful that he would have ever even got started on Calculus before he died.
------------------------------
I also noticed that with Mr. Hake regarding Algebra 1/2.  I'll still stick with my rating for it.  Here's my take:

(1)  How I remember it was that David had lightly learned pre-Algebra in the early book (Math 87) as it did cover every aspect of pre-Algebra, but what Algebra 1/2 did would pound it in, and really pound it in.  Similar, maybe, to getting a driver license.  When you get the license, you should have covered all aspects of driving, but it's going to be another 5 to 10 years before you really good at it, and can respond reflexively.  That is a big difference to me (and also a big difference to rental car and insurance companies, LOL).

(2)  I remember Math 87 as being the "optional" text in the series, but Algebra 1/2 being required.  Saxon stated that kids that did really well in Math 76 could skip to Algebra 1/2, whereas kids that struggled somewhat (or more) in Math 76 would do Math 87, and then Algebra 1/2.  So either way, Algebra 1/2 was going to get done.  I also just went to my nuclear explosion-proof vault and too out some of David's Saxon materials to look at.   In their 2001 Home Study Catalog they describe Math 87 as "a transition program for (those) who have completed Math 76, but are not ready to begin Pre-Algebra".

(3)   The first paragraph of the introduction to the Second Edition reads as follows (essentially matching what I wrote, just above):
"This is the second edition of a transitional math book designed to permit the student to move from the concrete concepts of arithmetic to the abstract concepts of algebra.  The research of Dr. Benjamin Bloom has shown that long-term practice beyond mastery can lead to a state that he calls 'automaticity'.  When automaticity is attained at on conceptual level, the student is freed from the constraints of the mechanics of the problem solving at that level and can consider the problems at a higher conceptual level.  Thus, this book concentrates on automating the concepts and skills of arithmetic as the abstract concepts of algebra are slowly introduced.  The use of every concept previously introduced is required in every problem set thereafter.  THIS PERMITS STUDENTS TO WORK ON ATTAINING SPEED AND ACCURACY AT EVERY CONCEPTUAL LEVEL (note:  the original text is bold here, I capitalized, instead).  Students often resist this practice because they feel that if they have already mastered a concept, no further practice is required.  The do not realize that being able to work the problem slowly is not sufficient.  They need to be reminded that mathematics is like other disciplines.  For example, playing a musical instrument well requires long-term practice of the fundamentals.  Playing football, golf, tennis, or any other sport well requires long-term practice and the automation of fundamentals.  Mathematics also requires this long-term practice."

(4)  One other comment, buried somewhere in the book, that I remember, goes something like this (although I wasn't able to find it in the text):  "We realize that many of these problems are contrived and the student will never see them in the real world.  However, doing these problems will get the student very proficient at the underlying math and so that when they come across similar, but simpler, problems, they will solve them with ease."  This comment was written at some point in the book where the problems were getting totally insane (very long arithmetic, pre-algebraic, strings)...so they felt that they had to explain why they were doing it.  It was those kind of problems that convinced me that this was the best math book ever written, something I still believe.  Any kid that does all of the Algebra 1/2 problems (and works them until getting the right answers) will breeze through Algebra, and that's nothing to sneeze at.

(5) Mr. Hake is a co-author (with Mr. Saxon) on my Math 87 book, while Mr. Saxon is the only author on my Algebra 1/2 book.  You can draw your own conclusions as to what that means, if anything.

@Korrale4kq

I just realised that you had already posted the links regarding Stephen Hake's opinions on Saxon math, in March.
My apologies for the oversight :unsure: 

My elder dd has started saxon 76. She was having problems with math at school, but seems to be fine with saxon ...Keeping my fingers crossed


When do you stop skipping the initial revision chapters? Which level books?

 I am receiving the Saxon algebra books this week. " I "feel excited about it :D

Waiting to start my younger one on Saxon 54. She has just started doing addition equations and subtraction. Just the white board, marker pen and number line as Robert suggested :thumbsup:
(she also finger counts though)

Has anyone read "John Saxon's Story, a genius of common sense in math education"? I heard some good things about it on another forum I frequent. For those like me who use (or are planning to use) Saxon with their children I think it may offer some important insight. The poster on the other forum said that there is "a ton of information including philosophies, his purposes for each specific book which books should be taught when and why, how he fought to reform education in America and what he saw as the deficiencies in the educational system".

Anyway I'll probably get it, but also thought it might be interesting to some of you as well.

Thanks for sharing, linzy. I've found this website where excerpts of the book can be read -http://saxonmathwarrior.com/ (http://saxonmathwarrior.com/). Click "print excerpt" to read a pdf excerpt of the book. There is a lot more on the website, e.g., videos by John Saxon, etc.

Robert,

What can you tell us about Thaddeus Lott? The reason I'm asking is because he's a local educational legend there in Houston, and Saxon math played a role in his success. I went looking online to learn what I could about him, but found the resources were scant. I did come across a comment on a blog that said he had been exposed as a fraud and discredited, but other than some anonymous comment on a blog, I found nothing to suggest the veracity of the accusation.

I also know he was really big into Phonics (as was John Saxon).

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all ITT and especially to the all of those in the Levy household!

Linzy,

Did you ever get and or read the book you mentioned?  I have been wondering.

I have just finished the John Saxon's Story book this morning. I doubt I'll do a very lengthy write-up on it, but will certainly opine here.

It's a good book. I'll give it 4 of 5 stars with a break down as follows: writing and cohesion = 3, interesting subject = 5, story telling, etc = 3 (at best), and content/information = 4.

There's a lot in the book. It starts out with John's early life and goes from there. I didn't find his early life all that interesting (though it is, being a military pilot in two wars) - nothing spectacular though from a narrative standpoint. Then, as the book progresses, we get to see how he came up with the textbooks, and I found that very interesting. He was teaching algebra at the community college and was trying to square math instruction with how he felt the Air Force trained pilots. His life reference was through that Air Force filter.

One night, he was trying to understand why his students KEPT FORGETTING the things they were taught.

I will stand back a moment and point out that I've read all about this "forgetting" from modern day math teachers. One teacher in particular that I have in mind, attributes this to IQ and genetics; certainly that is part of the issue (debatable how high a percentage it is though).

John realized what Hermann Ebbinghaus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Ebbinghaus) had formally realized a full century earlier: people forget things at a predictable rate of decay, and their memory needs refreshing to keep the skills sharp! (Hermann Ebbinghaus' name appears NO WHERE in the book, which is one of its small flaws, IMO).

If you've followed some of the more popular threads here on BK, you might recall the thread Memorization Method (http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-older-child/memorization-method/) where us parents eventually come around to discussing Spaced Repetition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition).

Spaced Repetition was John Saxon's "Aha!" moment. You don't need to understand or be familiar with the technical jargon to notice it's use in real life, as Saxon did. He knew that acquiring a new skill took practice, and not just practice in a single day, but practice OVER TIME, to acquire and become expert at it. Think of learning a musical instrument, riding a bicycle, learning to drive a car, or any other skill you've acquired in your lifetime.

John Saxon then started to create his own worksheets for his class where he attempted to institute this concept of Space Repetition. It seemed to work well in his classroom. He noticed that his students were remembering and mastering the material far better than they were before. This initial success is what propelled his belief that he was onto something..... BIG.

From there, he took his worksheets and shopped them around to some publishers. He had no takers.

He didn't give up, however. He did what I would advise NO ONE to ever do..... he mortgaged his house and borrowed on all his kids' credit (to their max) to get enough money together to self-publish his text book, Saxon Algebra.

With his ONE TEXTBOOK, he went on the road in an attempt to sell it. He was staring at a mountain of debt.. something like $70,000 in an era (and area) where average home prices where about $55,000! Further complicating matters was that his textbook was not on anyone's "approved" list.

Anyway, the whole story is in the book. I found it the most interesting part of the book. The remaining portions of the book where big picture educational stuff, most of which I had already read (though not the Saxon research stuff). For instance, in the text book approval areas of the story, I kept thinking of Richard Feynman's experience of being on the textbook committee in California... and then, of course, the author actually started mentioning Feynman and his notorious disagreements with it, right there in the book.

This is why I think the content of the book is excellent. The author touched on many different areas. It's a good overview of many of the issues in education (in general); but, I have a predilection for the topic, whereas a typical reader might not.

I also enjoyed reading about the different people that worked with John Saxon at Saxon Math. Their little vignettes in the book were quite enjoyable.

The book also discusses how these other people are influencing what Saxon books are published these days. Hake, who wrote the 54, 65, 76, and 87 books BY HIMSELF with Saxon's approval, still has to approve of any alterations (which, of course, are subject to standards such as common core if he's to continue selling books). Similarly, with Nancy Larson who authored the K - 3 series with Saxon's approval.

The books that are allowed to be altered without any veto privilege are the flagship books themselves; the ones authored by John Saxon. He's not around to veto any changes, and therefore, those are the ones subject to the most alterations.

The book on the whole is quite a laborious undertaking. I'd recommend it if you think the parts I've mentioned really resonate with you.

If you're still not sure, read the wikipedia on John Saxon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Saxon_%28educator%29) and if it seems interesting to you, go ahead and order the book.

Well that all sounds pretty interesting to me. Putting it on my reading list 😊

Aha,,,,,thank you for the good informations,i think it is really useful :thumbsup:  :thumbsup:  :thumbsup:  :clown:

Amazing thread.

Robert, if you're still checking in from time to time,  I have a small question for you (and others may chime in as well).  But first, since you've shared so much, thought I would share a little about myself.

My boy is now 9months old.  When he was around 4months I realized that he was getting BORED, so I started surfing around for games to play with him.  I ended up on a lot of occupational therapy sights and reading about "sensory activities", lots of busy work crafts.  Nothing too exciting until I stumbled on DadDude's teach your baby to read paper.   Came away from that totally excited about teaching my son to read, then ended up here (the article references Brill Kids).  I noticed there was a math section on this forum and thought "hmmm, never considered a baby could learn math too".   :laugh:

So then I sorted the posts by number of responses, and of course this one jumps to the top.  Needless to say, I read the whole thread (about a month or so ago now), and have since gone on a mission to research in depth how to teach my baby math.  There is going to be lots of basics, right start math, soroban in his is future to get him ready for Saxon.  Now my biggest problem is explaining to my husband that we need to invest $$$ in out of print math books and store them for about five/six years.  lol  lol  lol

Thank you so much for all your insights, and to PokerDad and others who have kept the dialogue going and shared their insights.  I'm from Canada and had no idea of the education politics here.  A few of the books you mentioned are now on my reading list.  I checked with my Canadian friend who teaches grade 1, they are still teaching phonics "phewf".  My husband is from Switzerland and needless to say when I shared some of the insights, he was appalled.  He attended Swiss schools until 10th grade, at which point he went to an international baccalaureate school, and from there a Canadian University for business degree.  He says he learned nothing new past 10th grade.   :ohmy:   Makes me want to send my boy to Swiss schools!!!!

One more thing before my question - the requisite adulation.  You took a huge leap of faith teaching your son math, a true pioneer.  We have a whole community to rely on and share ideas with.  You trusted your guts and trailblazed, that takes major guts.  Awesome.

Ok, on to my question.  You mentioned your boy would do approx. 2 hours of math a day at home and that you treated his school more or less like a daycare.  Did he ever take his Saxon math book to school and work on it there?  Or was he just keeping his head down in math class working through the regular material?  It seems crazy to think he would do the regular exercises and tests.  I would love for my boy to be able to do one hour of Saxon at his school, then the other hour at home.  It would make it so much easier to get the two hours in.  I also recall that you said you always taught your boy to be very humble, not to shout out answers, only respond if he is asked directly by the teacher, etc...  Did you not want him to do the Saxon at school because you were afraid he would be ostracized? Or was the school just not supportive?

One final thanks.  DadDude changed my sons life, thanks to him I was convinced to teach my son to read.  You have now changed my sons life, thanks to you my eyes are now open to possibilities of what children can do with math given the proper environment.  Looking forward to seeing what the years ahead will bring for my family!

Evelyn

[Hi Evelyn.  Yep, I'm still checking in, it's just that I'm reverting somewhat to my more stable, lazy, state.  But it's time to start replying again!]

My boy is now 9months old.  When he was around 4months I realized that he was getting BORED, so I started surfing around for games to play with him.  I ended up on a lot of occupational therapy sights and reading about "sensory activities", lots of busy work crafts.  Nothing too exciting until I stumbled on DadDude's teach your baby to read paper.   Came away from that totally excited about teaching my son to read, then ended up here (the article references Brill Kids).  I noticed there was a math section on this forum and thought "hmmm, never considered a baby could learn math too".   

[I can't say much for kids that young.  In our case we didn't do or try to do anything special, other than what I mentioned earlier, which talking to him in the same voice I'd use with an adult.  I actually did that with my dog when I growing up, decades ago, and was amazed that he did actually learn an incredible amount of stuff (such as identifying 15 different people by name call-outs).  There was no way to predict what my dog would learn, so I said everything to him, just as if I were explaining something to a co-worker...and he (the dog) really surprised me with what he did wind up learning.  So I figured no down-side doing that with my kid.  Same results.  One thing I'll never forget was when he was about 5 years old he was talking to my mom in New Jersey and then he hands me the phone.  My mom says (to me): "I feel I'm talking to an adult".  But other than that, nothing - no attempts to imprint anything at such a young age.  Having said that, David's two weaknesses are geography and foreign languages...he's terrible at both, in my opinion, although I happen to be quite good at geography, so my standard is probably unreasonable.  For language, nope, he simply knows next to nothing...so exposing him to that would have been good when he was young, but it didn't happen.]

So then I sorted the posts by number of responses, and of course this one jumps to the top.  Needless to say, I read the whole thread (about a month or so ago now), and have since gone on a mission to research in depth how to teach my baby math.  There is going to be lots of basics, right start math, soroban in his is future to get him ready for Saxon.  Now my biggest problem is explaining to my husband that we need to invest $$$ in out of print math books and store them for about five/six years.

[Maybe I can help here.  Barring a life-changing event, David will have earned about $400,000 in wages by the time he would have otherwise graduated from college with a 4-year degree (i.e., age 22).  While the large majority of these wages are for his work in New York City (where things are expensive, and he's paid in kind), he still would have earned at least half that amount had he stayed in Houston.  Now most parents of college-bound kids of that age would instead be seeing their kids taking out loans, and possibly, also, getting second mortgages on their homes.  We, instead, are just trying to figure out the best early retirement date for me, since I was able to pay off my house a couple of years ago.  Total investment to create that flip in economic forture:  about $500 of Saxon Math books.  There is simply no way that I could have taught him what he needed to zip ahead of everyone else without those books - they literally blew my mind as to how thoroughly they covered everything he needed.  Obviously I cannot promise you the same results, but there is a darn good chance you'll get those results, as long as you follow the Saxon rules (i.e., do every problem, in every section - with the possible exceptions that I call out).  As to the books themselves, like me, they are not getting any younger...so the sooner you get them, the better condition they'll be in, and also you have a better chance of getting the exact editions of the books (i.e., before Big Textbook bought them out).  So move out on it!!!  I've gotten clobbered on virtually every investment that I've made - except for this one, huge, investment.]


Thank you so much for all your insights, and to PokerDad and others who have kept the dialogue going and shared their insights.  I'm from Canada and had no idea of the education politics here.  A few of the books you mentioned are now on my reading list.  I checked with my Canadian friend who teaches grade 1, they are still teaching phonics "phewf".  My husband is from Switzerland and needless to say when I shared some of the insights, he was appalled.  He attended Swiss schools until 10th grade, at which point he went to an international baccalaureate school, and from there a Canadian University for business degree.  He says he learned nothing new past 10th grade.      Makes me want to send my boy to Swiss schools!!!!

[I try not to get too political on this forum, as that is now why we're here (although if Tiger Dad wants to start a thread dedicated to just that, I wouldn't mind...to say the least), but I think it's worth noting something that I read about 2 weeks ago.  It was basically a quote that went something like this:  "I think we all agree that the primary goal of education is equity."  This was directed at a "friendly" education audience, but it was posted.  Again, without getting too political, I'm not sure if most parents here would agree with that - I suspect that most parents reading this would substitute the word "excellence" for "equity", as they would prefer that all kids be given a chance to reach their inherent capabilities.  But once you consider the implications of the term "equity", you then can see why phonics and the times-tables are no longer taught (or, at a minimum, are given a much lower emphasis) - because not everyone learns at the same pace with phonics, or can master their times-tables fast enough.  So we move down, and down, until pretty much everyone can pick up what's going on.  As I've mentioned before, the only person that took Saxon Math to heart (in my personal life) is a Russian immigrant (big surprise there).  Last autumn, she sent her 4th grade daughter to her family back in Russia, to spend 2 months in school there.  She had learned Saxon Math through 6th grade and was actually ahead of her classmates there (not by much, but still ahead).  Had she been taught math by US standards she would not have lasted a week, as they still take math very seriously in that part of the world, regardless of what people may otherwise think of them.]


One more thing before my question - the requisite adulation.  You took a huge leap of faith teaching your son math, a true pioneer.  We have a whole community to rely on and share ideas with.  You trusted your guts and trailblazed, that takes major guts.  Awesome.

[Yep, it's great have such a community around.  As to being a pioneer, yes and no.  In my own little world, definitely yes.  The Internet was still in its early stages and there was no one guiding me.  I only knew of Saxon because my kid's 2nd grade teacher had given David a few photo-copied pages from Saxon 54 (which her daugher was using in 4th grade).  The moment that I saw the quality of the execises I flipped out because that was exactly what I had spent years searching for.  Not too long after that I realized that Saxon Math existed and the rest was history.  But the REAL TRAILBLAZER was John Saxon.  He was the one that put out the books, went to the conventions, was laughed at, and had results that blew away the competition.  Had he not done that, no one would have ever heard of him.  He will always be my lifelong hero, and David's lifelong hero.
  But yes, it was tough...as I mentioned, the progress is not constant, so it's easy to question whether you're doing it right.  But my political instincts literally made the difference for me - again without getting too political here, the people that said that education should phonics and no calculators were the ones that I generally agree with on other issues, so I trusted them here, and they were right.]


Ok, on to my question.  You mentioned your boy would do approx. 2 hours of math a day at home and that you treated his school more or less like a daycare.  Did he ever take his Saxon math book to school and work on it there?  Or was he just keeping his head down in math class working through the regular material?  It seems crazy to think he would do the regular exercises and tests.  I would love for my boy to be able to do one hour of Saxon at his school, then the other hour at home.  It would make it so much easier to get the two hours in.  I also recall that you said you always taught your boy to be very humble, not to shout out answers, only respond if he is asked directly by the teacher, etc...  Did you not want him to do the Saxon at school because you were afraid he would be ostracized? Or was the school just not supportive?

[First question is easy.  I treat my set of Saxon Books the same way I treat my passport, it is never far away from me.  When hurricanes threaten my house (as happens once in a while here in Houston), they are among my top priorities for loading up the van.  There was simply no way that I was about to let my books ever leave my house (except under my possession).  It even drove my Russian friend nuts, as she had to do some serious eyelash batting for me to lend her books, just for her review.  So, no, David wasn't about to bring Saxon Math books to school - way too risky, and had it been a public school I suspect that they would have treated the material as they treat pornography, so no thanks.  I simply taught him to do his best to both keep quiet, and keep his hand down (obviously he could immediately answer any math question that the teach threw out).  A big part of that was so that people would treat him nicely, rather than as a conceited jerk - and that is what happened, they liked him.  Everything, until now, was based on your first question - so it looks like I answered much of the rest already.  As to the school supporting him...no need, he was doing fine at home.  The question of finding the time comes down to priorities.  Two hours per day is not that much, if it is the priority - but if it's put up equally against t-ball, karate, Boy Scouts, Gymnastics, etc., then yes, finding 2 hours can be tough.  We had David do some stuff (Karate and a bit of Boy Scouts), but in the end Saxon Math was the top priority.  I am totally convinced that math and reading need to be done early, or kids simply will never catch up, as their brains can only be wired properly when they are young (just like learning a foreign language) - so for that matter, if you allocate 2 hours to Saxon Math everyday (average) as the highest-priority activity after coming home from school, your kid wins.  After those 2 hours, if there's still time for other stuff, have at it...if not, your kid will be fine too.  Other stuff can wait - your kid will never make a living in gymnastics or karate, so why push it so hard when they are little - there's time later]


One final thanks.  DadDude changed my sons life, thanks to him I was convinced to teach my son to read.  You have now changed my sons life, thanks to you my eyes are now open to possibilities of what children can do with math given the proper environment.  Looking forward to seeing what the years ahead will bring for my family!

[Thank you, that was very sweet.  There is a lot of pressure to "conform"...hopefully I can push back on some of that.  Best of luck, Bob]

"Robert, What can you tell us about Thaddeus Lott? The reason I'm asking is because he's a local educational legend there in Houston, and Saxon math played a role in his success. I went looking online to learn what I could about him, but found the resources were scant. I did come across a comment on a blog that said he had been exposed as a fraud and discredited, but other than some anonymous comment on a blog, I found nothing to suggest the veracity of the accusation.   I also know he was really big into Phonics (as was John Saxon).  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all ITT and especially to the all of those in the Levy household!"

Sorry PD, this one dropped off my radar.  Thanks for the kind words - we had a great Christmas - David was out here, as were a lot of his friends.

As to Mr. Lott, I can't say that I've heard of him, but a few thoughts here.  I'm sure you remember the movie "Stand and Deliver", where Mr. Escalante kids were tearing up the Calculus AP exam in a school that was supposed to have dumb, minority, kids in it.  So the College Board nullified the exam results due to suspected cheating (i.e., Escalante kids "getting help"), and made the kids re-take the exam, this time in much more controlled conditions.  Needless to say, the kids did great again - because they were taught right.  Likewise with the Imani School in Houston, and that was something that I witnessed first hand - again, a school filled with kids that are supposed to be dumb (since they're also minority), but instead running circles around virtually every white kid (and even giving David a run for his money).   So when Mr. Lott is called a fraud, my inclination is that he's doing things right, and therefore making a lot of "experts" look really bad.  The fact that he supports phonics is reason-enough to trust him.   I truly think that people at the upper levels know the real answers when it comes to educating kids - and they simply don't want it to be done.

Thank you so much for the response Robert!  I'll be using your financial justification with my husband.  Frankly we're both pretty concerned with the cost of post secondary education, and this is a great point.  That along with some good old fashioned eyelash batting should get my way.    :D

On your comment  "David wasn't about to bring Saxon Math to school - Way too risky, and had it been a public school I suspect that they would have treated the material as they treat pornography, so no thanks."   Oh my goodness this made me LAUGH!!!!!  On your other point about prioritizing reading and math, you are right.  I'd love to do a million different things for my son, but if I can get him ahead in those two areas he'll always have a strong foundation to stand on in life, come what may. 

You're certainly welcome, it's still a lot of fun to write up this stuff.

Some other considerations on the financial end.  As we zipped through Saxon Math, I had no clue (and certainly no plan) as to how that would affect David as he got older.  But I did know one thing (early college or not), we would not be spending a penny on tutors, after-school instruction, or anything else regarding math, at least through Calculus (nor would we he have to spend much time on it for homework, since it would all be review).  I also didn't know if he even would go to college early as the inclination of most colleges is to not do special favors for people (i.e., it's more work and more risk for them).  So, had he not entered junior college to take Calculus, I was prepared to take him all the through the same math that I took to get my degrees in engineering (I still had my books and these days there are a lot of other places for him to get help).  In other words, by the time he entered college (at age 18 or so), all the math he needed for at least a BS in engineering would be simple review for him - thereby assuring that he wouldn't get tripped up and weeded out in math, and also making some of the other classes (particularly Physics) that much easier (and yes, I would have also taught him Physics early).  In other words, with math already under his belt, the probably of graduating goes up significantly, the probability of graduating with a high grade point average goes up significantly, and the probability of requiring no more than 4 years to complete a BS in a useful field (maybe even 3 years, or less) increases significantly.   All of the above is also a return on investment.

One other factor that may help (if your kid goes to college early), depending on the college and where you're located is that your kid may get some kind of discount for tuition if he's under 18, since the state is supposed to pay his way if he was in public school.  In our case, for a couple of years, we only paid half-price for his tuition at our community college.  We probably could have done the same at his 4-year school, but it was priced low enough for us without the discount, and they were doing us enough of a favor just by enrolling him, so why bother asking about it (the community college did it without us asking).  Related to that, if you had planned to send him to private K-12 schools from the outset, as we were going to do with David anyway, then the tuition we would have paid for high school ended up instead paying for college, so the net effect was that we paid roughly the same amount in tuition for his first 17 years of life, but he had a marketable college degree, rather than a high school diploma and years of college expenses staring us in the face.

Yep, I'm quite cynical regarding public schools, and I have yet to be convinced that I'm wrong.  I probably mentioned this earlier, but my mother (now retired) was a math professor at New Jersey Institute of Technology (basically an engineering/architecture school in New Jersey).  NJIT is a state school.  Obviously New Jersey has public K-12 schools from which NJIT gets most of their students.  One day my mom tells me that virtually everyone is flunking out of her Calculus class.  I ask her why and she tells me it's because they stopped letting kids use calculators on exams - and that was because the kids were graduating with engineering degrees, but couldn't do arithmetic without a calculator.  So that makes sense...but why couldn't they do arithmetic?  Well that was because the K-12 schools gave out calculators in Kindergarten and never looked back - they had completely given up on teaching math without calculators, and these poor kids were entering engineering school without ever having to do a math problem by hand.  Now if those kids were trying to go to Harvard, and Harvard had a no-calculator rule for math tests (which is likely the case), that would be bad enough for those kids, but I certainly wouldn't blame Harvard.  But NJIT is a state school - in the same state as the K-12 schools, yet it didn't seem to occur to anyone that maybe they should coordinate their policies a bit, and either be all-in for calculators, or not permit them in math class - but either way, do it throughout all of the state schools (K-12 and colleges), rather than allowing different policies for different levels of education.  My God, a lot of those kids flunking out probably would have done just fine and gotten their engineering degrees if a coordinated policy had existed...but lives got ruined instead.

This thread is amazing and I have learned so much. Here's the thing. My 3 year olds are cheeky, cheeky, cheeky. When they were 2.5 and already reading to some extent, both of them would pick out numbers instead of letters and vice versa and laugh at their Montessori teacher when having a session with her. Before they were two, they have been purposely confusing their dad with their identities. I had no sympathy as I could tell them apart from birth.

But now that I am the one being tricked...Recently they have been all over the place with the six times table and simple addition when I know they know some of the answers. I think that they are facing boredom with repetition and here is what I did. I let them come up with the problem eg. One would say he has two cement mixers, then one more joined them and now he has 3. In desperation I made a bribe of handing out roasted chickpeas if I get the correct answer (won't do this again). Lastly, I will introduce short worksheets (online ones and standard sheets are still too much at the moment) so they start getting used to the idea of a more formal math session. I do know that they can learn skip counting quite quickly like within a few days if there is an emotional attachment to the number so I will try to make this association for them for upcoming numbers (7 to 12).

Here are my questions. Mastery of math has been emphasised on this thread. How do I know if they have mastered the basics when I can't get a straight answer? :noo:  Or can I simply expect that this will be achieved if we do enough math? My experience seems to be the opposite from what is expected. Eg. I seem to hold their interest more when introducing new concepts eg negative numbers and they do get the math. They are however resistant to repetition and testing so I don't think I can get them to memorise all the addends, for example. It also makes it difficult for me to know how to move forward if I am unsure of what they already know. Robert, did you have to deal with similar problems when David was little? I can imagine you being a strong figure of authority.

I sometimes feel outsmarted and outnumbered. How is this possible? I have three degrees and supervised 4 PhD students to completion. I can tell you now, working with graduate students is 100 times easier..but I wouldn't miss the experiences with my toddlers for the world. I think I might be even a little bit sharper for all the stories and games I had to invent to engage them in math and music. I digress.

I really admire the mums and dads on this forum for what they have been able to achieve and I may have even left it a bit late for memorising facts with my little monkeys. But I am learning and learning from all of you. Here is what we have been doing and what I hope to achieve moving forward.
I the last 6 months,
Mastered the teens
Appreciate place value and count to 1000
Able to perform addition and subtraction up to 10
Introduced addition and subtraction up to 20
Understand negative numbers
Able to solve simple algebraic equations and know the concept of x
Know all square numbers up to 10
Introduced the square root
Able to skip count to 6
Memorised times table up to 6
Practised writing all 10 numbers electronically.
2. I the next 3-6 months
   1. Master addends up to 10 (maybe)
   2. Introduce percentages
   3. Make teens addends and beyond
   4. Solve quadratic equations
   5. Know times table up to 12
   6. Introduce decimals
   7. Practise writing numbers on paper
Saxon math and abacus in the future?

Hi again people, for those that know me at least.  Greetings to others here.

It's been while since I gave an update on David, but he's now 21 years old and doesn't mind me getting more specific about his education and career.  So I'll give a quick run-down (some of it may have been posted before).

David graduated from the University of Houston just prior to turning 17.  He received a Bachelor's Degree in math, and a second Bachelor's in Mechanical Engineering.  He then went to Texas A&M for a Master's in Mechanical Engineering (that dragged on a bit due to his thesis, and he didn't get that degree until he was 19) - they gave him a teaching assistantship, which covered the cost (that was nice).  During a job fair at A&M he went past a Bloomberg LLC booth and they asked him if he knew programming.  He said he knew some programming (I had him take an on-line class in "C" when he was young, and then it became his big hobby).  They hired him and he worked for 2 years in New York City.  Between business trips and vacations, I must have made it there every 2 months (I love visiting that city).  He lived in a dump, but it was in a great area (Upper East Side of Manhattan) and was within walking distance to work for all but they last few months there (when they relocated his team).  But he had his own place and even managed to save up some money there.

During the time at Bloomberg he came across a Google "challenge" where they would give him an assignment to write a program to perform to meet whatever requirements they gave him.  When he was successful, he'd get a harder problem.  He managed to advance pretty far doing that (with some serious prodding from Mom when she visited) and got to the level where Google asked to contact him.  So now he works for Google in Venice Beach, California.  He's paid well too, very possibly exceeding my income next year (and I do well, as a senior engineer).

So that's his status.  Probably the only thing he knows that I didn't teach him is Programming, and that's his career - pretty funny, but who cares.

By the way, this is a very good column regarding Phonics versus Sight Words, at least for kids K to 3rd Grade.  The links he includes are also very good.  Needless to say, David was taught exclusively phonics and the speed at which he learned to read still astounds me (along with his outstanding spelling capability...much better than mine ever was...which I attribute to phonics).

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/11/why_kids_cant_read.html

Wow, Robert, thank you so much for sharing that update!. David is doing so phenomenally well! It most certainly was the work ethic you developed with him that gave him the tenacity to take on the extra Google challenge.  And look where he is now, awesome!  :clap:

At 21 years old he has achieved Academic and career goals that mamy have only dreamed of, and that others may achieve but will take as long as another decade to get to. So cool.

Plus, he got a free ride for his master's, wow.  Well, not free, he was a ta, but still, no debt there!

The article you shared on phonics was interesting, the author even went so far as to say that if you teach sight words, it is detrimental because then phonics is not automatic. I used both sight word and phonics programs with my now 20month old.  He can read pretty well, he just doesn't have much stamina.  Of course, I have no idea which parts of the teaching program were the most effective...

I will say though, it's impossible not to teach sight words at some level... The child  always sees the whole word (like it or not), so they are bound to memorize the whole word for common words even if you use pure phonics.  So in that sense I'd say the author is incorrect, some whole word teaching won't hurt.

So now proud mama moment, here is video of the little guy.  Not the greatest one (he's hard to catch on camera), but super hat with his progress!


http://youtu.be/Bbh3Og3XMoc

I have some other videos where he is identifying numerals, he can also count to twenty.  Can wait to get the math ball really rolling!

Thanks for the update Robert, very inspirational!

Thanks Evelyn for the kind words (from both of us...plus mom).

We talked Sight Words a bit before, so I'm probably covering prior material.  And, once again, I only have a sample size of one, so there's always risk if I try to make a general rule out of it, but I'll talk it again a bit.

First, never once did we try to get David to memorize any words by sight.  I'm not even sure they pushing Sight Words 18 years ago (when I taught David reading).  As far as I knew back then, it was either Whole Language or Phonics, and I knew enough to understand the unmitigated disaster that Whole Language is.

So, without ever being told to recognize a word by sight, David quickly developed that capability by being able to read phonetically (i.e., after seeing the word enough times you no longer have to sound it out).  And that's where I think the problem is with Sight Words...all adults that can read, read by sight.  And all adults that can read know phonics.  It's just a matter of timing - when do the kids learn each, and in what order?  To me the main question is when are they taught phonics.  Again, to me, Sight Words, at least as implemented in our public schools, seem like a stalling tactic designed to slow kids down (sounds mean, but I really have trouble coming up with another reason to delay phonics until 4th grade).  I also agree with the author that being taught two ways can be confusing, because I can see the kids trying to figure out whether a particular word is one that they were supposed to remember, or one they are to sound out.

Anyway, just my take.

Bob

Hello Robert,

I am pleased to hear you live in Houston. We live in Houston too and are on the Saxon path. My 8 yr is currently on 8/7 and my 6yr old twins are on 6/5. I started my kids on soroban abacus mental math with Abacus Brain Gym and thanks to that training they learned to love math. I know you mentioned math isn't fun,  but my kids love doing Saxon and math. I credit that to Abacus Brain Gym though, because their mental math speed and competence set them on a solid path.

It would be wonderful to get the opportunity to meet with you and learn from you. Please let me know if you would be interested in meeting.

Pearl