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/. 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.

Hi srg,

Thanks for your thoughts.

Point 1)`` A high degree of attention focused upon the child by parents and other adults, expressed in intensive educational measures and usually, abundant love''

Point 2) ``Isolation from other children, especially  OUTSIDE the family''.

Siblings are within the family, and the geniuses associated with them. The article clearly said most of them had very close relationships with their siblings.  An excerpt on page 452 said:
 

Warm attachments to children outside the family circle seem to have been rare, and there are several cases of isolation within the family, too. Yet it is within the family that most of the recorded intimacies between these geniuses and other children developed. Goethe, Pascal, Niebuhr, Macauley, Voltaire, and Mirabeau experienced some intensity of affection for sisters; Musset for his older brother. Macauley and Voltaire remained attached to their favourite sisters throughout their lives, becoming devoted uncles to their sister’s children; Goethe’s and Pascal’s affection for their younger sisters approached passion; and Mirabeaus speaks of incestuous relations with his.

The reality and nature of the pattern to which I am pointing – the very great dominance of adults in the lives of these children, and their isolation from contemporaries outside the family, and sometimes, within- can be adequately appreciated only through a more detailed statement about each individual….''

In my opinion, Point 2 mattered.  If you've read the book ``The Nurture Assumption'', you'll realise that Point 2 matters more than most people think. PokerDad started a thread where ``The Nurture Assumption'' was discussed - http://forum.brillkids.com/coffee-corner/3-very-impressive-books-that-have-changed-my-outlook-on-post-el-life/.  


Again, in the book ``The Education of Karl Witte'', you'll see all three factors (especially Point 1 and 2) in Karl Witte's upbringing. Karl Witte was a child prodigy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Witte).  See more on Karl Witte in ``Give your child a superior mind'' by Siegfried Engelmann - www.zigsite.com/PDFs/SuperiorMind.pdf. An excerpt from ``Give your child a superior mind” says:  

 Young Karl entered Leipzig at 9. He received his Ph.D. at 14, his Doctor of Laws degree at 16. He was immediately appointed to the teaching staff of the University of Berlin. At 23 he became a full professor at the University of Breslau, and he remained there for the rest of his life, building a reputation as a teacher, writer and scholar.

 Anyway, in the book ``The Education of Karl Witte'', ( https://archive.org/details/educationkarlwi01wiengoog), the book authored by Karl’s father, there is in fact an entire chapter on Point 2. Chapter 14 is titled ``Must Chidren Play Much with Other Children?'', and his father said:

Since I was repeatedly informed that Karl should have a playmate, for otherwise he  would not enjoy his childhood and would get tired, ill-humored, or even stubborn, I finally gave in and, with the aid of my wife, chose, one after the other, two somewhat  grown girls who at that time were apparently the best-behaved children in the whole com-munity. They sang, danced, and played with him, and he naturally was happy.

But the same child that heretofore had never been stubborn and had never told an untruth, now learned both. He also became accustomed to coarse expressions, and grew arbitrary and domineering, because these  girls, who came to us on account of some small advantage to them, did not oppose him.

Our assurances that we should be happy if they did not give in to his will, but let us know of his arbitrariness, did no good. Their years, their social standing, their education, and the prejudices which are inseparable from it made them deaf against it, and we had to banish them.

It is indeed a foolish and highly injurious idea that children cannot be merry without other children.

It is only natural for them to wish to be with children, for with them they need not be so careful about their thoughts, inclinations, talks, and actions, and they are not guarded and supervised so constantly. But one need only be a child with them, need only take part in merry jests, let the children now and then get the upper hand and be more clever, by allowing them to occupy a place of greater dignity, and so forth, and they will feel just as happy playing with older persons, will learn to avoid naughty things, and will  not so easily take any harm.

Worst of all it is to make playmates out  of uneducated children, especially without any close observation. I have constantly  found the troubles, which I mentioned in regard to Karl, repeated in other families as  well, and even worse troubles. The virtues of the well-brought-up child pass over less readily to the ill-brought-up children than the faults of the latter infect the still unspoiled child, for virtues demand, at least in the beginning, effort and self-control, because they are contrary to our inclinations and passions.  But faults are more easily adopted, because our sensuousness naturally leans that way, and  the bad example of the little friend acts as an encouragement.

Most dangerous of all is the being together in an institution or public school. In regard to the latter it has been a settled principle for more than thirty years, observed by every sensible father, not to send his child, without the most urgent necessity, to the lower classes of the same, because there are more ill-brought- up children there than in the upper classes.

So long as our schools are not at the same time schools of moral training, so long as the pupils, from the first moment to the last (more especially in the recesses, as well as before and after school), are not constantly under the supervision of a teacher, the experienced father would gladly sacrifice all attendance at school, if the mass of information, which a large number of teachers can impart, did not make the instruction given by each of them in his specialty so desirable.

One ought to take but a very few children, say two or three, under one's charge, when the supervision could be made successful. If one, for financial reasons, wishes to take fifteen to twenty, one should keep enough teachers to have but two or three under the charge of one.

If none of these precautions have been taken, the faults which have been brought together from all the corners of the world must soon become the common possession, to outgrow and crush the few virtues which are present.

It is rank stupidity to imagine that children cannot be agreeable and sociable unless they all the time go around with other children. I have repeatedly found the very opposite to be the truth.

Karl and every child that was treated in the same way, were by that very treatment made more yielding, and it was, therefore, no hardship for them to have to yield. Other children tease what they want out of their playmates in various ways, and so become accustomed to self-assertion. From this there grow shrewdness, simulation, untruth, quarereling, stubbornness, hatred, envy, haughtiness, aspersion, fighting, calumniation, etc. A  child remains quite free from all these, so long as he plays only with his parents or with other sensible persons.

Naturally the opportunity for coming together with children is not excluded, but their commingling should occur only now and then, and under supervision. Such an occasional meeting, when all the reserve has not been thrown off, can do no harm. Karl has had many a chance for meeting children under such circumstances during his longer or shorter journeys.

He got along so well with them that they invariably became very fond of him and nearly  always parted from him with tears in their eyes. Having become accustomed to calm, merriment, order, and sensible reasoning, even in his games, he observed these virtues also when with other children. There was for him no ready cause for quarreling. On the contrary, he frequently avoided it by clearing away misunderstandings, or put an end to it by prayers, sensible arguments, and so forth. Since he never quarreled at home with any one, such action appeared to him repulsive and unseemly. He felt that quarreling put an end to playing, nor was his blood roused by daily recurring quarrels. He consequently did not so easily become excited, nor did his blood boil as easily as that of children constantly quarreling and fighting with one another. He knew nothing of that anger which so frequently puts an end to children's playing. He remained calm, while others grew excited. Not even the naughtiest of boys could ever have brought him so far as to make him swear or fight.

Nearly all the children, boys and girls, who knew him more intimately became fond of him. There was but one opinion about him,  that he was very amiable and could get along well with others. I do not know a single case, not even in his maturer years, of his having quarreled with one of his many youthful friends, or of having fallen out with them, although many an occasion offered itself for it during his investigation, and even lively discussion, of learned subjects. I may say there should have been such occasions, because his opponents were usually considerably older than he.

He generally sided with his betters, and these betters knew him well, hence that intimate respect and love which they still have for him. Their mutual relations have frequently moved me to tears. My thanks are due to these worthy young men for having so tenderly and lastingly clung to him. They are sure of my respect and of his.

People would, therefore, do well to drop that harmful prejudice that children can be made happy and merry only by playing with other children. With the same right one may say that they should be left much in the company of the servants, for they like to be in their company for similar reasons, whereas, who would be so rash as to abandon them to servants, except in a case of dire necessity?

QUOTE ENDS.


Point 3) -  ``A rich efflorescence of fantasy [i.e. creativity] as a reaction to the preceding conditions.''

Point 3 was a direct result of point 1. The article says: ``There is an effect of this constant intercourse with the adult world which may be especially important in the development of genius. Not only is there an increase of knowledge, which is the usual aim of the instructors, there is also, in many cases, a profound excitement of imagination. Even John Stuart Mill confesses that he did not perfectly understand such grave works as the more difficult dialogues of Plato when he read them in Greek at seven. What, then, happens to such adult material pouring into the child's mind? Mill does not eludicate his own case, but there is evidence in a number of biographies before me that the dynamic processes of phantasy go to work on it and richly transform both what is understood and what is not.''  QUOTE ENDS

Imagination resulted from the abundance of knowledge acquired from adults and the adult books they read. I disagree with the lady in the podcast I posted above that putting away the curriculum materials and playing with Legos would help imagination. I would only agree with her if the curriculum materials she meant were workbooks and ``fill-in the blank'' type of books.   ``Living books'' (a Charlotte Mason term), are especially excellent reading, and may give a child a lot of fodder for imaginative thoughts. The more knowledge a child has, the better and more improved the child's imagination will be. In the children's classic ``A Little Princess'' (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/146), the protagonist,  Sara Crewe,  had a very rich imaginative life because she was very widely read. She could visualise she was in the Bastille because she was widely read about the French Revolution. You can't imagine things you know nothing about. And you get that knowledge by reading excellent books.

So, in my opinion, Point 1 and 2 mattered. Point 3 derived from Point 1.


Thoughts?

I stumbled on this excellent podcast ``The genius of homeschooling'' - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7a_l4W1FXE  and the corresponding article titled ``Homeschooling - The environment for genius'' - www.drwile.com/Genius.pdf. Please watch the video (it's about 12 minutes) and read the article (it's only 2 pages). Very interesting insights overall.

So, I decided to chase up the author/article referenced above. The  article is titled ``Childhood Pattern of Genius'' by Harold McCurdy. Here is where you can download the article - http://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/ref/collection/jncas/id/2279 . It's excellent reading.  To download the article, wait a few minutes for the page to load completely. Then click the article to save it onto your computer. The article begins at the bottom of page 1, so scroll down to get to the article. The article is titled ``The Childhood Pattern of Genius'' by Harold McCurdy.

Whether one homeschools or not, knowing the childhood pattern of genius helps immensely, though admittedly, homeschooling provides the best environment for modelling the success of those geniuses.

An excerpt from the summary of ``Childhood Pattern of Genius'' says:
"The present survey of biographical information on a sample of twenty men of genius suggests that the typical development pattern includes these important aspects: (1) a high degree of attention focused upon the child by parents and other adults, expressed in intensive educational measures and usually, abundant love; (2) isolation from other children, especially outside the family; (3) a rich efflorescence of fantasy [i.e. creativity] as a reaction to the preceding conditions....

It might be remarked that the mass education of our public school system is, in its way, a vast experiment on the effect of reducing all three of the above factors to minimal values, and should, accordingly, tend to suppress the occurrence of genius." QUOTE ENDS.



Please read the above materials and share your thoughts. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Pokerdad and Mandab, for your excellent insights. Very much appreciated.


Mandab, just to clarify the bit about Robinson requiring the child to teach an empty room. He used this strategy when his son had completed the curriculum books and was now studying hard-core University science textbooks at home. The son in question, Noah, was having difficulty mastering the concepts in the physics textbook, "Beyond the Mechanical Universe''. He was 17 years old at the time.  ``Beyond the Mechanical Universe'' was a textbook used in the later part of freshman year at California Institute of Technology (CalTech)  by students 2 years older than Noah. Further, those students received tutoring from the professors teaching the course.
 
So, all in all, ``Beyond the Mechanical Universe'' was an advanced text for a 17 year old who was going to teach himself this textbook at home. The father, Art Robinson, stumbled on the method called "oral learning'' in which the child reads aloud a small portion of the textbook, and explains it to an imaginary classroom. Noah started applying this strategy to "Beyond the Mechanical Universe'', and his error rate dropped from 30% to 0%.  He now understood the book much better than when he had been reading it silently.

Here are Robinson’s exact words as published in his ``Access to Energy'' Magazine:

"I noticed that Noah was experiencing a difficulty identical to my own experience when I was his age. One reads the book but doesn't really absorb it. Problem solving becomes an exercise in scrambling back through the text looking for formulas and combining these with computing tricks such as dimensional analysis. As the physics advanced, his error rate grew as high as 30%.

Then we read The Overnight Student by M. L. Jones, available from Louis Publishing, 1105 Inverness Lane, Bellingham, WA 98226. This book advocates that the student become an oral teacher of an imaginary class.

Noah tried this. Now, for about an hour each day, he closets himself in the press room where we have installed the equipment used to print and mail Access to Energy. There, he teaches the physics orally in small segments to an imaginary audience as he reads through the book. Students are naturally shy. None of us has heard him do this.

The result -- his study time is reduced; he understands the material better; and his problem solving error rate has fallen essentially to 0%.''  


Here is the link where you can find the above quote - http://www.garynorth.com/public/1893.cfm.  More explanations are given by Gary North. He references Noah Robinson, gives details on the oral learning strategy, and how it helped Noah ace his GRE exams. And here is another relevant link, still on Gary North's website - http://www.garynorth.com/public/1900.cfm. This one is titled "Lecturing to the Wall.'' He references Noah Robinson again here.

Overall, Art Robinson's reasoning was that when a teacher teaches a difficult concept orally to a class, the teacher gets to understand the concept the most. He mentioned (in the course of study notes on the Robinson Curriculum) that when he taught freshman chemistry as a University lecturer, he as the teacher learnt the most. The act of explaining the information orally to his students gave him a deeper understanding of the concepts.

He went on to say that in the home, a child may not have an audience to teach his advanced textbooks to. By getting Noah to teach that textbook out loud to an imaginary classroom, Noah got the same benefit that every teacher gets from teaching a subject - the benefit of deeper understanding. Art followed the same strategy with his other kids as they hit the advanced science courses, and it seemed to work well for them.

Notice that Marva's students did something similar. In Marva's school, the children read advanced books, and since the books were likely to be above the students' initial levels, the students were required to read them out loud.  That way, they got to understand the material better. And that coincides with what PokerDad said in the second paragraph of his post above, that ``Reading aloud [by the learner] will do this as will listening [to someone read out to you], but I do think reading aloud [by the learner] means the reader has to "produce" the sounds which should be a bit more powerful.’’


More thoughts?  Please share them. Thank you.

[This practice promotes not only good reading but good writing.]

Thank you for your response, Mandab. I appreciate your insights.

I did ponder if requiring the child to read aloud his books to the parent would not accomplish the same purpose as the parent reading aloud to the child. (That said, I also know that a child's comprehension will be way above his reading level, so when the parent reads aloud to the child, the child gets to learn from books he is not be able to read yet). In the book ``Marva Collins Way'', I learnt that Marva Collins required that her students read all their books out loud, be it literature, history or science. This is what she said:

I have them [the students] read aloud every day so I can check pronunciation as well as comprehension. Having children read silently in class only allows their mistakes to go unnoticed. I have heard children read capa-city for capacity, denny instead of deny, or doze instead of does, treating the final s as though pluralized the word doe. Children frequently reverse letters when they read. For example, they confuse sacred and scared, diary and dairy, angel and angle. If children read silently, they continue to make those mistakes.

Another reason for reading aloud is to build vocabulary. A child reading silently skips over big words he doesn't know. When I am there listening to a child read, I can interrupt to ask the meaning. The whole class benefits as we can look up  the definition, the base word within the larger word, and the part of speech. I also have my students read aloud for tone, inflection and punctuation. Reading aloud helps a student realise the difference between a comma, a period, a question mark, and an exclamation point. Children who are just learning to read tend to read individual words, not groups of words or phrases. That limits comprehension. By reading aloud children learnt to understand words within the context of a sentence, and they see how words connect with each other to express an idea. This practice promotes not only good reading but good writing.

My students read everything orally - literature, science, social studies, and history. I even have them read their compositions aloud every day. It makes children more conscious of sentence structure, allows them to proofread for punctuation errors and word omissions, and helps them develop a certain presence and authority in front of an audience.

QUOTE ENDS.


Question 1:  Do you require your two oldest children to read aloud all their books to you, the way Marva Collins did? Or do you require reading aloud from them only when the books are very high above their level? I ask because I’m curious how you juggle it with multiple kids. Arthur Robinson (of Robinson curriculum) highly recommends oral learning, which is very similar to a child reading his advanced books out loud. In the Robinson method, the child reads the book out loud to (and teaches) an imaginary classroom, not the parent. So there is something to oral learning. What oral learning strategies do you implement with your children, and how do you implement them?


Question 2: Marva Collins, in the above excerpt, makes a connection between reading aloud by the child and the child becoming a good writer. Andrew Pudewa, on the other hand, made a connection between reading aloud by the parent and the child becoming a good writer.  You can read more of his insights here – http://iew.com/help-support/resources/articles/one-myth-and-two-truths.  So, both Marva Collins and Pudewa have similar points, which is this: hearing words read out loud makes a child a better writer. The difference between the Marva Collins and Pudewa recommendation is the person doing the reading. In Marva's case, the child does the reading out loud, every day and for all subjects: composition, literature, science, social studies, and history. In Pudewa's case, the parent does the reading out loud. My question is: which strategy would provide the most academic success? Any thoughts on this?
 

And finally, what did you think of Andrew Pudewa's reasoning that good readers don't neccessarily make good writers. The best writers (as evidenced from his experiences with his son) are usually people that have heard a lot of complex and interesting words read out aloud. I found that insight very interesting. Do listen to his audio file ``Nurturing Competent Communicators''  that I had linked previously and let me know what you think. Here is a link to an article where he explained the concept. The article is titled: ``One myth and two truths'' - http://iew.com/help-support/resources/articles/one-myth-and-two-truths.  

On why we should read aloud to even children who can read, an interview with Andrew Pudewa. Link  - http://amongstlovelythings.com/1/.  Insightful interview overall.


I followed up by listening to the podcast - ``Nurturing Competent Communicators''  by Andrew Pudewa. This podcast is linked on that same page, under `Episode 1 Show Notes''.  I've learnt a lot from ``Nurturing Competent Communicators''.  The role of memorisation in the Susuki piano method was mentioned, and I immediately saw where I could apply that strategy to my children's learning. The relationship between hearing words read out loud and being a good writer was also explained. Overall, a very insightful podcast.


Sarah Mackenzie, the lady who interviewed Andrew Pudewa in the podcast linked above, has done other interviews on reading aloud, and here is the link to all of them - http://amongstlovelythings.com/read-aloud-revival-the-podcast/.  Remember to check out the references under each episode's ``Show Notes''. The ``Show Notes'' are linked on the same page as the episodes. They are as useful as the podcasts themselves.


Thoughts?

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?

Thank you, Robert.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/06/reform_math_must_be_destroyed_root_and_branch.html

Thanks for the article, Robert.


This excerpt said:

The common denominator of all these inferior programs is an artificial complexity, and an emphasis on learning concepts and “meaning” without actually being able to do problems.  These programs teach algorithms that parents don't know.  A tremendous separation is created between the generations.  Parents are rendered irrelevant.  The children are frustrated to tears.  In a few years, in all of these Reform curricula, the kids end up dependent on calculators.

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:

During the math classes yesterday, the chairs for the UK teachers were all left unseated. They walked into the students, checking their textbooks, notebooks, and took photos with their cellphones. The Chinese kids did not let them down.

72÷3＝?

One student went to the stage and quickly wrote the correct answer of 24. This student said the answer can be quickly concluded through the use of multiplication table. The 12 teachers at the scene were surprised by the method.

The English teacher said they don’t have such multiplication table in UK. If they want to solve the problem above, the process will be like this:

10×3＝30，10×3＝30，4×3＝12，then add them up and get 24.

For this kind of problem, students in UK will have to learn through several lessons to solve them successfully.''

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.

Here is another free full curriculum I found.   http://discoveryk12.com/dk12/curriculum/

Susan Khan

Thank you so much for sharing the link, Susan. I like it. Are you using it with your children?

And please, are there other full free curriculums like it? If yes, please could share the links?

Thank you so, so much.

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 )

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 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.

[Results showed that students with high perceived parental involvement (e.g., having high expectations, input into course selection, etc.) had significantly higher standardized scores than students with low perceived parental involvement. In addition, the scores of traditionally schooled teenagers with highly involved parents did not differ significantly from those reported from homeschooled students.]

In Sandra Martin-Chang's article above, she cited a piece of research done by Barwagen et. al (2004). She said the following about that research:

Barwegen et al. (2004) have recently narrowed the focus to ask why the scores of homeschooled children might differ from those in public school. Following the recent trend of examining the positive impact parental involvement plays on children’s educational success (Feuerstein, 2001; Heymann & Earle, 2000; Hill & Craft, 2003; Hill & Taylor, 2004; Lee & Bowen, 2006), Barwegen et al. (2004) proposed that the elevated test scores of homeschooled children in previous research may have reflected greater parental involvement rather than general educational superiority. To examine this possibility, they circulated questionnaires measuring perceived parental involvement to 127 public high school seniors.

Results showed that students with high perceived parental involvement (e.g., having high expectations, input into course selection, etc.) had significantly higher standardized scores than students with low perceived parental involvement. In addition, the scores of traditionally schooled teenagers with highly involved parents did not differ significantly from those reported from homeschooled students.

The conclusions drawn by Barwegen et al. (2004) are intriguing.  However, these authors were unable to compare the amount of perceived parental support between the homeschooled and public school groups because they did not administer any questionnaires to children who were homeschooled. Therefore, it is not possible to make direct comparisons between the two groups of students.

Furthermore, they did not administer the tests of academic achievement themselves. Like Rudner (1999) and Ray (2010), Barwegen and colleagues used data obtained from private companies. Thus, the self-selective nature of the homeschooled sample and the uniformity of the testing situations remain problematic in the Barwegen et al. work.

I had to search out that Barwegen et al. paper. I found a pdf of the entire article here - http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ794828.pdf

I've been mulling over its contents all day long. I also especially found interesting the table on page 17 of the Bawegan paper that showed which survey items had a statistically significant impact on student achievement, and which items that did not have an impact. Survey items like: ``My parents believed school was important for my future'' or ``My parents attended school functions'' did not indicate statistical significance to school achievement compared to survey items like ``My parents expected me to maintain a 3.0 GPA''.

On page 10, it says :

The survey items where parent involvement was not found to have an impact upon academic achievement were: helping with school work, listening to students about school work, encouraging students regarding school work, attending teacher conferences, attending school functions, reviewing student report cards, teachers contacting parents about school, teachers sending information home, teachers notifying parents about school occurrences, and teachers effectively communicating with parents. All survey items showed either higher academic achievement by students perceiving higher levels of parent
involvement or no difference at all.

   

Thoughts on the Barwegan et al. article?

If you all like this kind of article / video, I can share a lot more later.

Yes, please. Share a lot more. I've learnt a lot from this one and I've made alterations to  the way I do school.  Thanks again.

And please, if possible, kindly give links to the entire articles (not just the abstracts). And their corresponding videos, if possible.
In cases where the entire articles are not available online, I'll still be happy to read the abstracts. Thanks again.

Thank you so much, robbyjo, for the video. I've been pondering its conclusions over the past few days.

Pokerdad, I found the link to a free pdf copy of  the entire research article on Google Scholar. The sample size was 74 children: 37 public school children, and 37 homeschooled children. Of the 37 homeschooled children, 25 were structured homeschoolers and 12 were unstructured homeschoolers (or unschoolers).Here is the link to the research article-
www.home-ed.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Martin-Chang-Gould-et-Meuse-2011.pdf.  A most interesting read.

My ponderings were as follows:   Do unschoolers know about this study? Would people still unschool if they knew the results of this study? And do unschooled children really catch up later, given that they are far behind the norms in the elementary grades? David Colfax in ``Homeschooling for Excellence'' said something about catching up, but I'm not yet convinced that it would work for all children. Maybe I'm wrong. I wish Sandra Martin-Chang would do another study comparing structured homeschoolers, schooled children, and unschooled children in high school.

In the article, she said:

`Our data suggest that this group [the unschooling group] is being outperformed on academic tests both by the traditionally schooledand the structured homeschooled groups. This pattern of results fits nicely with Ray’s (2010) report, where three variables of interest were positively associated with student achievement on academic tests: greater structure in the program, more funds spent on educational materials (e.g., textbooks, tutoring), and more time spent in “structured learning time” (defined as “time during which the child is engaged in learning activities planned by the parent; it is a time during which the child is not free to do whatever he or she chooses,” Ray, 2010, p. 19).''

This excerpt made me smile:

``These parents [unschoolers] identified more with the pedagogical view that education is gained via the natural consequences of the child’s day-to-day activities (Taylor- Hough, 2010). For example, “. . . having classical CDs playing in the background gets listed as ‘fine arts,’ watching an episode of Little House on the Prairie counts as history, and figuring out how much they can buy with $2.00 at the gift shop qualifies as the day’s math lesson” (Kunzman, 2009, p. 320).''

I agree with the emphasis on real-life learning, but...will the children not take advantage of the freedom and opt for video games and TV rather than studying? I still remember this  ABC news video -  http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Parenting/video/extreme-parenting-radical-unschooling-10413158.

Thanks again, robbyjo.  Lots of food for thought.

Thoughts, anyone?