Math

When 12yodd finished her math textbook a few days ago she requested that we continue with math  through the summer.  She wants to catch up to her grade level.  

See, this particular child struggled with math and learning to read.  She was still a beginning reader at 8yo and she did not know any of her math facts.  It was a blessing that by a fluke she was registered as a 1st grader at the age of 7yo.  This accident meant that she would always test a year behind most children her age.  This gave us an additional year to prepare her for standardized testing at the end of 3rd grade.  Even then we struggled to get her up to a 3rd grade level.  

Though 12yodd is technically the same age as most 6th graders, we've been using 5th grade textbooks for almost all subjects except grammar.  I had accepted that fact and was okay with it.  She is progressing nicely through all her subjects (except pesky grammar) and I don't want to push her for the sake of seeing a 6 on the cover of her textbook rather than a 5. 

When she requested to work through the summer I didn't hesitate to say yes.  I'm not about to turn her down when I know she's capable of moving ahead in this subject.  I calculated that if our lives are perfect between now and the end of the year, she could finish the 6th grade math textbook before Christmas.  And then, I started looking through the lessons.  The first chapter reviews addition and subtraction with very little new information.  Hmmm...couldn't we skip those lessons?  Why require 12yo to do lessons that would merely be busy work for her?  I think it's time to break away from the "Thou must do every lesson in the textbook" fear.  We are going to skip lessons (Oh, I'm so rebellious ;)