Living Life: Hour By Hour: Review: CTCMath

When your a homeschooling parent the topic of which curriculum to use comes up quite often. The subject that I've heard discussed the most is math. One of the names I've heard over and over again is CTCMath. We were given a Single Membership and they are offering you the chance to try it for free! CTCMath is wonderful for children that don't fit 100% into a specific grade level. When you use the program you have access to ALL levels and not just the grade that your child is in. Issac is in 5th grade and for several years he was actually ahead in math. It was one of the subjects that he really enjoyed. He excelled in it for several years until multiplication and division came into play. He struggled, so I worked him around those problems while we tried to memorize our facts. This went on longer than I had hoped and eventually we started getting behind. Last year we tried a few things that were new to us and they seemed to help him get most of the multiplication facts. When I was trying to figure out which math program to use this year I realized that the 5th grade programs looked too hard for him. I realized that he had lost that edge he had in math. We were given the Single Membership and I thought this would be great for Issac. We started out in the 5th grade, but I realized with the first lesson that it was too hard for him. He got very frustrated and wanted to quit. I decided to go back and try the 4th grade lessons and we could move quicker through ones that were easier for him. This was the right decision for him! He did three lessons the first day and was so excited that he got 100's on them. He enjoyed watching the videos before the lessons. One thing I liked is that it was easy to scroll back through the video if he didn't remember something. There was a section in Space and Geometry that he struggled with passing. I sat with him and helped him take notes during the video and he did the lesson over and over until he did well. I think he did these two lessons three times each until he really understood them. That's a big plus for me as a parent that he can redo the lessons as many times as he needs too!

When you set up the student account the parent gets to chose the "passing grade" for your child. I chose an 80% for Issac because I felt that would be good for the lessons that he might struggle in understanding.

At the top of the page under the Results tab you can view a detailed report of what your child has done. I like this because it lets me see exactly which lessons Issac has worked through and how he did. Here is part of Issac's report.

I'm glad that I decided to start in the 4th grade section because getting high grades on those beginning lessons really helped build up Issac's confidence. When we ran into the multiplication and he was getting upset I told him we could drop down to the third grade and work on reviewing multiplication.

It's nice because you can work in any grade level that CTCMath offers. Issac even went into higher levels. He actually went into the Calculus section and did the review lesson. He told me he made a 100% and I honestly didn't believe him. I was shocked when I saw that he actually did!!

We also get weekly reports sent to us detailing everything that the student has done. I use an online program to record all my grades and this makes it easy to print the report and update any lessons that I might have missed putting into the computer.

Here is a sample of the weekly report that shows what Issac did for Friday, September 29th. It shows the time he signed in, what he worked on as well as how well he did. You can see the total amount of time that he worked on his lessons. He started on his own and struggled with Multiplying by a Multiple of 10. I sat down with him and asked some questions when he got stuck and he did much better. It also shows how many lessons completed and an overall efficiency rating. I really feel that I can keep up with what he's doing well in and what he's struggling. Again, I really love that he can do lessons over and over again until he truly understand the concepts. Different, but similar problem are given each time he does a lesson over. That way he can't just memorize the answer from the previous time.

Issac has really been enjoying working through the CTCMath Single Membership. He really likes the video aspect and I truly think it helps him understand the problems. I think what really has helped him the most is being able to re-do the lessons when needed as well as to move around in different grades.

Check out the free trial that is offered as well as the 60% off + 6 bonus months that is offered to homeschoolers. They offer very competitive prices for the materials that you get. Most math programs easily run more that what CTCMath charges and you only have access to the one grade that you purchase. Here you get access to all grades. If you have more than one child the Family Membership is a wonderful deal. I know some math programs that charger more than the family membership charges, but it's only for one student.