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Life of Fred Math: Just a Matter of Time

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Time.

One of the greatest benefits of homeschooling is that when we need to, we can just take some time.

About a year or so ago, I bought the Life of Fred: Fracti

ons

book, much to Flipper’s chagrin. More math!?? This was an atrocity!

Until I started to read the first chapter to him… and he giggled… and he took the book and read it cover to cover.

Of course you’re not supposed to read it cover to cover in one sitting. You’re supposed to work through the math in each chapter before moving on to the next. But it was a good sign that he would enjoy the book, and he was more than happy to read it again, this time stopping to do the math along the way.

Within a few chapters, I was impressed enough that I went ahead and ordered the rest of the books, from Decimals through to high school Geometry.

However, after awhile, things began to bog down.

Flipper has always had difficulty with retention, especially in math. He will learn a new concept, clearly demonstrate solid understanding of it, successfully complete several lessons on it… and when the concept comes up again a few weeks later, he insists he’s never ever ever done this before and has a meltdown. It takes a ridiculous amount of re-learning and repetition before something actually, permanently, ‘sticks’.

This is why we’ve gone through so many different math programs through the years, often repeating the same “level” in different programs. Each one is great, but not enough for him to be able to move on just yet.

And so it started with Life of Fred. Although he had previously done most of the fraction concepts with Teaching Textbooks (I knew he needed more review, which is why I purchased LoF in the first place), it was like he’d never seen them before. He was starting to have trouble with the “Bridge” unit tests.

At one point, he ‘flunked’ all 5 Bridge options at the end of one unit, and even after attempting them a second time, he still could not get enough correct answers to show he understood what was happening. In fact, it was very clear that he did not.

So, we put it away. And we focused solely on the RightStart level E he was already doing.

Fast-forward to this year. He is now well into RightStart Geometry and loving it. When we found a massive printing error that required us to wait for a new copy (which they gladly shipped to us at no charge), we decided to start Teaching Textbooks Pre-Algebra in the meantime, and also to get back into Life of Fred.

Now that I think about it, this Teaching Textbooks was also a “get back into” event. After having finished TT Grade 6 two years ago, we tried going straight into TT Pre-Algebra, but it was again quickly obvious that he had not retained well enough and it was too ‘dry’ for him. That’s when we switched to RightStart E in the first place.

This time it was completely different. The first 25 or so chapters of TT Pre-Algebra have been a piece of cake for him. Although many concepts which really are review for him still seem to him like “new” concepts, at least he is not getting stuck, nor is he getting frustrated.

And Life of Fred?

Well, today he finished the last chapter, after having sailed through every single Bridge along the way on the very first try.

The Final Bridge, however, was not successful on the first attempt, due to a single repeating error — using the ‘shortcut’ for turning a mixed number into an improper fraction, he put the resulting figure in the denominator instead of the numerator. Now this did result in a meltdown when he realized he’d blown the entire thing, having made this mistake every single time.

But now that he’s done that, I highly doubt he’ll ever make that slip again!

In fact, when he went to bed tonight, he asked if he could work on the Final Bridge second version, so that he could start the Decimals book tomorrow. And he asked to take the Decimals book to bed with him as well… just in case he did finish the Bridge successfully this time.

All this is simply to demonstrate the value of time. The value of putting something away and bringing it back later… whether that means after doing practice in other curricula, or just letting some maturing happen. I really do think that 90% of the difference has been simply the fact that he’s a year more mature, though certainly the RightStart program helped immensely as well.

To do so… to put something away when it is too much right now… is not to admit defeat. It is not a failure. In public school, there would be no option. Each child must march in lock step with the entire class, and if it’s too much too soon, or too fast… too bad. Any difficulties are indeed perceived as failures.

But at home, we can be more realistic. It’s not the child that’s at fault. It’s just not the right time for this program. You take a break, with no recriminations or disappointments, and you try again later. We can allow the development that happens with time to unfold at its own pace, and work with our kids where they are rather than where some artificial and arbitrary standard says they ought to be.

           

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