good math programs for home

Also, how hard is it to teach math? Were all of you who teach math good at it in elementary and high school? Do you have to love it? Or can you just learn to teach it?
I am going to college and trying to decide on a major. I just wondered if I could teach math. Math and I have never really gotten along, but maybe it has always been my attitude. I see numbers and my brain goes on the fritz. I really need to find a way to help my son. Anyway……
Thanks
Mary

Various programs have been recommended on this site. I haven’t seen it myself but I like everything I hear about Singapore math. You can order it online and from what I understand you should really get the workbooks as well as the texts. The Singapore system is different from the US and so the grade levels are one lower, ie am told; ie Singapore 1 is more like US2, Singapore 3 is more like US 4, etc. Other programs are often recommended here but I have not heard of any other that is both complete and well-constructed. Some are good ideas but need extra supplementation or special teacher training, and some are not developmentally structured.
If you get a really good program, the thing to do is to actually *teach* it. Unlike what a lot pf people do to try to rush through it, *read* the text with the child, talk it over, work on **understanding the concepts**. Work through *all* the problems, at least the regular ones (you can skip the stuff marked extension or optional or challenge etc. if you want to but that’s it). Take your time and do it right. Better to get five problems right than fifty wrong. And better do five problems with understanding and retention than a hundred by copy and fake.
For yourself, read Sheila Tobias’s “Overcoming Math Anxiety”.
As far as going to college to teach math, some programs are good and some are worse than useless, teaching the same bad habits that have gotten us into the present mess. I’d say get to know a good program and how it is constructed and how it works, and then visit a few college classes and see if they are promoting what works or just running in circles.

Thanks, Victoria
You are a wealth of info.

Mary, I have chosen Math-U-See for working with my LD students. All the new lessons are introduced on a DVD/video which you can watch right along with your child. I think it is good because kids learn how math works, not just the computation. There is also adequate practice and review of previous concepts. It also uses manipulatives.

If your son does not know his basic addition, subtraction, and multiplication facts, you probably need to go back and work on those. But Math-U-See fortunately has a placement test right on the site to help you determine what level instruction he really needs.

http://www.mathusee.com/

Janis

Might be able to use your relationship with the math… if you can decide that you’re both going to learn and understand this stuff. You do, at least, have to know what it is to “get it” (which is rather different than being able to get the right answer with the list of solutions in the back).
Remember, when you get frustrated with it, we’re just a few keyboard clicks away! Reckon between Victoria and I we know a handful of different ways to explain different things…

You may want to try DOTMATH for kids.
http://dotmath.tripod.com/
If you start from the first as a review he should be able to do the
work very fast. When he gets to the part he has trouble with then
slow down and review that part till he gets it.