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Post a message or simply read what others have written and answered. Rachel, a RightStart™ Math user and one of our customer care people, will be monitoring this forum. She will respond to your questions as needed.

Have a great day and remember to play a math card game! 

 

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Here are a few options you can consider.

Dear Wendy,

Thanks for posting and sharing how well your children are doing with RightStart. There are a few different options you can look at when wanting to help your 7th grader understand math.

1) Work through the transitions, as you have stated. And, also make sure to play math card games.

2) Buy the Activities for the ALabacus book and have him read through and work through this text. This text includes only computational skills and shows a student how to do these skills on an abacus. Again, remember to play the math card games.

3) Do a combination of both 1 and 2. Work through the transition text as well as working through the Activities for the ALabacus text. In essence do them simultaneously. Also, play the math card games.

I hope this begins to give you something to think about. Let me know what you think and plan to do.

Sincerely, Rosine

Re: Here are a few options you can consider.

Thanks for the response. It's good to know it CAN work to back up and do over.

I ordered the Transitions book.

We already have the Card Games book, and have been doing games that go along with his MUS lessons. I will search the earlier parts of the book to find ones that will help with what he's lacking.

I have seen the ALabacus book several times at used book sales, and will pick that up next time I see one.

Thanks for the help.
Wendy

Sounds good.

Thanks for sharing your plan of action. I think what you have planned sounds good.

Let us know how it goes.

Sincerely, Rosine

Re: Transitions to remediate an older child??

Wendy, I have the EXACT same problem with my 7th grader. Have you implemented this plan or gotten any other ideas since this post. I am hoping to spend the summer preparing him for 8th grade math and would appreciate any insight you have.

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Replying to:

My older son is in 7th grade and has always used MUS. He is beyond the scope of the RS levels, but I ordered the Geometry course for him to do as an extra "fun" subject, not his primary curriculum -and it took him WEEKS to figure out it was actually MATH!

This week my boys did their required annual testing, and for the first time my ds scored a grade behind in math. I suspect this is at least in part due to MUS's difference in sequence. However, ds does struggle with some simple concepts, and has no understanding of how numbers WORK. They are just writing on a page, with LOTS of rules to follow. I asked him if he can picture in his head what a math problem is asking him to do, and he was clueless as to what I meant.

My younger son is using RS, and I LOVE the way it is teaching him. His test scores put him at a 2nd grade level, and he is only finishing up Level A. A year ago he could not tell you he was "6" without counting it on his fingers.

I am considering ordering Transitions to see if that would teach my older son what he is lacking, and help him visualize the way numbers behave. To me this knowledge was something instinctual, and it has always baffled me that he can't do it. Will Transitions be effective in this situation? or is this problem beyond fixing this late in the game?

Re: Re: Transitions to remediate an older child??

Hi Misty,

Are you currently using RS with another child? Some of what I've written below may not make much sense if you are not familiar with RS. Feel free to ask ?'s if needed. E-mail me if you like.

I did order the Transitions book, and have been using it with my ds for about 3 weeks. He is having fun with it, though he DID seem mildly insulted at the level of the work at this point.

We are currently doing the Addition Strategies- +1 is the next counting number, +2 is the next odd or even. I decided to play "What Comes Next?" with him using the +2's. He had to stop and think about EVERY SINGLE ONE. This really surprised me, and I think it shows what kind of gaps he has in his knowledge. He also had to be explicitly shown that 71 + 6 is a +1 problem, just as 76 + 1 would be.

We've been playing "Speed" using odds and evens mixed, and stacking according to +2's. The first time we played I totally slaughtered him, because he had to stop and think about so many of them. Today he ALMOST beat me, and I am NOT easy to beat at any form of Speed. I've been playing the game since grade school.

Only time will tell how effective this will be in the long run, but for now I'm glad we are doing it.

I do not have the ALAbacus Activities book yet. We have our state homeschooling conference next month, and I will be checking the used book sale for it.