Back in November 2006, Bob had posted a picture of his daughters and mine (here is a link to that post) - the four girls had gotten together for Thanksgiving. Meera was 5 at the time.
She just graduated from Kindergarten (yes, she is an October birthday and regardless of how 'qualified' or 'ready' she was, she could not begin grade K until Aug 2007. BTW, Kindergarten is OPTIONAL in the State of Indiana!). Her teacher told us she did VERY WELL.
Knowing that her global counterparts are already mastering multiplication and division, I made a deal with her - for every IMO assignment she completed successfully she would get a $$ incentive, provided she got at least 30 questions right in an assignment containing 35 questions (see picture of her actually working on the IMO assignments)
Yes, she does like to eat and do math. And her sister keeps her company when she does math!
The 'deal' seems to be working so far - in a given week, she devotes time to do a minimum of 4 assignments. When she needs that extra dollar, she comes to me asking for more...{and my wife is responsible for making sure Meera spends her money wisely!}
I know there are several parents who have young children that are around my daughter's age. I also realize getting them to dedicate time for math work (or reading/writing) is a difficult task. My experience so far is this - with a proper incentive and making it easy for her to gain success in small increments seem to work well. Sometimes, Meera would say - "Daddy, this is hard and taking too long". My response is - "break it up into two installments and get it done by end of the day". That seem to do the trick with her.
I tried getting her to do the assignments online - after the first 10 or so questions, she gets distracted by the 'glamor' of the computer and she wants to do Gmail. So, I print out the worksheets (hint: product improvements are on the way!) and she completes the assignments. Then either she inputs the answers or I input the answers.
I have compiled the relevant 'dashboards' to illustrate a point - click here to see the results.
What I have discovered is that she needs help in "Subtraction" and "Money" and we are diligently focusing on those topics. With Indian Math Online it is very easy to focus the Practices on just those two topics and we are doing just that.
My wife and I have also discovered that her reading has improved significantly - most of the math problems in Indian Math Online require her to read well and comprehend the sentences.
Both mom and dad are proud of Meera!... best news of all, Meera likes Math!
{Posted with approval from Mom and Meera!}
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