Recently, on one of the forums I read, a new homeschooling mother waxed confused that the second, sequential math book she bought was front-loaded with “review” – with a whole lot of stuff they had just covered in the previous book.
Veteran homeschoolers laughed because we’ve long since known that usually the beginning 15% of all scholastic math books is pure review.
I certainly wasn’t assigned any summer homework in the public government schools I attended through 8th grade.
My private Catholic high school did assign a few (3?) books each summer to read.
But what about math???
Actually, I have two private math students in Queens that go to expensive, intense private schools here in New York…
And they other day they showed me substantial packets of math homework that they were assigned for the summer. So they’ll be doing that on top of what I make them do!
Hey, if you want to take the *school* route and get your kids into Harvard or the like….this is what it takes.
Twenty-five years ago, I had a college basketball coach tell me that basketball players were “…made in the summer.”
In other words, during the basketball season, everyone is pretty much practicing the same amount, with the team and whatnot. So it’s not easy to leap ahead of the competition.
AND this is key…
Students don’t just lose 2.6 months….because had they continued to do move forward with math all summer long, they would also gain 2 months, at least. So the quantifiable opportunity loss is at a minimum 4.6 months – or about half of a school year.
Conclusion – the summer is actually the MOST IMPORTANT time to be doing math!
If you want your kid to crush math this summer….check out my math class here.
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