I Thought We Were Done Multiplying Fractions?
My daughter Piper voices the young girl in the Age 5-7 and Age 6-8 math Learning Gates. If you have used either of these levels, you are probably familiar with her sweet young voice. Now, imagine that voice just a little bit upset!
"Wait... I thought we were done multiplying fractions?!"
We had finally finished the unit on multiplying fractions, and Piper was looking forward to some less complicated Geometry questions on her Learning Gates quiz. She had repeatedly missed a number of the fraction multiplication problems -- mostly because she tried to work out the problems in her head instead of writing them out on paper, but that is another story for another day. This story is about why Piper is still getting fraction multiplication problems in her Learning Gates quizzes.
Learning Gates Is a Yearlong Course
One weakness of many math and spelling programs is that students
- finish,
- move on, and
- forget everything they learned.
Learning Gates is different. It is a year-long course that is built into the Moving Beyond the Page curriculum. The system remembers the questions student struggle with, and it will continue to bring those questions back until they have been mastered. Much to Piper's chagrin, she still has about 2 months to show her mastery of fraction multiplication.
When May finally rolls around, she will still remember what we studied this winter.
