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From:	Firefly (98.233.126.190)
Subject:	Where to Start in Singapore? (Long)
Date:	October 17, 2009 at 1:46 pm PST

When my youngest daughter was in 1st and 2nd grades, I used Singapore Math with her. This was back before they had U.S. editions, teacher's guides, or answer keys. At that time, I became quite ill and it took me over a year to recover. A fellow homeschooling friend helped with my two girls, but she used A Beka and was wasn't comfortable with the Singapore books because of the lack of teacher support materials.

Because of this we started using A Beka for math. As I got well, I ended up changing to Math-U-See and then Teaching Textbooks. I whole-heartedly regret that I ever quit using Singapore Math, but I can't live in constant regret. My oldest daughter, who is quite bright, didn't suffer from the changes in her math curriculum and has flourished despite my jumping around. She is in 12th grade and has already been accepted to the college of her choice with a scholarship.

My youngest, though, is not doing nearly as well. She is in 9th grade and is just starting 7th grade math and she is barely keeping her head above water. She is smart, but she has missed major concepts from all the jumping around we have done. She is just getting a handle on fractions now that I bought her the Key To Fractions workbooks, and I am going to have her work through the Key To Decimals and Key To Percents workbooks.

The other day, though, she sighed and said how she was really glad I got her the Key To... Series because it was helping her make sense of what was a mystery to her in Teaching Textbooks. She said it reminded her of Singapore Math and she wished she could do Singapore Math instead of Teaching Textbooks. This child remembers Singapore Math with such exceptional fondness that I can't believe I haven't done this before now. I want to put her back in Singapore. I just don't know where.

She needs to learn about fractions, decimals, and percents. She has not had any pre-algebra or geometry. She can add, subract, multiply, and divide without any problems. I am thinking of starting her in Singapore Primary Mathematics 5A and working through things a little more quickly since she is old enough to understand the concepts, she just hasn't been properly introduced to them. I am wondering though if I should start with 4A.

She found the 3A placement test quite easy and I am going to give her the 3B placement test in a bit. I will need to give her a metric chart to figure out some of the metric problems on that test and I think I will go over briefly what area and perimeter means, but I think she will do well on the test. I just don't know how well she will do on the placement tests for 4A and 4B.

I'm exhausted from trying to think this through and would appreciate any and all input.

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