Switching to Singapore Math Late

[Kristen in NC]

I'm asking this for a friend. Has anyone here switched to Singapore Math from a more traditional program in 4th grade or later? My friend's daughters are both good at math except for application. (Which means they don't truly understand it IMO) She likes the word problem emphasis in Singapore but doesn't know where to start or how. She doesn't want to frustrate them unnecessarily, but she says they both look at a word problem and say "I don't know." Her daughters will be in 6th and 4th grades next year. (She also has sons going into 2nd and 3rd grades that she is pretty sure she'll switch because it's not so late and they seem "wired" more that way anyway.) Any thoughts are appreciated. I do use Singapore Math and can let her look at the program, but I've used it from the beginning, so I'm having a hard time imagining starting late.

[kpupg]

Has anyone here switched to Singapore Math from a more traditional program in 4th grade or later? My friend's daughters are both good at math except for application. (Which means they don't truly understand it IMO) She likes the word problem emphasis in Singapore but doesn't know where to start or how.

Yes, we did. My kids were in Catholic school through 2nd and 4th grades. That school used one of those spiral programs that all the institutional schools seem to use. When we began home schooling, I gave the kids the placement tests available on the www.singaporemath.com (http://www.singaporemath.com) website. The transition was hard, but well worth it.

My older placed a level lower than his "grade level," so that's where he started. I used the Challenging Word Problems as a daily supplement (1 page a day, from the previous level's topics). He did great with that, but then he's the kid who wants to be a mathematician. He's currently doing high school geometry in "7th grade."

Now, my younger was one of those "good at math" kids who didn't really understand what she was doing -- just skating along on natural ability and some luck. She tested into her grade level in Singapore, but she struggled for a few months with it. We took it really slow and did every problem step-by-step for a long time. Word problems were the most frustrating part since solving those is a whole separate discipline of itself. Taking it really slowly and making sure she got every step before moving on was the key. Now she is truly good at math, and though she will never enjoy it as she enjoys making up stories, she can do it and do it well.

For your friend's 6th-grader, it might be more complicated. There's bound to be a lot more buildup of self-esteem/hormones/etc.

I would suggest that your friend consider using the CWP books a couple of levels back as their own supplement without changing the entire curriculum. She could even do a special unit just on solving word problems to kick it off. Regardless, she should expect to spend a lot of time sitting by her students as they learn word problem skills -- as I said before, that's an entirely separate mental discipline from knowing how to handle fractions or whatever. But all real-life math problems ARE word problems, so it's an essential skill IMO.

Karen

[Kristen in NC]

Thank you so much for your reply. I think she's going to not start her girls in Singapore, but start her boys next year. She would have considered starting the rising 4th grade girl, except the rising 3rd grade boy did better on the placement test and she didn't want to have to deal with the issues that would be involved with having little brother doing harder math.

[Sandy in Indy]

My son started Singapore in 5th grade. He was a great math student so I was suprised when the placement test put him in 4A. I was VERY glad I paid attention and put him in that book. He did very well with 4A-6B and transitioned into Algebra.

[mcconnellboys]

I switched my older son over in fourth grade and we went through both the third grade and fourth grade books that year. I sort of wished I had dropped back to second, as there was a lot of great mental math tips in that book.

If she's got kids in all these levels, she will have the books and so can use them to provide tips, extra teaching, etc. to the olders. I think if she gets at least the second through fifth grade books, she will be in good shape. She can give the olders tips and a little practice from the lower level books without overly frustrating them, and can start the youngers where they need to be, then let them work through more quickly if they are able.

I think she should probably test at least the youngest to see if he's ready for the second grade book, as she might even need to drop down to the first grade book. A lot of kids test into a lower level than their grade level, as the programming is about a year ahead of most US written books. So, the third grader may need to do second grade; the fourth grader may need to start in third grade; and the sixth grader may need to start in fifth grade. If they can work through the books more quickly, and do their work on separate paper rather than in the book, then she can keep the books to use with her younger children as they come along and it should save her quite a bit of money.

We've really enjoyed this programming and I think it really does a good job of helping kids learn to think mathematically.

Regena

[Pam "SFSOM" in TN]

My son started Singapore in 5th grade. He was a great math student so I was suprised when the placement test put him in 4A. I was VERY glad I paid attention and put him in that book. He did very well with 4A-6B and transitioned into Algebra.

Same here. We sped through 4A/4B and 5A/5B in the second semester of 5th, but if I'd started at the beginning of 5th, we would have done it over the course of the year. I agree with Sandy that I'm glad I paid attention. With the first kid, I might have been too prideful (:confused:) to do so.

[choirfarm]

I started homeschooling my son in 4th grade and they had used Saxon, so we did Saxon 54 and then Saxon 65 in 5th grade. He finished it in February of his 5th grade year and really HATED Saxon. So, I switched to Singapore. His geometry concepts were the weakest and I gave him the test and he failed part of the test for 3A, so that is where I started him. Certain sections of the books, he knew so I would give him the end of the section review and if he aced it then we skipped that section. But their were other sections...mostly the geometry ones that we did every single problem. From Feb of his 5th grade year to the end of his 6th grade year we did 3A all the way to 6 B. This year he is doing TT Algebra.
It worked well for him.

Christine

[elegantlion]

We switched from Abeka 4 at the beginning of this year. The placement test put him in 3B except for word problems. He was so upset about the tediousness of Abeka that we started at 3a just to get some "victory moments" in Math. It worked. We plan to work through the summer to get him starting with 4b in 5th grade.

I agree go with the placement test. My ds has asked several times about grade level on the front, I tell him they are placement levels, not grades. Satisfied his curiousity.

[Nan in Mass]

We started him in PM3. He went quickly through 3A and then slowed down. He's in 11th grade now and finishing up NEM3. He'll take pre-calc at the community college senior year. He couldn't apply his math, either, and Singapore "fixed" him.

[Brindee]

Do you get the teacher Guides with each level you do? My dd is in 6th, and I'm wanting to switch her to Singapore, at least for awhile. When starting back a ways (she tested for 4A), I'm not sure whether I need the TG's or not, especially if we'll go through those levels quickly! Any words of advice on this?

[swimnactmom]

We started level 3a in the beginning of 4th grade even though he tested to start at level 3B. When l looked through the material online, I wanted to be sure my ds wasn't missing any concepts, so I decided to back up. My plan was to breeze through the stuff he obviously understood. We finally caught up to grade level by the middle of 5th grade. In a nutshell it was the best thing I could have done for him.
First, we did a computer based game for multiplication facts before he started Singapore. He was one of those kids who just could not memorize his tables like most of the other kids in school.
Then, as we went through level 3, I found that he was familiar with most of the topics but didn't necessarily have a true understanding of the concepts behind them. The most critical learning however, took place with respect to the challenging word problems. Neither one of us had been exposed to math like that before. It was a fantastic experience. I could see the algebra concepts being developed in 3rd grade and at that point I knew he would not be a struggling math student anymore. I've been able to sneak in extra algebra concepts for him too.
For anybody starting this program late, I would recommend not hesitating about backing up. You will catch up eventually and end up with a more confident math student! I would recommend the instructor's guide.