Name: Thrive! NCHE Homeschool Conference
Start: 2025-05-22T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-05-24T23:59:59-05:00
Location: Winston-Salem, NC

Tagged: math, word problems

This topic has 4 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 10 years, 2 months ago by Hope to Learn.

Viewing 5 posts - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

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February 11, 2015 at 9:59 am
Paula Spicer
Participant
I just gave the SAT 10 to my 5th grader. She had lots of trouble with the charts and word problems. We currently use Horizons for math. Is there a supplemental math curriculum out there that will help her “visualize” the problems.
Of course in my opinion, after reading over the problems, the standardized tests set students up for failure. The wording can be confusing and isn’t as straight forward as it could be. So I’m not worried about her “grade” that she will get. Just want to help her for the future.
I don’t really want Ray’s Arithmetic just because of the old language (we do this in other subjects and I don’t want her to be frustrated by that). Not sure if Life of Fred will help and I really don’t want to make up my own problems (too time consuming right now).
Thanks
Paula

February 11, 2015 at 10:08 am
2Corin57
Participant
lol. Well phooey, I saw your title, and came on here ready to recommend Ray’s. I’ve yet to find another math program that does a better job with word problems. All I do is just change the wording some when I’m reading him the problems, to more modern terms. However that said, my son really hasn’t found it that bad.
Life of Fred is worth a try. You can get a really good deal on it, on http://www.educents.com right now too. I actually just bought 2 more last night – they have them up to 10% , and if you sign up for a new account, you get a $10 off voucher, so I got two brand new ones for $18
February 11, 2015 at 12:17 pm
Angelina
Participant
You may want to consider a series (short workbooks, fairly inexpensive if I remember correctly) published by Continental, author is Francis “Skip” Fennell — called Focus on Problem Solving. You’d use it as a supplemental program (it would not replace your current math). There is a short workbook for each grade from about 2nd grade level through to about 6th or perhaps even 7th grade (depending on the student and his/her past exposure to word problems). The nice thing about this series is that it focuses entirely on word problems and, instead of simply being another program/supplement of “word problems in a book”, this one actually TEACHES the student HOW to approach the word problem. I’ve only used the first few levels (and this was some time ago) but overall, I was pleased with it.

February 12, 2015 at 8:43 am
HSMAMA
Participant
Math Mammoth has a lot of word problems. We don’t use it as a core, because it wasn’t a good fit here, but I do still pull word problems from it. There is also Singapore’s Challenging Word Problems.
February 12, 2015 at 7:01 pm
Hope to Learn
Participant
Maria Miller, creator of Math Mammoth, has a very helpful article on teaching word problems and she lists resources at the end:
http://www.homeschoolmath.net/teaching/problem_solving.php
She also provides a list of on line resources:
http://www.homeschoolmath.net/online/problem_solving.php
One resource Ms. Miller recommends are the Edward Zaccaro Challenge Math books. We are enjoying the Primary Grade book as a supplement. It’s actually fun.
Even if you do not use Math Mammoth, Maria Miller has many videos and articles that can be very helpful in specific areas. She is a homeschool mom with a master’s degree in mathematics (and minors in physics and statistics). I really like her information and always find it helpful.