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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Everyone is an expert in math instruction now, I see. Do you think you can go to the supermarket and have your kid count 10 apples once and think he's got it? That's now how it works. They do need to do it again and again and again. Later then need to learn to add and subtract rapidly - through memorization. When they are older they also need to memorize their times tables.

These are the facts of math fluency. For parents who are new to school, this is how it works. Like memorizing sight words, there are lots of concepts in school that the kid has to memorize and repeat ad nauseum for the fluency that is needed later for higher level concepts.[/quote]

No, but -- and I've complained about this elsewhere on the site -- Zearn is just way worse than, e.g., Lexia. More choice. More variation in activities. Better interface. More differently themed levels to move up. Something. It's just super boring in a way that it doesn't have to be.[/quote]

Oh, I disagree. Lexia will repeat the same exact set of instructions very slowly and it's impossible to by-pass. It's so implausible that a student would need to hear those instructions this many times in a row, so I think the developers actually have a problem. I don't think they created Lexia to be used as intensively by any given student as it has been since March. Lexia needs to find a way to allow skipping the slowly enunciated set of instructions if the student has heard them more than 10 times.
I accept Zearn's fluency-building exercises as a lot more useful, and kids can get through it quickly, especially if they find good ways of clicking Enter quickly.[/quote]

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