We Can Do by Moshe Kai with guest Robert Levy discussing Saxon Math.

Early Learning Early Learning General Discussions
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“We told her that we wanted our son to learn how to spell, and we wanted him corrected in class. She stated she would not do that because it would damage his self-esteem.”

First, sorry all for being such a slacker, I needed some time off…

Anyway, the above quote from Nee’s posting (May 9) is very enlightening. The word brainwashed is used a lot by critics of our education system and I try to stay clear of it. But I’ll use it here, but not in the usual way. What this quote tells me is that the teacher is brainwashed into thinking that she is an absolute expert, above reproach, and that parents are a bunch of dimwits. And that is true in the vast majority of cases, as this hapless parent found out. It is futile to get into a discussion of methods or curriculum selection with them, they will simply tune you out and do whatever it takes to get you out the door. As far as they’re concerned, they have the degrees, the training, and the experience to teach properly. Having read Thomas Sowell, I knew this was not the case from the beginning, which is why I only attended one parent-teacher conference during the 7 years or so that David was in his Christian schools, and only then because the teacher (a real basket case) demanded both parents show up.

The bottom line is that your kids’ primary education (math and reading) has to be done under your control. Public schools are not under parental control because their money comes from government, so that’s who they answer to (and sometimes, as we learned in Texas with CSCOPE, that is may not even be the case). Private schools are somewhat better because they know you can walk away, but the major issues with public schools rubs off on them to - and often due to other parents. I may have mentioned it before, but my wife was a substitute at one of David’s Christian schools. Now I still remember from 40+ years ago how happy I was when I saw a “sub” because I knew it was a day off. But not with Susan - she had the kids work in class, do homework, and was about to test them (she had the class for a week). Then she got fired, because too many parents complained…

You really have to do it yourself, or do it through a learning center which doesn’t claim to be a school in any way.

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To GeniusExperiment,

I don’t know anything about the Jakow Trachtenberg system of speed math, so I could only find what you found. Regarding the faith method, it’s interesting that you mentioned it as stopping your progress, as it very nearly stopped mine too. In my case, it was getting into complex analysis (for engineering, beyond Calculus). You have to simply forget about understanding anything when you go into that world. An example is Laplace Transforms. You start with a differential equation from the real world that’s understandable, then you do a Laplace Transform, do some algebra, and what you get makes absolutely no sense at all. But then you do an Inverse Laplace Transform and enter the real world again and your answer makes sense. So why do the Laplace Transform in the first place? Because the problem is either very difficult to solve in the real world, or impossible to solve - but you go into a system that makes no sense, then come out of it, and you easily get the right answer.

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Not much posted here lately, so I’ll add a bit. In meeting with several Brill moms recently one thing we struggled with was figuring out was how kids could spend 6 to 7 hours per day in school, and learn next to nothing. We wondered what they were doing with their time, when we parents can double or triple the speed of their development with around 3 hours per day of concentrated work (and no training), which is even possible with the kid still enrolled in school. For example, as I’ve mentioned before, David was in 2nd grade when we started on Saxon (Saxon 54), and we got through 4 grade levels (through Saxon 87) in one year. He did this while enrolled in school full time, traveling to visit relatives around the country, going skiing for a week, and doing some things that other kids do at that age (karate and piano).

So I’ll list a few things, some I’ve likely mentioned before:

  1. Summer Vacations (2 to 3 months to forget things)
  2. Field Trips (lots of fun, but no educational value for young kids)
  3. Substitute Teachers (understandably) unable to pick up the work
  4. Non-Academic Subjects* - like art, music
  5. Premature Academic Subjects* - like science and history
  6. Watching Movies
  7. Diversionary Curriculum*
    8 ) Physical Education*

*see below for more info

Non-Academic subjects: I think are just to tweak the kids to see if they have any talent in those areas. At least that’s the best that I can come up with. Touching on these areas might be ok, but dedicating a large chunk of time means other subjects are missed.

Premature Academic Subjects: These are academic topics that are not doing the kid any good at his age, and will be fully repeated later, as in high school. There is nothing gained by these subjects in grade school and little gained in junior high. In David’s case, he didn’t have Biology or Chemistry until he was in college (most people have them in high school), and did well enough in both - so if he had them earlier, even in high school, the additional benefit would have been marginal.

Diversionary Curriculum: This is my term for teaching core subjects in a way that will not work effectively for most (maybe all) kids. I call it “diversionary” because reading is still called reading and math is still called math, but they are taught in ways designed to fail (I would use weaker language - but the people at the top levels have had enough time to figure out that they simply don’t work). So, for reading, it is the use of Sight Words, instead of phonics, from Kindergarten through Third Grade. For Math, it is “Discovery Math”, sometimes called “Fuzzy Math”, often with calculators, and never with memorizing of addition and times tables or long division. So, in both cases, the parents are told that their kids are learning math and reading, so they typically walk away happy. For the parents that did their own research and are on to this scam, they are told that the these new ways are “tested” and “proven” and the results won’t be seen immediately, just “trust us”. That probably takes care of nearly all of those parents. Of course your kids are only kids once, so it’s too late when these parents realize what’s really going on.

Physical Education: It seems that we are constantly being told that kids need PE and without it they turn into fat, useless, blobs. Well I don’t think that’s the case because exercising actually burns very few extra calories, compared to just sitting around doing nothing (for example, to burn off an extra McDouble, an average person has to walk 12 miles or run about 4 miles - that’s a lot for a small sandwich), since but I’m not a nutritionist, so I won’t go any further. As to the kid really needing the exercise during school hours, I don’t see it, providing that he’s not simply going to his room and playing video games constantly after school or on weekends. If he’s doing that, then he’ll need Army boot camp and other help - school PE just won’t do anything for him. So, for a kid that gets around a bit after school, and is otherwise normally-active (as it was understood prior to video games and facebook), he’s probably getting all the exercise he needs. This leads back to David and his physical development. He was enrolled in his Christian school through what would have been 6th grade, based on his age. During that time, he did have PE, and that was fine. But once in college full time, starting at what would have been 7th grade (again based on age) he no longer had any PE or other organized exercise (Karate was long gone by then). Did he get fat? - nope. In fact, just before he turned 18, we went to Yosemite National Park and I pretty much challenged him to climb the Upper Yosemite Falls Trail. It was considered an 8 of 10 as far as strenuous day hikes are rated, about 3,000 feet vertical and 7.5 miles round-trip. We both made it. My knees were feeling it at the end (having also descended that elevation). But even though he violated every rule in the book for a kid, he still made it, and probably could have done quite a bit more. So I think this PE push is bull.

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My head hurts :wacko:
I know for a fact school is a time sapping capsule. I teach, I am with my kids 5 hours a day and only 2.5 of that time can I actually teach them! Of course I teach 4 year olds and we shedule morning tea, lunch, rest and I have to make it look like they are playing at times too… :smiley: its just that groups of children create problems that take up time. One child having morning tea takes 10 minutes. 24 kids eating pre cut fruit takes 30 minimum! Same with lunch and EVERY other transition between activities takes 5-10 minutes. Rather than 5-10 seconds as it would with one child.
I think I would agree with the idea that science is a waste of time before grade 8 but I have a differing view of what school should be like to you. I think children should be taught reading and math intensively for the first 3 years of school. They should all know math facts, times tables and be able to read anything by that time. Ralistically it shouldnt take that long but we knownwhat the real world is like :tongue: Saxon 5/4 should be finished with by grade 3.
From years 3-7 I think they should have a go at everything. An introduction to science, history, languages, art, drama, music, sports, nutrition, farming, cooking, sewing, IT, I mean EVERYTHING. By the time they hit year 7 they should have a very solid idea of their strengths and preferences and be able to select a high school path way that will suit their skills and future employment opportunities. A pathway that doesn’t have them doing art if they have no interest in an art career.
I am not suggesting English and math be ignored during these exploratory years BTW. A School day can include an hour of both and still fit in everything else. That way even the children who don’t find a strength or interest will still be progressing in skills for life long benefit.
I think children need time to dabble in different skills and subjects I just don’t think any dabbling should be done in high school ( grades 8-12) as is done here. By then the kids should be confident in all the basics and on a pathway to their career. From grade 8 PE should be an offer for those interested in an active career or as an after hours sporting/social option.
On top of this, I think it is ridiculous to move 30 kids to a teacher when its quicker to move 1 teacher to 30 kids! I think food breaks should be just long enough to eat and no longer and I think schools should finish earlier in the day, so kids can play outside and receive extra tuition where they need it. ( or us parents want to give it) I think age should be irrelevant to ability in class grouping.
Of course all of this can be accelerated if done at home but a comprehensive literacy and math focus in the first school years will excellerate the majority of children. Why waste time on PE with 5 year olds who are naturally endlessly active any way? Why do art when they are still learning to hold a pencil properly? why dabble in language at age 5 when we all know 30 mins a week wont teach them anything?
Science can be started earlier in a child who is a voracious reader by age 6 by giving them quality science concept books to read. Art can be self studied by interested children who can read how to draw books, economy can be studied by 8 year olds who like math and can read.

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I have been mulling this one over.
Mind you, my education was in Australia, where things are done differently to the US.

Something’s that stand out to me that I just ant agree with.

Taking away P.E education cuts to the quick. Maybe it only really did that because I was an athlete and I was active in track ans field, swimming, cross country, softball etc and I was on track for the pan pac games and one day the commonwealth/Olympic games. I only made it to states before I moved to a school that did not have a comprehensive P.E program and I stopped running, swimming, and any other sports altogether.
Maybe there are extra curricula programs? But there wasn’t where I lived, with the exception of Nippers

Now here in the US sports are often a gateway for kids who don’t excel academically or go to college with scholarships. To take that path away from many kids who aren’t academically adept, and are often lower income students is a shame.

Also, from pure observation, I have noticed that my friends who are healthy and active are the ones that were involved in a sport or enjoyed P.E as a kid. The reason I have focused on trying to teach my son to catch, throw, hit, and have a myriad of basic sports skills is so that he can enjoy playing sports and games with his friends without feeling like he is that kid that can’t play. I think the sole purpose of P.E should be fun. 30 minutes a week may not teach much. But it should get kids involved in active fun.

I am sure the same argument could be said for art and music. I played clarinet and violin and did verse speaking ans choir through school. I leant enough to have some music fundamentals but I am not as passionate about it as I was about running. Art? I was a lot cause. And I never liked art class. But I don’t think that 30 minutes once a week hindered my education.

I really don’t think 1.5-2 hours a week for the extra curricula stuff that can make school bareale for a young child is that much wasted time. I think the wasted time is when the students are sitting around making penguin crafts for a week in an attempt to learn about arctic animals. A range of biomes could be covered in a week via reading and writing exercises.

I also don’t feel that science, history, geography et al need be neglected in the early years. My 3 year old learns a lot from many subjects. Mostly from reading books. He will read a low level reader about a variety of subjects. We will disucss those subjects. Then as his reading and his compreshension improves we are able to revisit the subjects in more depth. Non fiction books, including encyclopedias are essential to my son learning to read.

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Somethings I do agree with.

Summer vacation. In Australia we had 6 weeks off and that was more than enough time I thought. And.more than enough time for scholastic regression.

Fuzzy math. Haha. Love the name, hate the concept, and big waste of time. I tutor a child going into 6th grade in the fall. Her school uses Everyday math She is learning Very little. At fhe rate we are going son will be at her level in a few years. And I spend less time with him on math than I do tutoring her each day.

Watching movies? Not sure what this is about. There is a lot of edutainment out there. But I find minute for minute the educational value is often not as good as reading a book, or direct instruction. Now there are some amazingly educational movies (ahem. Peter Weatherall. Ahem.) But I am not sure that teachers would use the good stuff.

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I agree about the summer vacation loss. Homeschool.com is currently hosting a massive freebie deal (http://www.homeschool.com/freebie/deals/) and on there, I found downloadable articles on summer learning loss (http://www.thinkstretch.com/research/articles-to-share/). The 4 articles showed that there is a lot of research that shows children regress seriously in their learning during summer vacation. I read all 4 articles on that page, and the article titled ``Doesn’t Every Child Deserve a Memorable Summer’’ was particularly interesting. It cited the research, and I quote an excerpt below:

Do you know? - All young people experience learning losses when they do not engage in educational activities during the summer. Research spanning 100 years shows that students typically score lower on standardized tests at the end of summer vacation than they do on the same tests at the beginning of the summer (White, 1906; Entwisle & Alexander 1992; Cooper, 1996; Downey et al. 2004).

  • Most students lose about two months of grade level equivalency in mathematical computation skills over the summer months. Low-income students also lose more than two months in reading achievement, despite the fact that their middle-class peers make slight gains (Cooper, 1996).

  • About two-thirds of the ninth-grade achievement gap between lower and higher income youth can be explained by unequal access to summer learning opportunities during the elementary school years. As a result, low-income youth are less likely to graduate from high school or enter college (Alexander et al. 2007).

  • Children lose more than academic knowledge over the summer. Most children—particularly children at high risk of obesity—gain weight more rapidly when they are out of school during summer break (von Hippel et al. 2007).

  • Parents consistently cite summer as the most difficult time to ensure that their children have productive things to do (Duffett et al. 2004).

The fact that student lose about two months of grade level equivalency in math was especially scary. So Robert, you are right. And so were Joyce Swann and Arthur Robinson. And still on that page, the article titled ``More Than a Hunch: Kids Lose Learning Skills Over the Summer Months’', was also very interesting. Here is an excerpt:

WHAT HAPPENS TO STUDENTS OVER THE SUMMER: - At best, students showed little or no academic growth over summer. At worst, students lost one to three months of learning. - Summer loss was somewhat greater in math than reading. - Summer loss was greatest in math computation and spelling. - For disadvantaged students, reading scores were disproportionately affected and the achievement gap between rich and poor widened.

Very scary statistics, if you ask me. So Robert, you are completely right. Kids lose a lot of learning during the summer vacation months, and math is one of the things that suffers most.

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Thanks all,

As usual you guys have given this more thought than myself. What I was really getting at were just the early years in education, when the kids really need to learn to read, in order to be good at it, and likewise with math. I should have included, for sure, learning to speak a foreign language in those years (thanks Mandabplus3). What was bothering me is that math and reading are put on the same level as the other time-fillers, which then ends up meaning that relatively little math and reading get done in those years, and thus it gets dragged out over many more years.

After those early years, if you keep going that way, you wind up with 10 to 12 year old kids that are ready for college, which is probably too much for society (and them) to handle. So, like you say, Mandabplus3, you slow down the pace of the academics somewhat and let them see and try out the rest of the world. I like it. My kick on PE is mainly restricted to having PE displace time in the classroom, as it does now, right through high school. On after-school sports, I’m kind of mixed, but I would agree that anything that gets kids active, rather than spending their late afternoons playing video games is a good thing.

Good point here, Korrale4kq : “I think the wasted time is when the students are sitting around making penguin crafts for a week in an attempt to learn about arctic animals.” Good point also on pointing out that reading can (and should) be used to learn other subjects, like science. Maybe where it gets carried away is when kids have to make “penguin crafts” (LOL) rather than simply read about penguins.

I think part of my narrow focus is due to my own experience with David, where I concentrated on reading, and then math, and at that point basically let his schooling (being it the Christian school, or college) take over from there. We did do other things (tee-ball, violin, piano, karate), but I didn’t see David get much out of any of them…so I would tend to not treat them at the same level of what worked for him - although for other kids, they may get much more out of those types of activities.

Finally, thanks Nee, on the summer break info. For kids, and most adults, math simply isn’t necessary or useful day-to-day, but reading is used practically non-stop (for good readers), so it makes sense that math would be pushed back in the brain over an extended period of time (i.e., summer break). As most people know the concept of a summer break originated from having the kids “help out at the farm”, but has since worked its way into union contracts. I doubt that there was ever any academic justification for the breaks, just the slow inertia of changing things keeps them intact. Saxon, at least in the earlier books, lines up perfectly with your data, where they spend the first 40 sections reviewing the prior material at the beginning - which works out to 9 to 10 weeks, at their standard pace. So, to really get a feel of how summer break affects math development, you have to pretty much double the time of the break - and at that point, you see more and more months disappearing and it becomes easier to see why math drags out so long, when we all know it doesn’t have to. Reading is kind of interesting too. I think the slower-paced children probably just turn off attempting to read during the summer, as it is such a struggle - so they regress there also. But good good readers will gobble up everything in sight.

For you out there looking to change things (and I know who you are), getting rid of summer break is probably the fastest way to get results.

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For you out there looking to change things (and I know who you are), getting rid of summer break is probably the fastest way to get results.

Nee1’s post above about summer break really made the light bulb go off in my mind this morning when I read it. Yeah yeah yeah, you can save some time by skipping summer, right?

Well, hold on there cowboy. That was a truly insightful post in response to Robert’s question of “what the heck are they doing all day”? Here’s the way I interpreted the post…

Summer break here in the States is 3 months long. K-12 has 12 summer breaks (I’ll exclude anything beyond graduation). That’s a full 3 years. But it’s even worse than that because the average kid slides back 2 months per summer break! That makes it a full 5 years!

For the kid that just graduated this month and is 17, it means he could have gained the same academic achievement at the age of 14 with no sliding effect, or at the age of 12 factoring in the sliding effect.

Therefore, if you just skip summer - you can legitimately gain the academic achievement of a typical 17 year old by the age of 12 just through this method alone.

Add early learning and skip another 2 or 3 years. Plan and homeschool and skip yet a few more!

Just ponder the math for a moment as I have… It’s quite profound.

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PokerDad, the day I read those summer loss articles I was very shocked. Completely shocked. The article said that: ``At best, students showed little or no academic growth over summer. At worst, students lost one to three months of learning.‘’

This means that in the BEST CASE scenario, they showed little or no academic growth. In the worst case scenario, they actually LOST 3 months worth of what they had learnt before. This simply means the first few months of school would be spent trying to get them to remember what they had learnt in the last 3 months before the vacation.

I now understood why Joyce Swann (mom of the accelerated Swann kids) was able to move as quickly through school as she did. With her doing 3 hours of focussed homeschooling each day, and doing school all year round (with no summers vacations), her kids could finish the entire k-12 system in very little time. And remember, she did no formal early learning.

And she gives very good advice here - http://www.home-school.com/Articles/to-maintain-control-maintain-a-schedule.php. Under subtitle School First, Field Trips Second'' she said: Remember, no schedule will work if it is not followed. Therefore, if you want to have a successful school year, you must be willing to put your school first. Save field trips, visits to museums, etc., for Saturdays. These activities may be educational, but they are no substitute for a day spent working at the books. Only when you are able to separate all other activities from class time and adhere to a schedule that concentrates on structured study, will your students make genuine progress. Then you will be able to maintain control, and you will meet your goals. ‘’

And more good advice from her here - http://www.home-school.com/Articles/joyce-swanns-homeschool-tips.php
On there, she says: ``We have specific school hours (8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.) and everyone is in the school room seated with his materials in front of him at 8:30. We also have a highly disciplined school room: No talking about anything that does not pertain to school. No going to the bathroom without permission. No food or drinks in the school room. No wasting time. These rules actually give my children a good deal of freedom that they might not enjoy in a less structured setting. After all, they know that they will be finished with both their routine housework and schoolwork by 11:30 a.m. The rest of the day is theirs to spend as creatively as they like.‘’

And more VERY good advice from her here - http://www.home-school.com/Articles/dont-go-back-to-school.php. This article is titled: ``Don’t Go Back To School - Five Reasons To Consider a 12-month School Year’'. What she said in this article echoes almost word-for-word what PokerDad said and what I read in those summer loss articles.

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Thanks people. PokerDad - yea, I wanted someone else to do the math regarding summer breaks, because it was even too much for me to handle. You’re looking at possibly being able to double the rate of math learning without even increasing the intensity used today (i.e., something under an hour a day), just by eliminating extended breaks. Then double the hour to two hours per day (maybe up to 2.5 hours), and you get the 4X rate that David was able to move at in the early Saxon books. And just to reiterate, when you’re going at that clip, and using Saxon the way we did, there is no need to be testing the kid, as Saxon does that by default.

Also, I’ve noted that our pace went down after the first 4 books, to 2 books in the next year. From there, it didn’t make much sense to keep rushing on, and I also promised him a laptop once he finished Algebra 2…so I stalled him as long as possible to wait on prices to go down (LOL). Anyway, I think the pace does slow down after the 4 books, as the problems get more complex and time consuming and the sections are designed, I suspect, to be used to also assign homework to the kids. No big deal in the end. Just racing through the first 4 books means the kid will be at least 3 grade levels ahead and likely more if he starts prior to 4th grade.

Bottom line - this isn’t rocket science, it’s just the combination of a extra time each day (an hour or two beyond the one hour the kid should be doing anyway), not having extended breaks, and using Saxon properly.

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Does any one else here follow Doman Mom’s blog? Www.domanmom.com.
Her son is 7 doing around 5th grade work. She schools year round. I love her schedule. She does homeschool year round. She cuts the years into terms.

I will just provide the link.
http://domanmom.com/2012/04/year-round-homeschooling-and-how-we-organize-it/

Her blog has some amazing stuff to check out. One thing I really admire is that even though her son is accelerated, he is also learning depth. She covers a lot of encyclopaedia Kowledge with him.
If anyone takes the time to look around her site she has some amazing resources. She makes some grea YouTube videos and has even been working on creating a memory program.

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Robert,

  1. Please could you give a timeline of how David was able to complete the 4 Saxon books in a year? He started 54 in second grade (that’s at about 7 years of age). In one year, he had completed the 4 Saxon books - 54, 65, 78, and 87. Could you give some more details how you did it? Saxon comprises 120 lessons in each book. Did you skip the first 40 lessons (since it was mostly aimed at public school review after summer vacation)? Did you have him do every single problem in the lessons he did? Saxon has ``practice’’ questions and about 30 ''problem set’’ questions. The practice questions are based on the particular lesson that had just been taught. The problem set questions are based on lessons that had just been taught plus a review of previous lessons. Did you have him do the practice questions only? Or did he do a combination of both practice lesson and problem set questions? If he did the problem set questions, did you have him do even-numbered problems only? Or odd-numbered problems only? Could you give more details on this?

  2. How many hours do you estimate he spent on math each day? The Ahmed brothers (Zoihaib and Wajih) spent approximately 3 hours on math each day after school hours on weekdays and approximately 5 hours on weekends. Did you aim at 3 hours a day too? Or was your aim the completion of 2 lessons per day?

By the way, here are some articles on the Ahmed kids –

  1. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hampshire/7941327.stm

  2. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/4979604/Nine-year-old-becomes-youngest-ever-to-pass-A-level-maths-with-Grade-A.html

  3. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1164614/Britains-cleverest-family-They-got-maths-A-levels-primary-school--thanks-hours-study-night-75p-Dad.html.

  4. http://www.channel4.com/programmes/child-genius/articles/video-interview-with-wajih-and-zohaibs-parents.

  5. When did you notice a slow down with David? Was it at algebra 1, algebra 2, or Advanced Math?

  6. When did he start algebra 1/2? How long did that take? And how about Algebra 1, 2 and Advanced Math? When did he take the SATs? Was it after he completed Algebra 2? Did he work through the Saxon Advanced Math book too? Or was he in community college by this time?

I’m basically asking for a timeline, and more details and explanations on how one could model your acceleration method. I’ve got the Saxon books (from 54 to Advanced Math), and I’ve studied them in depth, so I know how they work. Further, I went through GCSE math papers and realised that a child that has mastered Saxon Algebra 2 would pass GCSE math with very good grades without breaking much sweat. It sort of puts what David and the Ahmed kids did into context. I now see that most children could achieve what the Ahmed kids and David accomplished. Thank you, Robert.

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I did the math a while back with accelerating a child and came to the Sam conclusion as PokerDad a child can fit in 13 years of schooling in by the time they are 11-14. And that is without early learning.

The US public school year is only 180 days. I know if is more in Australia.

This was taken from my State’s Department of Education site.
360 teaching hours a year for Kindergarten
720 teaching hours a year from 1st to 4th grade
1080 teaching hours a year from 5th to 12th grade.

So…

10800 teaching hours from K-12.

Now… Take an accelerated homeschooling schedule.
5 days a week 50 weeks a year is about 250 days of schooling a year.
4-6 hours homeschooling a day would be about 1000-1500 hours a year.

So it would only take about 7-10 years to achieve the same teaching hours.
So if the kids started at 4 they could have completed 13 years of schooling hours equivalent to the public school system between the ages of 11-14.

Now… If you take into account the amount of group, busy work, games, review ans sillyness, that the public school system does. The time could be done even faster. Or with less schooling hours a year.

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Korrale4kq,

Don’t forget to include the extra time spent reviewing material, due to the slower pace. I also think the hours you have listed are pushing the definition of “teaching hours” a bit, as 6 hours per day is about the total non-lunch hours in a school day - so study halls and PE are included in those 6 hours.

So the amount of time needed drops significantly even from your numbers.

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Actually I thought those are meant to include lunch time.

1st-5th graders are at school for 1170 hours (6.5 hours a day) at school a year. That makes it about 2.5 hours of free time a day.

5th-12th graders are in school for 1260 hours (7hours a day) a year. So they get 1hour for free time a day.

But yes, I do believe that the true instructional hours at school are much less than mandated due to class interruptions, stragglers being late for class and a whole slew of other transition issues. Especially in the early grades.

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Basically my thinking is, if kids were able to spend 4 hours in school doing dedicated class work with good self teaching programs like Saxon. They could cover a lot of school work in 4 hours a day.
An hour dedicated to math, a hour for science/technology an hour for social studies (history, geography, civic et al) and a hour for writing instruction. Reading need never be a separate subject beyond the lowest grades. Reading fluency, reading comprehension can and should be covered within all subjects.

If students are taught early on how to learn independently there would be less need for direct instruction. Students can work at their own pace. And teachers and higher achieving students can assist the lower slower students.

Even allowing a 30 minutes recess every hour, and still offering PE, art, music, library and foreign language for 1 30 minute session a week each. And 1 30 minute study/homework period for high school students each day. The students will be in school for the same amount of time a day but will be learning more efficiently. And getting more breaks.

An example of a school schedule. Sure, there is lots of downtime. But my idea is that the engaged 1 hour blocks would be intensive.

8:00- Math
9:00- Free time*
9:30- Extra curricula**
10:00- Science
11:00- Lunch
11:30- Social Studies
12:30- Free Time*
1:00- Writing and Speech instruction
2:00- Study, tutor and homework time. 30 minutes for elementary and an hour for high school.
2:30/3:00- School out.

*Free time could be used to play games, do those infuriating penguin crafts, give the kids a chance to run around, watch an educational program… Just lighter stuff. Or it could be used for students who wish to extra credit work. Or for students to catch up on work.

**Extra curricula programs like PE/health/nutrition, music/dance/drama, library program and art.

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Hi Nee,

Lots of questions. I’ll need to review my records in more detail, which I can do when I get back home in a bit. For now, based on my notes, I actually show David as completing 5 books (i.e., through Algebra 1/2) in 12 months. He started right at Age 7. He did skip the first 40 sections of at least the first 4 books, but then skipped only 20 sections in Algebra 1/2. Starting at Algebra 1, he didn’t skip anything. I based that on what the material was, and the first 4 books clearly were review for the first 40 sections - maybe with a few new concepts sprinkled in, but not enough to warrant doing the entire sections. The later books had a lot less review, so he had to do more (or all) of the books.

As far as which problems he did, we would work the practice problems together, and then I would cut him loose on the 30 or so problems in the for that section. He always, and I mean always, did every problem of each section (other than the sections we skipped at the beginning). He would give me his work, and I would mark off the ones he got wrong, and he would have to try them again, until he got them right. I made sure that he was able to do every problem in a section before we started on the section. Also, because he didn’t like doing the work very much, I suspect, I made him check every problem he did, as he had tons of careless errors. If it was bad enough, I tore up the paper and made him do the section all over again (but that was rare). Saxon is also very clear on this - the kid must do all of the problems in each section. In fact, I think the biggest stumbling block to success with Saxon was teachers (mainly) that thought they knew better and would try to cherry-pick problems. Do not try that.

As to hours, I estimate that we averaged about 3 hours per day, maybe 2 or 2.5 during the week days and 4 to 5 hours on weekends. I didn’t set a goal as to the number of sections per day, but my recollection is that we were doing about 3 sections per day for the early books, 2 sections for the middle books, and 1 section per day for the later books, as those problems got complicated.

As to slowing down, that was more me than him. My notes say that in addition to the first 5 books in 12 months, he finished the next one, Algebra 1, in 2 months (he can thank having done Math 87 and especially Algebra 1/2 for being able to speed through Algebra 1). At that point, he slowed a bit, with my notes showing him completing Algebra 2 in 4 months, and I really need to check that, as I was trying to slow him down at that point. Assuming that timeline holds, it means that David had finished Algebra 2 at 8.5 years old.

Finally, we went through the Advanced Math (pre-Calculus) book. It is a thick book with a lot of tough problems, but once you finish that you’re ready for college-level Calculus. We really slowed down then, and he took around 1.5 to 2.5 years to finish. At that point, he was ready to take Calculus in college, and did so, starting a bit after he turned 11. There were several reasons we slowed down so much - first, we were building a house and running the project, so that took a serious amount of my time and second, he was just too far ahead for his own good. There comes a point of negative returns, and finishing Algebra 2 (i.e., 10th grade math, if on honors track for Calc in high school) at the age of a second grader is just too young to be useful in the real world, so we actually regressed a bit, purposely, to give him a chance to grow a bit.

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Those were great questions Nee. Thanks for answering them, Robert. That clears up a lot for me. My 5 year old just finished up 1st grade math (using mammoth math). I don’t think he is ready for Saxon so I am taking him through 2nd grade using Mammoth Math, but the first 40 pages are review, and I had wonder if review is necessary when there is just a week break between workbooks. Then I had wonder if the same is true for Saxon books.

You have given me a lot to think about.

Do you have any familiarity or opinion of Harold R. Jacobs Geometry text. http://books.google.com/books/about/Geometry.html?id=XhQRgZRDDq0C

Thx

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Hi Nee,

I’m going through your links, and the quote below stood out to me. It is one of those brilliant insights that you get from immigrants that are not poisoned by the culture they now live in. I definitely see the same thing in the states, where immigrant families understand that they have to take control of their kids’ education (especially early education), because they know no one else will do that.

“‘Most people think that you should let your kids go out and discover the world on their own, and decide for themselves what they want to do, but my answer to that is No,’ says Usman (Ahmed) emphatically…‘If parents don’t influence them, they don’t become independent, they simply become susceptible to other influences instead - their friends, or what they watch on TV, or what they read in magazines.”