Rightstart Math Review

I have five boys. Very active crazy boys. Two have ADHD. And all of them are dyslexic. The oldest is 14 and youngest is 5. I have been using Rightstart math from the beginning, which is nine years. (That makes me feel old!)

Even though my kids have learning difficulties, they have been at least a grade AHEAD of where they "should" be in math. In fact, my fourteen year old just took a practice test for the ACT, and he got a 28 on the math portion. (The equivalent of 1300-1320 for SAT.)

Because I've been using Rightstart since 2010, I use the first edition, so this review is about the first edition. I've had the impression that the second edition didn't get rid of any of the amazing qualities that the first edition had, and mostly just added worksheets to comply with Common Core, but I'm not sure.

This review is not funded by Rightstart, but I am prompted to do this review because they gave am amazing contribution to the school for the orphan and impoverished that I volunteered at in Vanuatu.

Check it out:

I really do believe that Rightstart Math is just that: a right start.

It teaches you HOW to think like a mathematician. It teaches kids the WHY behind the numbers. And it helps guide children to come up with equations themselves.

Recently, I went to a conference where the main guest speaker was a math "guru." She toured the country showing school districts math strategies that blew everyone's minds.  I had to chuckle. It was like she was teaching directly from a Rightstart manual.

She talked about the importance of not counting, but instead, immediately recognizing amounts. This is one of the main goals of Rightstart level "A."

Among other things, she also talked about the need to visualize multiplying fractions. She did this the Rightstart way of making a multiplication grid: the columns for one fraction and the rows for the other fraction.

Everyone gasped in amazement; finally being able to visualize multiplying fractions. I just winked at my friend next to me who also uses Rightstart.

It's nice to know that math elites use Rightstart methods, but for me, I love Rightstart because it actually works for my kids.

My kids are severely dyslexic. All five of them. My husband and I are both on the spectrum, and dyslexia is so genetic, that our kids would have to be mutants to NOT be dyslexic. We have no mutants.

Dyslexic children can really excel at math. Infact, that was one of the things that puzzled psychologists when first studying dyslexia: The same children who couldn't read a simple sentence of letters and words, had no trouble reading out numbers and equations.

But the thing that almost always goes hand in hand with dyslexia is poor arbitrary memorization. This is the memorization that has no rhyme or reason: it just IS. Things like names, dates, and scientific terms often are hard for dyslexics to memorize. Don't even attempt to teach them the periodic table of elements. (Just kidding, we still try.)

Usually, maths facts fall into this category of arbitrary memorization. So many math programs out there rely on memorization of facts more than anything else. They chant "2 and 2 is 4, 4 and 4 is 8, 8 and 8 is 16" until they're blue in the face.

This mystifies dyslexic children, and leaves them in the dust.

Rightstart doesn't do that. They have the philosophy that math is 95% UNDERSTANDING and 5% memorization.

What a breath of fresh air!

They explain the "WHY" behind everything the children encounter. Even words like "eleven" (people use to say it's ten and a left over one, and the "a left over" turned into "eleven.")

Rightstart is also extremely visual. The abacus SHOWS the children what is happening to numbers as you do arithmetic. Children can see, touch, and manipulate everything they do.

One of my favourite examples of this, is when Rightstart teaches the about the concept of Pi. They guide the children to take measurements of actual round objects around their house using string the size of that object's diameter. The string can always go around the object three times and a little bit.

That three and a little bit is Pi.

 And then, of course, there's the games. My kids BEG me to do the math games!

The games actually work too. I can gauge where my kids are at, see them improve, and all while having fun.

The only drawback to Rightstart it the time commitment. There is no "go do your math." There is only "LET US do math together." In a big family, this gets overwhelming. Once you get to the older levels, there's less actual teaching, because the teaching is hidden within the do-it-yourself-worksheets (fun worksheets that say things like "go outside and use similar triangles to find out how tall your house is!") But my problem is that there are so many instructions and word problems on the worksheets that my dyslexic boys need my help to read the worksheets.

You might wonder what it's like to teach Rightstart. One word: EASY

No preparation necessary.

No prior knowledge of Rightstart methods needed.

Just open the book, and follow along.

Now, after saying all these positive remarks, I must admit that I feel the the need to supplement Rightstart Math in certain ways. In other words, it hasn't been an absolutely perfect program. But it sure is close!

With my second child, he wasn't remembering that "6 is 5 and 1" and "7 is 5 and 2" etc. even though he had memorized the "Yellow is the Sun" song, and saw it on his fingers, abacus, and tally sticks.

I eventually realized he needed a new approach and I made up stories to go along with the facts: six is sick and all alone- seven is heaven for a couple who is happily married- eight is two people who ATE the ice cream between them- and nine says "mine, mine where's my person to match me? Mine nine."

Also, to help memorize the "Yellow is the Sun" song, I made this visual:

Also, the way Rightstart teaches children how to write numbers is super dyslexic UNfriendly. Dyslexic children typically have a really hard time learning right and left, but this is the main strategy in learning how to write numbers according to Rightstart.

It was no problem for me to find a better way. My kids were already using Handwriting Without Tears for their handwriting, which already included how to write numbers. Handwriting Without Tears is the BEST program out there for teaching dyslexics handwriting (and since HWT also donated to the Vanuatu school, I plan to do a review for them as well.)

And that's the only supplements I needed until level "C" which introduces multiplication. Even though they had a thorough understanding of multiplication because of Rightstart, and given enough time would be able to tell you their times tables, I felt they needed to know the facts quickly and automatically.

I used "Times Tales" for automaticity. Times Tales uses stories to memorize the facts, and it worked like a charm. I highly suggest it.

Next, in level "E" and in "G" the children are required to learn a ton of geography terms. Memorizing terms tends to be an arbitrary memorization hiccup, and my boys needed help. I made some definition flash cards to help remember what these math terms meant.

If you want a link to all my definition flash cards, find it here. 

Also, it was apparent by level "E" and "G" that there were a few subjects that I felt Rightstart didn't cover very well. They kind of took it for granted that the children needed very little instruction in these areas, and quickly skipped to the application of them. Maybe Rightstart fixed this in the new edition.

It was true that because the children have been taught how to think in a mathematical way, these subjects were super easy to master, but they still needed a more thorough explanation to begin with, and I found those explanations from certain movies by "Mathantics" on Youtube.

First, they need to know the order of operations. At least in Rightstart's first edition, it's never spelled out for the kids emphatically. Here's Mathantic's video for order of operations:

Second, Rightstart first edition doesn't do a very thorough job at the distributive property. They give the kids an example, and say "Isn't that obvious that that should work?" Well, it IS obvious after watching this movie:

And third, I really feel like my kids need a better explanation about balancing equations. They understand that an equation needs to be balanced (especially with the actual balanced that is used in some Rightstart lessons) but knowing how to make that happen needs to be more explicitly laid out for my kids. Mathantics does that here:

I also might show my kids the Mathantics' "fractions are division" and "multiplying fractions" movies when I feel like it.


Even with having to use these simple supplements to the Rightstart program, I still feel blessed that I found Rightstart so early on in the game.

I see my kids thriving in mathematics everyday thanks to this amazing program. I hope you can too.