Teaching textbooks-enough practice?

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  • Rachel White
    Participant

    Does Teaching Textbooks have a good deal of practice to cement the lesson being taught?

    If a child is getting things wrong, does it keep moving forward or can you repeat the material?

    Am I going to have to supplement with practice sheets?

    Thanks,

    Rachel

    Rachel White
    Participant

    I thought I’d bump this back up so that those who use this program will have time to respond. It’s important for me to know before I spend a great deal of money.

    Thanks,

    Rachel

    Sherrie
    Member

    Hi Rachel,

    We have our 10 year old using TT and have found the practice to be sufficient, with the exception of mastering math facts.  (But that may be because our daughter has always struggled with memorizing them.)  So we review with flash cards every day after her lesson.  This combination seems to be working just fine.   TT is very gentle.  IMO it seems to be about a half year behind other math programs we’ve tried.  However, this works perfectly for us because math is not one of our strongest subjects.  This has been our first math experience without tears!

    Hope this helps a bit.  I know it can be hard spending that kind of money, not knowing exactly what you’re getting.  Do you have a homeshool fair you can visit this spring where you could see it up close?

    Rachel White
    Participant

    Yes, we have fairs but I don’t go to them.

    If there are  missed problems, how is that handled? Can you go back and redo them or are more offered to try again?

    I assume by math facts, you mean multi tables and division tables?

    Thanks,

    Rachel

    I know loads of people loved TT, but they were not a good fit for my daughters and so we went back to good old textbooks.  They started TT with Math 7 and for them (weak in math) there was not enough practise, and not enough accountability.  Now. I know lots of people love them, and maybe if you start off with them it works well – however our girls came out of PS where they had changed math methods so many times our girls were behind and hated math.  That is one of the reasons we started homeschooling – so you have to take into account our girls were already not strong in math, did not like it, and then with not enough practise and explanation were very unhappy.  We went onto Bob Jones Math, which they did up to algebra and then we did Jacob’s Geometry.  The reason they liked BJ was because the text book explained a lot of things, they had plenty of practise in the text book and extra work books and there were stories in them which made the girls realise that math actually had a purpose.  We also used Abeka for Consumer Math and that was excellent.  If you are starting our with TT it may be fine – but for us starting in middle school it was not a good fit.  Cost wise, it is expensive, but then so was BJ when you add up texts, practise books and teacher guide.  We just found BJ a better fit.  I would agree TT is a bit easier that BJUP – the girls noticed the difference, but still did well with it.  I am sure plenty will disagree with me – as I said cost wise there will not be a lot of difference.  We have used a Teaching Company math video course as well, and the girls liked that, but then they were older for that one.  Don’t suppose that helped Rachel, but I thought more opinions might help a little.  Linda

    Rachel White
    Participant

    I like lots of opinions. If I go with TT for my dd, I won’t use the upper grades, from Pre-alg on. I plan on using video-text for them (my son and her).

    I actually really like what I’ve been using their entire hsling life, which is Developmental Mathematics. It’s very incremental and slow going with tons of practice (I don’t have my son do all of it, just half a page). It makes you think a certain way, not just jump into the new concept, but it goes through a 4 step process, encourages deductive reasoning and independant learning. It doesn’t have  large amount of explanation. She’s hitting a problem now, at level 5; learning the place value for numbers, thinking of numbers in these catagories for the purpose of future math. It works; my son is doing great. Lately, she’s been getting many wrong and can’t grasp these simple concepts, when to use adding or subtracting in word problems-she seems to pick numberes out from the sky instead of using the numbers provided on the page! I lose my temper and get very impatient with her. Many times she knows the anser in her head, she tells me, but for her to write out the Process of how  she got there is what she has trouble with. I know it’s part of her “issues” of sequencing and the processing disorder that she’s had since probably her birth (we adopted her at age 3). She gets confused if she has to show or explain the “why” of things; that applies to many areas of her world.

    I was hoping that TT, being simpler which it is (which is why my son won’t need it), it would help her; also being mastery-based (which is what I want), it’d also be teaching her every step of the way, in auditory form (which is one of her strengths). I don’t expect her going into higher level science (like physics), but I do want her to switch to videotext so she can handle the Apologia science.

    I just want to make sure if I need to have extra helps for her for repetition. She already listens to music repetition cd’s (she’s very musical) and likes the wrap ups. It’s just an order thing; her brain isn’t ordely at all. Sometimes it’s like you never went over something if it requires very systematic and has multiple steps. So I also want to know how the system handles wrong problems and needing review.

    She doesn’t like details, except when it comes to using her clay-she does incredibly detailed work with clay!

    Thank you,

    Rachel

     

    Rachel, with the extra information you just provided I would say go ahead and give TT a try.  The reason I say this is because it takes you out of the equation a bit, of course you can help, but the guy doing the teaching, never loses his temper and you can repeat the explanation as much as you like.  For your daughter it may well be the answer, it is never good when we get frustrated with our kids, I know, been there, done that and the DVD type lessons can then really help.  My husband took over the math teaching, because I was not able to explain clearly enough for the girls to get it, and then I would get frustrated.  I taught all the subjects, except math, now they do a lot more on their own of course, and I am just guidance – but it was great when there dad took over for me.  The clean way that TT is done, may well be excellent for her, and for you – as you can help more from a distance.  Linda

    Sherrie
    Member

    In response to your questions, if she misses a problem, you click a button and he explains how to get the correct answer.  Then each day’s assignment has review questions from previous lessons learned, so she gets the opportunity to continue practicing it.  And yes, when I said math facts I was referring to tables.

    Sherrie

    Rachel White
    Participant

    Thank you; sounds like I will have to supplement with falshcards and tables to music. I’m going to go a head and try it. I think now is the right time to switch if I’m going to, before she gets a bad taste in her mounth for math. I just had her do the Placement test for Level 3 and she scored excellent on Section1 and just made it, with some help but the answers were hers, on Section 2.

    So we’ll keep using what we have until Level #3 is available in May and see how it goes.

    Thanks ya’ll,

    Rachel

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