MUS users...a little help w/ placement please.

[Sue G in PA]

I'm starting MUS Alpha w/ my ds6 and ds5 tomorrow (obviously realizing that ds5 will take longer to master than ds6 who already knows a bunch of the beg. concepts). After viewing the DVD's, I've come to realize that my ds9 might possibly benefit from the MUS way of doing math. He's using Saxon 5/4 now and while he passes most of his tests...it bugs me that he uses his fingers to add/subtract and mult/divide. It takes him forever. We drill. We play games. We drill some more. It's not sticking. Anyway, he does not really "like" Saxon and while I don't really care much if my kids LOVE a particular math program...I do want one that works for them, KWIM? I'm thinking supplement here. So, where would YOU place your child who still struggles to memorize facts? I'm thinking Gamma (the multiplication one) to cement those skills and then moving quickly to Delta (div.) and then so on. What do you MUS veterans think? Also, as my brain is very slow to wrap around the MUS way of doing math (its coming along though!)...those who have used MUS all the way through: Has it prepared your dc well enough for higher math? I personally like Saxon's higher math so far but wonder if using MUS for the lower math skills will hinder my dc in the years to come. Thanks for you opinions.

[stephanie]

I'm starting MUS Alpha w/ my ds6 and ds5 tomorrow (obviously realizing that ds5 will take longer to master than ds6 who already knows a bunch of the beg. concepts). After viewing the DVD's, I've come to realize that my ds9 might possibly benefit from the MUS way of doing math. He's using Saxon 5/4 now and while he passes most of his tests...it bugs me that he uses his fingers to add/subtract and mult/divide. It takes him forever. We drill. We play games. We drill some more. It's not sticking. Anyway, he does not really "like" Saxon and while I don't really care much if my kids LOVE a particular math program...I do want one that works for them, KWIM? I'm thinking supplement here. So, where would YOU place your child who still struggles to memorize facts? I'm thinking Gamma (the multiplication one) to cement those skills and then moving quickly to Delta (div.) and then so on. What do you MUS veterans think? Also, as my brain is very slow to wrap around the MUS way of doing math (its coming along though!)...those who have used MUS all the way through: Has it prepared your dc well enough for higher math? I personally like Saxon's higher math so far but wonder if using MUS for the lower math skills will hinder my dc in the years to come. Thanks for you opinions.

Hi Sue. I'm so glad you posted this b/c I was thinking of doing the same for my dd7 and ds9. My ds13 is now in Epsilon (he just switched from Saxon), and we love it. Math is not something we all dread everyday now. However, I'm noticing that my younger ones are counting on their fingers despite all the saxon drills, fact sheets, games...I'm thinking of doing the addition/sub. facts over the summer. I'm guessing that would probably be Alpha or Beta? I'll have to get online and look. I just wanted you to know how much we are enjoying MUS so far. Also, Sue in St. Pete has a lot of experience with MUS, and you could probably PM her to get some help. She has been very helpful to me in the area of MUS. I'm anxious to hear everyone's response! Thanks

[kellycbr]

so I'm anxious to hear the feed back to your question. We're trying to find the right spot for our ds(7). We just pulled him from 1st grade, and are trying to find the right spot to start. So far, it looks like the beginning, because they start covering areas he never studied, then back to where he was in ps. It feels like I'm flailing. Hopefully this will all click with me soon, because my ds is ready to roar ahead!

[Sue in St Pete]

I will try to address particular questions later today. We are off to the orthodontist, dentist, and orthodontist :eek:

We are finishing up Pre-Algebra in a few weeks having started MUS in K. I believe that it has set a great foundation for higher level math, but I guess we'll find out.

Sue, yes, Gamma would be good. One thing that helped was the skip counting tapes. Before my son ever learned that 3x5=15, he was skip counting 3-6-9-12-15 to find the area of a rectangle. Skip counting helps to fix the answers in the brain, I think.

FWIW, I probably would have loved Saxon as a child as I enjoyed a lot of tedious busywork, but as an adult and as the mother of a "wiggly willy" MUS wins hands-down for clear and concise. Saxon looks like torture.

[strider]

It was very, very hard for me to do this but I had had my dd evaluated and she really needed more work on some basics. We switched from Singapore (a good program on the whole but NOT suited to my poor non-math kid at all) and dropped her down to Beta.

She whipped through Beta and Gamma very, very quickly. She was able to learn and review the building blocks she needed, and I am exceedingly glad we did this.

Your child may whip through the books quickly. Let him. In our case, if she learned the concept and could show that learning by working quickly, I would move her to the next chapter. I never told her speed was part of my assessment--I never wanted her to feel pressured to work quickly. I did however pay attention when she worked--if she truly understood the concept the work would be easy and she would be quick. If she worked slowly I could usually also see her face reflecting her uncertainty, so I made sure we continued working in that unit until the work was understood, owned, and therefore easy (quick) to do.

There were some units, though, that I forced her to do thoroughly, and not skip ahead, simply because she needed the drill. Gamma does have several chapters that are focused solely on drilling various multiplication facts. Like your child, my dd really needed her math facts to be more automatic.

Some things that also worked well for my dd were the skip-counting tape and math wrap-ups and playing various card games (multiplication war, etc.). Math games and math literature (stories illustrating math concepts, such as the Sir Cumference series) have also helped enormously. However, she still struggles, so I have hired a tutor once a week who is w-o-n-d-e-r-f-u-l. The tutor has been able to infuse dd with a positive sense of competence and understanding. I think dd just needed a new voice to help her over feeling hateful towards math. Feeling better has helped her enormously. The tutors two goals have been:

--Automaticity in multiplication facts. She has been able to show my dd some silly little tricks that have helped dd enormously. In my dd's case it was more a matter of breaking her emotional dependence on slower ways of recalling those facts.

--Not freezing up and feeling scared when confronted with a variety of word problems. The tutor is working with dd to help her calmly evaluate the problem and decide if and how she can solve it.

I hope my experience helps you. Best wishes as you evaluate.

[Sue G in PA]

My gut said go with Gamma but it's so hard to "drop" him several levels from where he is. Saxon is torture for ds9 as it was for ds6. He muddles through, does well, but his dispostion while doing it is, well, "yucky"! I'm going to look into a skip counting tape (we already have one...not MUS but will it really matter?) and then look into getting Gamma to help solidify the mult. tables. We'll continue Saxon until he finishes 5/4 and then re-evaluate over the summer and see which is the best fit.

[Alenee]

I've been using MUS since dropping Horizons during the second grade book.

MUS is great for kids who need one concept at a time. This works wonderful for my dd9 who is about to finish Gamma, however, MUS is not great for review imo. In fact as I was going to bed last night, I was thinking, "what can I get to supplement." She hasn't been doing much addition/subtraction review and it's showing in the time it's taking her to finish her work. What you can do is print worksheets off of the MUS website and choose which lesson your child would be in. These are free!

If you're looking for mastery of facts, drills, a little each day are the best way to go, imo. If you can afford to have a second whole program, MUS is a good direction but again, if it's the facts that are causing him to slow down, drills are good.

[Sue G in PA]

do MUS Gamma OR just drill every day. To be honest, ds9 gets so sick of drilling so much, but he really needs it. I'm also just wondering if a mastery program would be best for him since he just doesn't "pick up" math skills as easily as my ds8. Perhaps a few months of Gamma w/out any Saxon would benefit him and then add in Saxon 6/5 in September? Oh, who knows. We also do Singapore's CWP for the more practical applications of math. Saxon is lacking in that as well.

[Sue in St Pete]

My gut said go with Gamma but it's so hard to "drop" him several levels from where he is. Saxon is torture for ds9 as it was for ds6. He muddles through, does well, but his dispostion while doing it is, well, "yucky"! I'm going to look into a skip counting tape (we already have one...not MUS but will it really matter?) and then look into getting Gamma to help solidify the mult. tables. We'll continue Saxon until he finishes 5/4 and then re-evaluate over the summer and see which is the best fit.

Sue, a few other thoughts. First, I am no expert on jumping into MUS in the midst of it all. There is a MUS yahoo group and you may get better advice there. One thing I did with my son was if I felt that he knew the material being presented, I would let him do the test. If he did well, I let him skip the lesson. You may or may not want to try that.

Good luck!

[dfrecore]

I have to say, we are only in Alpha (dd is 5, ds is 4), so I'm no expert! But because of MUS's layout, we finished Primer in about 3 months, and will be done with Alpha and on to Beta by the end of summer. I like how he says in the video to not beat a dead horse. If you know the info, move on. Spend more time on what you don't know, learn it, print out additional worksheets from their website if need be, etc. But, you can really get through these books more quickly than most other programs, so you could get your dc back up to where he was in a decent amount of time.

I also think you're never doing wrong by going back and learning (or re-learning) something that wasn't mastered the first time around. Imagine how frustrating it would be on a daily basis if you don't have the right skills to do the work.

I love how Steve Demme teaches things. I loved math, went all the way to calculus in college, and still, I find new ways of looking at things even in Primer (kindergarten level book)! This is a great program in that way!

All of that being said, I will say that in Alpha, he does start to talk about memorization, and has a worksheet where you need to memorize your addition facts, but he doesn't really get into exactly HOW you're supposed to accomplish this. So, my ds4, who is a great memorizer, has just "picked up" on this and can whip through his addition facts right after we learn them. He doesn't do the workbook much, we mostly do things orally, but it's really just extraordinarily EASY for him (I think he's learning to read in the same way, he's just FAST at remembering those phonics rules). But my dd5 doesn't have such an easy time of it, so while she does do the workbook, and likes the math, she is having a much harder time remembering the addition facts that she needs to know. Now, I just need to figure out HOW to get those into her head. We did purchase the CD to listen to, but it's a little beyond where she is right now except skip-counting by 2's, 5's and 10's. But, she did eventually learn these, and it was just by a LOT of repetition. I mean a LOT of repetition. A LOT!!!!!! Luckily, she got it in Primer and again in Alpha. But it took a lot longer than I would have thought.:banghead: (this is me banging my head against a brick wall, not her...luckily I think I hid my frustration fairly well!).

So, I would say that you need to spend time going through the drills and creating extra worksheets on an almost daily basis. But, I think that you only want to do just a TINY bit every day (that dead horse thing again). For some kids, I think it just takes longer to "click". Once it does, it's all good, but until then....:banghead: (brick wall again, I think you may feel my pain!).

Good luck, and much patience to you!
Danika