Khan Academy to fill in gaps?
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Anonymous
| DD had Algebra 1 remotely and ended up with an A, mostly because she worked hard and had lots of retakes. But given her difficulty with Honors Algebra 2 this year, I suspect her grasp on the foundation is pretty shaky. And she yanked the math section of the PSAT. Would Khan Academy help? And if so, is it better to review Algebra 1 before jumping into Algebra 2? She will be better motivated if she sees the direct application to what she’s learning now. |
Anonymous
| Tanked not yanked |
Anonymous
| Use the free MCPS tutors. |
Anonymous
| Yes, it might help - if she's willing to do it. |
Anonymous
Please tell me more. She meets with her teacher over lunch once a week or so. And occasionally a math teacher holds a review session. Is that what you mean? |
Anonymous
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Yes, it’s really well organized and set up well. It is just the basic basics though—no in depth/multi layered problems or combining multiple standards, so it won’t prepare for an honors level course, but it could solidify any gaps.
They also have a feature where you can import your psat scores and it will set you up with a study plan for the psat/sat math. It’s pretty neat! —hs teacher |
Anonymous
No, MCPS offered free tutoring virtually through Tutor Me Education. That's what we use. https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/tutoring.aspx |
Anonymous
I teach physics and yikes about the kids not having any fluency in simple Algebra. It's been rough. Khan Academy is a great resource for filling in gaps and strengthening skills. I would have her start with the Algebra 1 section and just practice each of the skills to get them in the mastery list, and then practice mastery sets. She should mostly be working on skills that she knows, but isn't fast with yet. I would also have her work on number sense activities - factoring, fractions, least common denominator, greatest common multiple, etc. Very often students have difficulty because they simply aren't quick about multiplying and dividing numbers, and they miss the main part of the lesson because they got lost following some of the basic math. |
Anonymous
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Our family used Eureka, IXL, AOPS, and Khan Academy. All have their own strengths, but I’d rank Khan Academy best for doing a review and to solidify concepts. It doesn’t have the depth of some problems on AOPS, but it makes up for it by being much broader and more efficient time wise.
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Anonymous
| Has anyone tried the Khan SAT prep courses? How do they compare to the subject matter courses like Algebra 1 or 2? |
Anonymous
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Buy these courses taught by James Sellers and make your kid watch them. (Maybe you can watch them too). Your kids can do 2-3 lectures a day. It will fill in any content and knowledge gap. Highly recommended and it is on steep sale right now.
https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/mastering-the-fundamentals-of-mathematics https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/algebra-i https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/algebra-ii |
Anonymous
| It depends on how intelligent she is in math, frankly. I have a bright, mathy kid that occasionally reviews and studies ahead using Khan Academy and the Alcumus part of Art of Problem Solving, because she can watch the videos, do some exercises by herself and figure stuff out. But that wouldn't work for my dyscalculic kid (specific learning disability in math), who needs solid one-on-one tutoring with a great tutor, someone who can identify where he's misunderstanding and why he can't extrapolate to another exercise. For him we went straight to Prep Matters. Don't use them unless you have to, they're terribly expensive. |
Anonymous
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Khan Academy is decent; certainly well organized and comprehensive. I often assigned it for background/practices. My only caveat - and many of my students agreed - is Sal Kahn is ... uh .... a tad boring. Students, for instance, found the guys at math antics much more entertaining, and often retained more watching them. Unfortunately they don't have nearly as thorough a set of video explanations, nor much review/practice materials.
There channel is here, if you want to check it out: https://mathantics.com/ Another poster mentioned Eureka Math, which is a well regarded curriculum. Indeed, the parts of MCPS old Curriculum 2.0 that WERE NOT a disaster were the parts they cribbed whole-heartedly from Eureka Math. Although MCPS says it has left C2.0 behind, you schools mileage may vary, LoL What is interesting is that you can do both Khan Academy and Eureka Math (aka EngageNY), as dear Sal Khan has put together modules specifically for that curriculum. I mention because it is at least somewhat correlated with the order MCPS still teaches in. Not perfect, but given it's a free resource, hard to beat its value! https://www.khanacademy.org/math/engageny-alg-1 Sometimes the weakness is much earlier mathematics, and all the work on current concepts is thwarted because basic, rote skills are lacking: it may not be glamorous but making sure addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, working with fractions, and having decent number sense are spot on is a far more useful and needed practice area. Knowing concrete facts such as one's squares (say up to 20 squared), for instance, also makes focusing on the abstract concepts of the pythagorean theorem, the quadratic formula, etc easier. If your child can't do these fundamentals with ZERO hesitancy, practice! Know your multiplication table as well as you know your own name! Also, and many might not agree, I suggest that it is more helpful to deeply understand some math than to sort of know a wide amount of math background. So ... whatever you review, practice practice practice, especially the 'simpler' stuff until they can essentially "do it in their sleep". Makes the more abstract concepts easier to grasp in the future. Finally, let me give two textbook suggestions. Remember textbooks, LoL? Their focus are in some ways opposite, so I mention both: If your child needs extensive practice and smaller steps, then the old Saxon Math Algebra 1 text is still gold. For earlier materials, Saxon Math 7/6 The older the addition the better; you literally want one from the 20th century (pre 2004), not the newer Saxon-in-name-only variants. Which is great, because with a bit of search you can find old beat up copies for twenty dollars or less For a much more big picture top down good explanation and make you think about it: Harold Jacobs Elementary Algebra. Again, from last century. Where Saxon focuses on "drill baby drill", Jacobs tries hard to get the student to think through and understand the fundamental concepts that are behind the computations and algorithms introduced. It of course also has lots of problem sets, so is a good book to work through. It's a bit harder to find used, but may be worth the effort. Neither book is necessarily aligned with modern "grand vision" national standards, which may be either a good thing or a bad thing! Your mileage on these books may, of course, vary. HTH |
Anonymous
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I agree with many posters about getting the foundation skills mastered to the point of them being very automatic or quick. People really under estimate this importance in the early years and instead want to rush through topics.
Also, dropping down from Honors Alg2 may be needed. Honors math classes move quickly, go deeper and leave little room for students w/missing skills. And it only gets more difficult. Honors Pre-Cal is a tough class. I’m all for kids working hard and challenging themselves. But depending on the rest of their schedule, it may not be wise or even necessary. |
Anonymous
This x100. While some kids started doing Kumon at age 2, if your kid wasn't one of them, rushing through math in elementary probably wasn't the best idea. I like Khan because you can take a test to see which issues you might have, and then zero in on those areas. |