Since I began homeschooling 10 years ago I have used:

• BJU Math
• Abeka Math
• BJU HomeSat Math
• Key to Math
• Math-U-See
• Horizon's Math
• Teaching Textbooks Math

     There is one thing all of these programs have in common for me. FAILURE Oh to some degree they have worked, but my children have all hated math, I have always hated TEACHING Math and my children are BEHIND in math. They just don't SEE it... UNTIL NOW!!!

     About a month ago, I decided it was time to start my kindgartener on formal math. Up to this point, we were just doing informal math counting etc... So I decided to order RightStart Math and I decided to go with level B because I wanted to include my older daughter (grade 2) in this with her. After taking the placement questionaire, it seemed she would do fine with this level and it would be easy for my older daughter, but still beneficial. I felt like my older daughter was just doing what my older daughters had done and was just filling in the blanks, but not really understanding or seeing what she was doing.

I had hope that RightStart might fulfill this for us since it is so different.

     We started about 3 weeks ago. The first thing I noticed is that Math became fun, for everyone including ME! There aren't hardly any worksheets with RightStart, it is almost all hands on. The lesson plans lead us step-by-step and build on each other.

     Just as I suspected, my younger daughter needed a little bit more help than my older daughter, but she was doing great considering her young age. I could see understanding forming in both of them. I wasn't sure about the SEEING yet.

     Today we did a difficult topic. It was to teach the parts of 5. For instance, 5 is 1 and 4 or 2 and 3 or 3 and 2 or 4 and 1 etc... We followed the TM exactly and I had each girl doing each step using her tally sticks, then her abacus. It was then that I saw the TM wanted them to close their eyes and recite the facts. All 6 of them. Now realize, we had only been working on this for maybe 3-5 minutes. I did NOT expect them to understand. First my older daughter went. She EASILY recited them all. I was so excited!!! I praised her and knew at that moment that she was SEEING math for the first time. Then it was time for my kindegartener.

     She began to giggle and said, "I can't do it, it is too hard!" I just encouraged her to try. So she closed her eyes and began. She got the first one, I encouraged her to keep going, she got the second and I was beaming, she got the third and so on until she completely with NO HELP recited them all. I was so excited!! My daughter was SEEING her math!!! I felt like Anne Sullivan with Helen Keller the first time she signed W-A-T-E-R . My children could SEE & UNDERSTAND.

     If your children don't see and understand their math, run, don't walk to RightStart Math and get your child started. I plan to start my second oldest daughter with RightStart in the spring. Unfortunatly my oldest daughter is too old for Rightstart, but my hope is Life of Fred might be a good fit for her since she is so language based.

Praise God for showing me RightStart Math!