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MUS – when do they have mastery of a lesson?
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My dd5 (6 next week) started Alpha in May. We just started lesson 5 which is Adding +1. Yesterday we watched the video and she did 5A but didn’t want to use the manipulatives because it’s faster for her not to. Today I pulled out some flash cards and drilled her on the +0 and +1 facts and she had no problems with them. It wasn’t lightning recall but it didn’t take her more than 3 seconds to answer any of them. So should I just move to lesson 6? What constitutes mastery of a lesson? I don’t want to push her through and then have her struggling later on because we didn’t take the time to cover something thoroughly enough for her.
How do you go about having your children teach a lesson back to you? Or what exactly do you say to prompt that?
I move on when they don’t have to think much to answer. However, with that said, though they’ve mastered their addition facts, we are always having to review often because they do forget! My dd9 is finally remembering all add/sub facts since going into the Beta book. I haVe not had my children teach back to me.
so cannot help there. MUS rep’s will tell you that the child has mastery of a concept when he can teach it back to you.
In the case of math facts, there is a multi-layered approach in MUS… the child needs to demonstrate conceptual understanding (this is where the blocks come in), and then practice the facts until he has automatic recall.
Have you seen the drill page on the MUS website? We like it.
HTH
Jenn
I do have my dc (two oldest) teach me back what they know (how to do the problems). I’m kind of a stickler about that and do not let them off the hook by using vague descriptions, etc. I really encourage (make!) my middle ds tell me exactly what to do (like he’s teaching me) because he struggles so much with math concepts. And, I could let him NOT do the rest of the lesson if I think he has it down, but he needs so much review that I’m kind of afraid to do that.
I do need to use the drill page on their website, but have not so far.
Agreeing with my3boys here, this early in the game I would think it would be best for you to insist that she be able to teach you *with the blocks* before allowing her to do the worksheets without the blocks. or before moving on to the next lesson.
Usually with the easier problems like the +1 set she is working with now, just a couple days of focused attention is all that is needed to tighten up her response time. And it is a very foundational, I would want to see almost instant recall here, but like thepinkballerina said, she’ll probably also need continual review even after you move on.
Jenn
So when you have them teach it back, are you looking for an explanation that resembles what Mr. Demme does in the video? I haven’t been having my DDs teach it back either, but want to… just not sure what I should expect from them.
Thanks!
Rebekahy, my kids don’t often parrot Mr. Demme word for word… I look at it a lot like narration, but for math. I want my child to narrate to me what he has learned. Usually the explanation is somewhat (or very) kid-like. I don’t expect it to be professional. But it should be clear that the child has a good grasp of the concept and can talk easily about it.
I do modify this somewhat with my dyslexic DS. Words don’t come as easily to him and I allow him to do more “showing” than telling if he is moving through the problems in the workbook with ease. But I do model what “tellling” looks/sounds like and he is getting better at it.
so cannot help there. 
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