Have you ever wished for easy access to a math teacher that you could understand? Trust me when I say, if it hadn’t been for a math teacher that I could understand, I would not have passed math when I was in school. I just could not read a math book and “get it”. The concepts eluded my understanding no matter how much I practiced. I struggled with math all the way through college too. My college math teacher, Dale Hawkinson from Kansas State University, made himself available to me and tutored me to help me learn the concepts I was struggling with. It is hard to find that kind of support these days, and I will always be grateful for the help he gave me. Somedays, I wish there was a teacher / tutor like him easily available for my kids.
Thankfully, there is a math teacher / tutor that is available to come right into your home and help you and your kids master math! It is called CTC Math. We were sent a 12 Month Family Plan For Homeschoolers to CTC Math to try out and tell folks everywhere about this program. We are amazed that our math skills are quickly improving using this program.
CTC MATH 12 MONTH FAMILY PLAN
Unlimited online access of over 1,367 teaching videos, and 57,000 questions and activities, for up to 10 students, 24 hours a day / 7 days a week to all lessons and all grade levels K-12 for one family price! Currently this great resource is on sale (60 % off) for homeschool families for $118 a year. It normally runs $297, so this current sale is a huge savings. Please check out the website for single student use and other pricing options too.
How we used CTC Math 12 Month Family Plan:
First we decided what grade levels to have the kids start in. Four of our six kids are school age. We chose to work in 3rd, 5th, and 6th as a review, and a little bit with K as review. We chose not to test out of any sections, and worked through the lessons one by one even if it was reviewing a concept they already knew. We will soon add our pre-K 5 year old into the K math with his sister, and the son using 6th grade as review will move into Pre-Algebra. I usually ask the kids to complete two lessons a day. The lessons are short, and they can easily complete a lesson in about 20 minutes or less. So doing two lessons, gives them about 30 to 40 minutes of good math instruction and practice each day. I receive reports from the program when the kids have achieved various levels in a section: Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum, and weekly updated summary reports too.
My oldest is 13, and though he is in 7th grade, he wanted to go through the 6th grade CTC Math as a review first to be sure he had a good handle on it before he moved ahead into pre-Algebra. PRE-ALGEBRA is a SCARY word! We moved during his 6th grade year, and that resulted in him not feeling confident in some of his math skills. He was using 7th grade math curriculum this school year in another program, and he felt it moved along to fast for him, and he needed to spend more time on certain skills.
I am so glad he likes CTC Math! Going back a grade for review is giving him a strong grasp of division, fractions, and several skills he was struggling in that the other program a year ahead didn’t spend time on. He tells me every day, “Mom, I love this math program. I am so thankful we got to review this.” He is self motivated and completes 2 to 4 lessons each day. He is also using the Speed Skills Practice challenges to improve his skills too. (Like me, you might be wondering why would you want to do more math than you are required? Are we really related? Yes, he wasn’t adopted, we really are related, but I honestly think he is closer related to my paternal Grandma who is a genius at everything she sets her mind to, and believe it or not, his desire to improve is rubbing off on me too).
He is mastering the lessons and gets an average of 95% to 100%. One great thing about this program is that the kids can repeat the lesson questions and bring up their average scores on each lesson. So if he got 90% the first time, and then re-did the lesson and got 95% his second time, and 100% his third time, then his average score for the lesson rises to 95%. He usually scores high his first time through and doesn’t need to repeat it, because the teacher / tutor explains the lesson so well. But I have seen him get a 97% and want to raise his average and retake the lesson two more times. So 97%, then 100%, and 100% raises his overall score to 99%. He loves this opportunity to raise his score!
My 5th grader also works independantly with CTC Math in the 5th grade level. I used to pull my own hair out trying to teach this one to read and do math computations. He could do math, he just wanted me to read it to him. And he worked so slowly at it or needed it repeated several times as he forgot what you said in the begining by the time he got to the end of the question. It seemed he didn’t want to try. But actually it was a maturing process and he also processed the information differently. He truly associates facts and things completely different than his older brother. So it has been a huge challenge for me to help him master some of the skills that came so easily to his older brother. Yep, this one is definately related to me!
Like me, he didn’t understand many concepts just because he read them, no matter how many times he read them. They still didn’t make sense. He really needed a combination of the video (he is an audio visual learner) instruction plus writing to make this work for him. He also started reading really well this past year, remembering details, paying attention, and with all these skills coming together, his math is showing huge improvement. This past year we were offered a different online math program for one student, and I chose to use it with him because he needed the extra help, and he hated it. The voice tutor was robotic like and he just couldn’t grasp the concepts, so after much struggle, we passed it onto his older brother. I have been praying for a program that would work with this son.
But something has changed in him now. He wants to do his school work. He is motivated! He also really enjoyes math. I can’t believe I am even saying this, because it is what I prayed for, but wasn’t sure when that prayer would be answered. But I am telling you the truth when I say CTC Math is the answer to my prayer for this son! (Either that or I think aliens must have abducted the real one…just kidding!) He asks to do CTC Math everyday and there are no built in video games as the incentive! Amazing!
He tells me “Mom, look what I did, I got a 90%.” or “Mom, I love how the teacher explains this one, look I got a 100% on this lesson!”. He is very proud of himself and I am too. Even though it takes him longer to work through a lesson, his average scores range from 80% to 90%! He has to stop often and write the math problem down on paper and work it out before he works it out on the computer screen. BUT HE GETS IT! He has improved so much and is working at 5th grade level. This mom is ecstactic! Thank you CTC MATH!
Now, I am going through a similar phase of refusing to sit and work through various subjects with my third grader. This is a new phase for him. It started just after the New Year and following being cooped up all winter due to arctic temperatures, snow, and ice for nearly three months. This was new to him, as he only remembers winters in NC for the past five years. Winters there are mild, and soon as his schoolwork was done, we would head outside or to the park to play. We were often wearing shorts outside in the winter because there were so few cold days! So moving to IN and having to spend so much time indoors this winter was a shock to him.
Over the past three to four years, he has always loved doing schoolwork and was very motivated in the past. But this year he has struggled with new concepts, new challenges, and he doesn’t “want” to do it. He wants to play, or build, or go outside if the weather permits. In the past, I could use playing or building as motivators, but not this year. The only motivator right now seems to be video games, and there are none in CTC Math. So I am in the midst of this tug of war with him right now.
He is working at grade level in CTC Math, watches the videos, completes the lesson, etc., but does not like going back and repeating the lesson questions if he didn’t pass. I think it has to do with the fact that he doesn’t want to repeat the lesson if he doesn’t score high enough. In CTC Math, you don’t pass the lesson unless you reach a score of 80% correct or more. His scores range from 60% to 95% correct. He does not want to go back and repeat the lessons he did not get a passing grade on. It is just not his personality and he is not motivated by this method. His two older brothers love this opportunity to improve, but this son sees it as a form of torture to make him try again, and he would rather not. He also would like to have the questions read to him and does not want to read them himself. I wish there was a button we could push, and the teacher / tutor could read the question. This would be a great help to struggling readers and for audio learners.
I will continue to require him to complete 1 or 2 lessons a day depending on his mood, but I have given up asking him to repeat the lesson if he misses too many questions. I hope he will mature in the near future and have a self motivation and desire to re-learn those concepts that he might not have a good grasp on right now. I really think that requiring a child to be at a specific level or master a specific skill when they are not ready is not beneficial, so I am allowing him to proceed on through the lessons despite the scores. Overall, he likes using CTC Math and is learning a lot of math concepts and skills. He is very proud if he completes two or more lessons in a setting, but he doesn’t care what the score is. There will come a day (I hope) that he is more ready to repeat and practice those skills and scores that he needs to improve.
I am looking forward to getting two more of my kids going in CTC Math…and…myself…started…too. With the 12 Month Family Plan, we can have up to 10 students using it at the same time. Wow! We have never had such a great resource so easily accessible for our whole family! I am so grateful for this opportunity to use this program. Our daughter has done a couple of review lessons to try it out, and she did well, so she is ready now to start using it daily. I have yet to try it out with my pre-K son, but I think he is showing maturity in math skills, and sitting still to learn lessons, and I plan to get him started with it soon. I am going to start the program too. I plan to start at the preAlgebra level starting May 1st. My hope is that I can progress through Algebra, Geometry, Calculus, and Triganometry. Why not? As well and quickly as my kids are learning with this program, it should be able to help me “get it” too and finally understand how to do complicated math.
My kids and I think this math curriculum is AWESOME! It is not fun and games, it is serious math instruction. But it is not boring either and the teacher / tutor, Pat Murray, is from Australia. He speaks slowly and is easy to understand and the kids can repeat what they have learned. I would encourage homeschool families to check it out and see if it meets their needs too. I think CTC Math would be a great resource for college students to review and improve their math skills too. It sure would have helped me get through college Math 101 and 102 if I had a resource such as this.
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Be sure to check out what other families on the Schoolhouse Review Crew had to say about CTC Math.
