VideoText Algebra

The VideoText program combines pre-Algebra, Algebra I and Algebra II in 6-modules. The first five modules cover what is typically covered in pre-Algebra and Algebra I. It has been my goal to complete Algebra I with Marissa and then move to a Consumer Math program.

I liked the contents of the program. The lessons present only a single idea. I liked that VideoText explained the rationale behind even basic computations. I wish the videos included closed captioning. Marissa doesn’t process information that comes to her through her ears very well. Even when we are watching a movie for fun, she turns the subtitles on. Still, the videos are not talking head videos. The program uses a lot of visuals to teach concepts. Marissa was able to stop the video to do a problem, rewinds, relisten… Both of us like this product much better than Saxon.

Still, I am struggling to provide a fair evaluation of this curriculum. First, I should tell my readers that I am a math geek. Yes, I was on the math team in high school. I stayed after school and did math for fun! My best friends in school would have been labeled nerds by most of my classmates. Let’s face it; I was labeled a nerd by most of my classmates. I enjoy number and logic puzzles. When I took my GRE, I did best on the part that looked at analytic reasoning. And I love this program. In fact, if I were independently wealthy, I would buy this program just for me! As I helped Marissa, I relearned concepts I had forgotten I knew. I found the program brain food.

Marissa, on the other hand, has an absolute weakness in math. Difficulty understanding numbers and number sequences is quite typical of a person with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD). Recent research indicates that children with FASD typically score in the bottom 15 percentile in tests designed to evaluate memory for numbers and sequences. Additionally, Marissa has been a non-due course math student. Because she was immature, she was moved out of a first grade class and back into kindergarten. When she got to first grade the second time, she was 8. Her verbal skills are phenomenal so she was way ahead of her classmates in language arts. She was still struggling with the social and behavioral requirements of being in first grade.

I entered the wonderful world of staffing meetings to discuss with a “panel of experts” the learning needs of my special student. The first expert suggested since Marissa had done so well, we should just leave her in kindergarten another year. At the time I thought she was nuts. I have changed my mind about what it means to be educated; I may have been more inclined to agree with her. Marissa’s PE teacher described Marissa as defiant, stubborn, lazy and disruptive. He didn’t think there was anything wrong with her ability to learn. We should push her academically. That was the decision of the team. So, half way through first grade, with Marissa already struggling, Marissa was moved into an age-appropriate second grade class.

In hindsight, Marissa adjusted amazingly well… in language and social studies. Science at the time consisted of observing the weather and coloring pictures of bears in an appropriate outfit for the weather so that wasn’t really a problem either. Math? Terrible! She could count, but she didn’t understand the concept of numbers. She didn’t really understand that “one” had a conceptual meaning even when there wasn’t a candy, cookie, or whatever to count. She had missed the second half of first grade math and the first half of second grade math. She was expected to add 2-digit numbers. She didn’t really understand adding 1-digit numbers.

Marissa has plodded along in math. She memorizes the steps in the equations she is supposed to use. She has her math facts down pat. Computations that do not include a negative number are generally done correctly; however, she has no idea what she is doing and why she is doing it. She has struggled with math in general and the VideoText program is no different. She will understand how to do a problem one day, and the next day she has no idea how to even start a problem. We are still on the second of six modules.

I have decided to stick with VideoText for next year. I don’t believe I am going to find a perfect program that makes math really easy for Marissa. I had thought about switching now to a Consumer math program, but I think not. First, if computation is difficult, application is an insurmountable hurdle. Consumer math applies the concept of Algebra to real life. In order to be able to do math in real life, Marissa will need to understand how to solve a math problem with one unknown. You don’t need to do math if you don’t have any unknown numbers.

Besides, Marissa doesn’t learn math like normal people. When we were struggling with fractions… for years and years, I never thought she would get them. Then all of a sudden one day while cooking and measuring, “Mom, is a fraction less than one?”

“If it is a proper fraction it is.”

And she got fractions. I am not talking she understood that a fraction was less than one. She all of a sudden could add and subtract them. She understood how to decided greater than and less than… she owned fractions. So, we plug away and await another light bulb moment in decimals, negative numbers… you never know. Maybe one day!

I wanted to add that Marissa thought the best part of the VideoText Algebra program was the instructor. “Good thing he is cute. It gives me a reason to watch the tapes.”