Archive for May, 2009

My giggling 6 year old traveling companion had to call his friend to tell him. So when we got home we went looking for more number jokes!

Ever wonder what your children should be learning in math? Or what you can do to supplement their math education? When parents know what to expect at each developmental stage, they can foster learning with fun, educational activities at home.

The genesis of how DreamBox does assessment, and one of the reasons I am with the company, occurred over 30 years ago when one of my relatives was diagnosed with a learning disability.

This surprised us and shocked his teachers, who considered him to be in the upper middle to top third of the class for math. His test scores consistently supported this. In many areas he was significantly ahead of his peers. Yet a detailed examination with an expert showed that for him division just didn't compute. Put another way, his brain simply wasn't "wired for division".

Our youngest daughter recently came home facing the decision of whether for the next school year she should go into ‘honors’ math class or the regular math class. We haven’t really faced this before, as the right decision for each of our two older children was straightforward, although different for each. I have seen the angst it has has caused in other families. The stress was particularly acute in those cases where placement was decided by a single test result.

Early on in the development of DreamBox Learning K-2 Math, as we began beta testing with 4-8 year olds, we figured out that our users would have a variety of mouse skills.

In honor of Teacher Appreciation Week, we celebrate 10 great teachers from the past and present.