Spiral Verses Mastery

Just a thought… if you mainly need more practice, or another person (video) explaining a concept… and don’t mind your children using the computer…  why don’t you check out Khan Academy?

You can set it up to do exercises on a topic, and just keep doing them…  You get a question on the screen, and you can ask for hints.  When you do 10 right in a row, without hints, it suggests you may have mastered it, and you can go on to another topic (or do more practice… it tracks the highest number done right in a row.)   There are also videos to explain each concept.  There are videos right from 1+1=2 all the way up to college level, including calculus (I think…) 

And… it is FREE.

I know of people who use it as their math curriculum.  (I use MEP, which I love, and is free…  but I keep Khan Academy link handy in case my kids do at some point need more practice on a topic….)

I don’t know if I have enough experience to share but I’ll give it a try.

My oldest (now 12) has used Saxon (spiral) since 2nd grade.  He says he likes it and doesn’t want to change. Awhile back I noticed he needed a little more in the fractions dept. so I purchased him the MM Fractions set.  I believe it was just one semester/year worth and that helped him alot.  He was able to take it with him wherever since it fit in a binder (no teacher’s guide needed).  He would go between that and Saxon.  Well, that did make the Saxon take longer to get through, but I didn’t mind since he felt he was ‘mastering’ fractions.

My 8yo has used mostly Saxon with some MM Telling Time as a supplement.  He learned alot with the MM, but for some reason he just wasn’t ready to ‘get’ that concept so we have taken our time with it.  I believe we still have some more of that left to do, or we actually may start over with it when he’s a little older.  Anyway, a while back I thought he didn’t need repetition (silly mom, I know) so I skipped certain parts in the lessons (Saxon) because I thought he knew them well enough.  Well, I guess you could say I was looking for a math that was less teacher intensive so I started shopping around. I told my son my plans and of course he said, “Okay.”  I decided on MM and card/math games, etc.  He hated it.  He asked me if we could go back to what we were using.  I had a mental breakthrough and realized for him that what we were doing was actually working (I just didn’t want to do all of the work involved)…he loves all of the extras that come along with the spiral approach:)  So, my new plan that has been working out beautifully is:

I break the lesson up into 2 parts.  There is a ‘Meeting Strip’ that goes with each lesson (he loves it) that has some patterns to complete, fill in the date, counting coins, etc.  It is a very small piece of paper and is something that he can do on his own for about 5-10 minutes.  Then we do the oral counting (by 2’s, 5’s, 10’s, odd/even, hundred numbers chart, etc.) maybe some extra calendar work, then we are done.   I may have him do a practice sheet of addition/subtraction.  Then we are done.

Next day we do the oral lesson (manipulatives may be needed, dry erase board, geo board) and he does side A of the mix practice sheet.  If he has any trouble he does side B’s problems.  Then we are done.

I’d say that we are doing about 20 minutes a day.  If we did it in one day it would take about 40 minutes and that’s too much for both of us.  So we are completing 2 lessons a week.  May not seem like much but with this routine he is really turning some corners.  Understanding the whole clock thing (am/pm, 1/4 hour, etc), coin value, etc. has really sunk in (finally). It could possibly be him just getting older…but I really think it has been me being more consistent and not overwhelmed with the length of the lessons.  Breaking them up the way that I did (and that was just pure chance) has made such a huge difference in my ability to actually complete the lesson, gives him time to digest it, and we have time to add in math/card games which have helped him as well. 

My boys have been soooo different in this area.  My oldest struggled with reading but not math as much.  My 8yo did not struggle with reading but has with math.  Go figure. 

My oldest boy liked the fractions from MM, but would not like to be on on topic forever.  He likes the problems/concepts to be changed up a bit.  But, to have one concept to work on that is supplemental worked great.

I say that to say….maybe it depends on the child:)

How is math going for you all now? Last year we used a spiral approach for first grade concepts using a variety of resources/materials. We focused on understanding, but I felt like we didn’t get very far. Especially with addition/subtraction facts. So I ordered Math Mammoth grade levels 1 and 2, thinking that a mastery approach must be the key. We are almost through the parts of level one that she needed, but without review on other topics,such as money or time, she has forgotten some things and needed a bit of re-teaching. So we used portions of MM for that too.

Bethanna,

I would say that Math U See is the best of both worlds. They are a mastery program, so you focus on one thing until it is mastered, but each week you have practice pages divided this way:

3 pages just on the new concept (with the option to print more online from MUS)

3 pages with the new concept plus review of past concepts.

You do not have to do all 6 pages in a lesson, but can. We tend to do 1-2 of the concept focused pages unless the child is having a hard time ‘getting’ the new concept. Then we move to doing 2 of the review pages. Then test.

If a child IS having trouble on the new concept we will hang out and just practice that (printing pages if needed) until they’re getting it.

I like having the review pages because I can notice if my children have ‘forgotten’ how to do a past concept and we can go back and shore up that area if needed. It has happened occasionally. Not often as the mastery approach really is cementing what they are learning.

Hope that helps give you an idea of how to combine spiral and mastery!

I started my first grader in Math Mammoth this year, which was OK, but I always felt like I was tweaking it to make it work for us (adding in games, etc.)…and even with all that I didn’t feel like the facts were really sticking for her. And while I was able to supplement/tweak for this beginning level, I was concerned that this would become more and more problematic with the upper levels. (That’s not to say MM is a horrible program, it just wasn’t really a good fit for us – dd’s learning style or my teaching style). So we finally broke down and switched to Math U See. I was initially turned off by the price too, but SO GLAD we did it. It is easy to use, and I see my dd making good progress. I usually work through the new lesson with her, but then in general she can do the rest of the pages on her own (I just check and review as needed). In Alpha, the ‘review’ pages are usually around half-and-half new and review. We still occasionally play a game, and do some mental-math type drills, and I did use the topical Math Mammoth book about clocks to help teach her how to tell time this year. But overall, we’ve been very pleased with MUS.

Just an interesting note about sprial vs. mastery programs – I was listening to a talk by Andrew Kern yesterday (you can find it here: http://circeinstitute.org/free-audio/) in which he mentioned the principle that in order to truly know and understand one has to imitate and contemplate and that spiral-type math programs don’t really allow a child to do this because they are always jumping around to new concepts. Mastery type programs, where you stick with one concept until you understand it, is much more in line with this principle. Whether or not that is true for every child I don’t know…but it was still a very, very interesting thought.

Jen