If your child is using Prelude to Algebra and you are used to helping with his/her homework, that’s great. But be careful. Many of the problems may look familiar to you, but we are teaching the students to think about them in a special way. Before you jump in with the “usual” explanation, you are strongly encouraged to read the lesson to see what we are doing. If you do this on a regular basis, you may even learn a few new things yourself!
For example, suppose your son is having trouble with a particular lesson.
A good way for you to help is to ask him to explain as much as he can of the
lesson. If he says he doesn’t understand any of it, then go back to an
earlier lesson that he can explain. That will be a great review for
him. Start where he feels confident and build from there. As you
progress on, read the book together and look at the examples. They will
give you a pattern to follow in the exercises.
The exercises are divided into two parts. The “Develop Your Skill” exercises relate to the new material that has just been explained and illustrated in the lesson. The “Maintain Your Skill” exercises are review problems. If you need more examples for practice, there are additional review problems at the end of each chapter. All the review problems are labeled with the number of the lesson where the problem is explained. The answers to all the odd-numbered problems are in the back of the book.
On additional suggestion: Talk to your child’s teacher. All of the teachers who use Prelude to Algebra have been specially trained in how to use the book. Most of them are very willing to provide extra help and explanations to motivated students (and their parents).