I'm headed to bed, but before I go... I joined the board just so I could pose this question. What do I do about my oldest dd who is suffering in algebra ? She is a bright student, she just gets overwhelmed and makes mistakes. She gets mad at herself and feels dumb. This is the beginning of her third school year with Alg.1. We started alg 1 in Switched on schoolhouse. We got about halfway through then neither of us could follow the lessons. I switched to Saxon. We had an older edition and she was still struggling, esp. since Saxon introduced totally different concepts in the very beginning of the book. So... we "upgraded" to the latest edition so that we could buy the DIVE CD's that teach a whiteboard lesson for each Sax lesson. Great Investment, BTW. They have been very helpful. She has now made it 3/4 through the book, but makes 70% repeatedly. We both know that ever since she started structured math she has rated around 86%. That means she is still struggling. Right now, I have her doing nothing for math. Just a break of sorts. She just turned 16, so I had her take some practice GED tests online. She scored the highest in ..guess...that's right, the MATHEMATICS section. Yes, I know I was screaming. That shows her intelligence. Any suggestions? I just don't see how it is beneficial to force her to do work that makes her cry and want to pull her hair out. If you knew me...and how unmerciful I am, or knew my dd..and how diligent she is you would know that she is not manipulating me and I am not being soft. We are both feeling like we are at the end of our algebra rope! My next dd, who is 13 months younger, is now in alg 1 and soaring through it, but she is not far enough along to help big sis...and big sis doesn't want li'l sis' help either, I suspect. I don't really want to buy another alg textbook and try to sort out what material she knows already from the new concepts...but I dont know how I feel about her skipping the rest of the text we have. Please send me any of your ideas. BTW...for all those who have been terrified of algebra and homeschool, it has surprised me how much I understand now...I hated it in school, and never grasped the why behind the what when it came to working out the solution. I get so excited when I get an equation correct! Thanks for letting me ramble. Carrie in GA
DISCLAIMER...the following is MY OPINION ONLY and does not reflect the views of my DH, LOL! I FEEL YOUR PAIN!!! My oldest is starting Algebra this year, and it is NOT going well! First of all, she's only 11, but has been very good in Math. She did Saxon 76 last year, and DH gave her the placement test at the end of the year, and she tested out of the pre-Algebra. Well, he's certified to teach high school math and decreed that pre-Algebra would be "too easy" and gave me a math book his school was getting rid of, complete with a whole SET of manuals, that it takes a PhD in math to understand. Both DD and I are struggling, and he says it's mostly MY attitude!!! I admit I'm not a math/science person, but I did OK in Algebra 1, and loved Geometry. But didn't go ANY HIGHER in math. So here's my opinion. How much math do you think she's going to need realistically? What does she plan on doing with her life? If she wants to go into engineering or science, the higher maths are important. If not, why should she suffer through it? It may be that Algebra is going to be difficult for her, no matter HOW it's taught. Sure some of the stuff is useful...we all probably go to buy things on sale and do a quick estimate of what the cost will be with 20% off...but when was the last time you had to graph the slope of a line or solve quadratic equations? Much more imporant to be able to balance a check book!
I don't know if this will help at all, she may be past this but... When my mom started college she had to take algebra and was freaked out about it. I was in highschool at the time and took on the job of tutoring her in algebra. At first we struggled and nothing seemed to make since to her till one day I took her textbook and went back to the beginning and I wrote out the problems on a piece of paper but I substituted ___'s for the x's . So instead of 45 + x = 91 I wrote out 45 + ___ = 91. made her a whole worksheet of them and she immeadiately got angry with me for making her do simple addition (she was still struggling with the version with the x's). When I explained that it was the exact same problem it suddenly clicked that it was te same stuff she did in math before but moving it around diffrent. Somehow the word algebra and all those letters just sounded/looked scary.
Jackie well said. How much of that stuff do we use in real life it depends on what we want to be. My husband is the math wize here so math is done by him on nights when he gets home from work. Also, do you belong to a homeschool group, I know the homeschool group I belong too has class with retired teacher to help children in areas they are having trouble in. Yes it cost alittle more money but it's worth if they need the help. Might want to check in to that. Or if you aren't in a homeschool group what about a tutor or someone to come and help her. NOT little sis thats not good. LOL
I'd love to have DH teach Rachael's algebra. But he teaches all day long, and the last thing he wants to do when he gets home is teach some more. Also, it'd be hard with our schedule. We have AWANAS on Wednesdays, dance and soccer on Thursdays, soccer games on Fridays. So it would be hard for him to find a consistent time to teach. As of now, Mondays and Tuesdays are actually free, an improvement over last year!!! There are two groups close enough that offer homeschool classes, and I already warned DH that we may be looking into them for any math higher than Geometry. They cost about $100, plus the book! Sigh......
I talked with dd last night again, just before bed. I asked her if she made more mistakes when I gave her the whole lesson, and if she did better when I gave her odds or evens. She said more work meant more mistakes. She can usually tell me exactly where she went wrong in the problem. She flip-flops with pos and neg integers, forgets whether to add or mult the exponents in different situations. Maybe it has all just been overload. I think we will wait a few more weeks to get started again. We're going to FL the last week of this month, Lord willing. Other then that, I have talked to DH and he agrees that she would be fine if we stopped altogether and let her do real-life math. Her aspirations do not include college. She is geared more to being in ministry and being a godly mom. I am trying to decide how many meals I can let her plan and budget for. I get a weekly "allowance" for household needs. Regular groceries, paper goods, cleaning products, and clothing items. Sometimes I have trouble squeezing it all in, but I'm considering how much to allocate to her for meal planning and preparation. Real life math. And if you look at prices per ounce, serving sizes, family members, etc...you get real life algebra. I appreciate the responses. And I loved the DH disclaimer. It is always wise to follow DH lead. With God all things are possible...even Algebra! he hee Carrie
Carrie, I'll be doing something similar with Rachael this year. I'm LOUSY with "meal planning". I've tried it several times and have failed miserably each time. DH gives me $180 cash every two weeks for food (and paper products, cleaning supplies, etc.) My older two had been part of a co-op, and I would do my grocery shopping during that time. My "favorite" store was close to the church they were at. This year, my youngest was going to join, but I had decided the oldest was getting too old. So after a lot of consideration, I decided to have her help with the meal planning, buying food, etc. Then it turned out that the co-op folded! So I don't have that block of time for just the two of us to go shopping! Am not sure how I'm going to do it, but still feel it's something I want Rachael doing!
With my son, he used Harold Jacobs Elementary Algebra and did very well with it. The next year he used Harold Jacobs Geometry and did well with it as well. Then we ran out of Harold Jacobs books. :-( Frankly, I wasn't capable of helping him beyond that level anyway. Last year he used Chalk Dust Algebra II videos and this year he's doing Chalk Dust Pre-Calculus. Very expensive, but worth it since he has tremendous math potential and is planning on being a chemistry major in college. My youngest son is what I would call "mathophobic". He does well, but it doesn't come to him easily or naturally. He should have started Algebra this year, but was in a state of panic over it. I decided to use Algebra Survival Guide and workbook and it has been wonderful for him. The lessons are little chunks of info taught in a humorous way that appeals to him. Hopefully, after going through this initiation he will be ready to tackle the Jacobs book. The Algebra Survival Guide is also recommended for use as a refresher course. I'm thinking that it could be used like a reference book to explain some of those harder to understand concepts. It might be worth a shot since it's not very expensive.
