For those who have used this, how difficult was it for your child to learn how to say nubers in “the tens and hundreds”? We were doing well with the lessons up to this point (how many circles, write the number on the lines, etc.) In unit 9 the book just kind of jumped right ino labelling the blocks in “hundreds’ (write # of blocks in hundreds, # blocks in tens, and in ones). We can barely count to 100 out loud (needs alot of help still). She can count the squares and write the numbers of each on the lines, but when we have to “say the number 302” she just doesn’t know how. She simply states each individual number out loud. The book only spent 6 lessons for writing numbers in the “tens”; then jumped right up to hundreds. Do we need to stop and just practice writing 1-10, 10-20, 20-30 etc. maybe one set per week? Then, when this is mastered, move on to writing the 100’s ? Not sure what happened but we are stuck! It just seems a bit advanced for such a young person. Do most of you wait until the first grade for this course?
Don’t worry about it. Neither of my boys got it the first time through. Primer is just an introduction of some of the things you will be doing in Alpha. I would just make it fun and move through the book at a comfortable pace. Neither of my boys could write when we did it and I wrote all the numbers for them. By the time she gets to Alpha, she will be ready to really grasp of the concepts. I started both of mine with Primer in Kindergarten. You don’t really have to do Primer, you could just skip it and start 1st grade with Alpha. But I like the no pressure intro to math. My kids love it. My oldest just started 2nd grade and is well into Gamma and we are not a math family. Make it fun if possible. This is just my opinion : not understanding concepts in Primer did not hinder my boys. Hope my experience helps.
I agree with jlmeda. Mine couldn’t really write, and I let them do it orally if that helped. I also skipped when super repetitive. As I remember, last year my 5 y.o. didn’t really get the saying of the numbers either. I agree that it will come. 🙂
I agree as well. We’re in Alpha now. I don’t believe the concepts have to be mastered in Primer, just exposure. I wrote a lot of the numbers in and would have my daughter say them. She still is getting the hang of place value. In the Primer I remember she did not get the tally mark lessons at all even though she could count by 5s. I just skipped it and moved on. I felt like it was a concept that wasn’t needed at the time. For place value, just keep reinforcing “every value had it’s place”, use decimal street and the card game when you want to review.