CTC Math Review: Kindergarten Curriculum
If you’re considering CTC Math for your Kindergarten homeschool curriculum, and you want to know what it’s like, you’ve come to the right spot. In this article, I’ll review CTC Math for Grade K and give you my opinion on the pros and cons of this program. We’ll also talk about how to get started by adding a student, doing a diagnostic test and getting your children’s grades all in one place.
Overview of CTC Math for Kindergarten
CTC Math is a United States curriculum for grades K-12. The program can be used in schools and homeschools. The curriculum is self-paced, incorporating videos and other forms of media. Parents or teachers can access reports and review answers from their own screens using their own login details. If you’re interested in using this program, you can do this by taking advantage of their free trial.
In addition to this CTC Math review, check out these other reviews:
These CTC Math reviews will give you a few different perspectives on this curriculum and help you decide if it’s the right math program for you!
Why CTC Math is Different
With many different math programs available today, how does CTC differ?
The founder, Pat Murray, explains that CTC differs in the time it takes to teach a concept. Murray says modern educators typically take 15 minutes to explain a concept that should only take a few minutes to explain.
CTC Math differs in that, instead of requiring a student to listen to a long-winded explanation, they get a brief exposition of the concept and then spend the rest of the time practising the concept, which is a much better use their time.
Their interest is more piqued when they’re learning as an active participant, instead of a passive listener.
How Getting Started With CTC Math
The Dashboard
You log in as a parent and then come to the dashboard which shows you the latest tasks that are active, expired, and upcoming. It also shows you when your subscription is due to expire.
Below this is a box showing completed activities, awards, and weekly reports. This features the students you have added.
Under this is the ‘Parent’s’ tab where you can view weekly reports, awards, and certificates.
The tools tab lets you browse lessons, export data and see checklists. The checklists are a handy way to keep track of your student’s date of completion and grades (see below picture).
Adding a Student
To get started, navigate to the ‘Students’ tab and then click, ‘Add Student’ which is a round icon with a favicon and a plus sign.
Choose a username and password for the child. After this, you can decide what pass grade is given (it’s automatically set at 80%) and how many attempts a student has before the answers are revealed.
Starting CTC Math Lessons
After setting up everything above, students can go to their [name] in the student section and click, ‘Login as [child’s first name]’.
You then come to a page where you click on the grade and lesson.
After this, you’re directed to do a diagnostic test (either short, standard, or comprehensive). This is great as children don’t waste time doing busywork when they already know the material.
After finishing the diagnostic test, you can print or save results (or do more questions if you feel this is the right move).
Lessons
The lessons I viewed started with a short video session. After this, students navigate to the questions tab and do some questions regarding the video they’ve just watched.
After they finish the video, you can generate a report or continue to the next lesson. You work through a number of lessons in a topic and then you can move on to the next topic.
Each lesson has a short video and then questions where children can practice the concept.
Before the next lesson begins, there’s a quick recap of the previous lesson.
Speed Skills
CTC Math Speed Skills gives children a red hot challenge. Students pick their math level and then a screen appears with math sums.
As the timer counts down, students have to answer the sums. When the timer has run out, the participant is given a score and a score number appears. You’re also told if you’ve beat your previous high score giving children something to aim for.
How Much Does CTC Cost?
CTC costs $148.50 for the whole family. This price is half price for homeschoolers as the creators are trying to encourage homeschooling families to use its program.
Pros of CTC Math
Some pros of CTC Math are:
- Lessons are very visual and varied, which I liked. They are also colorful which adds more interest to the lessons.
- For those who are struggling to read, a narrator will read out the questions.
- Unlike a physical math book, CTC math can incorporate multi-sensory ways of learning. For example, one exercise gets students to count the blows on a whistle, making students add in their heads on the run. This helps drum in the answer as it is auditory.
- Lessons come in short video form.
- The narrator’s voice was very pleasing and easy to listen to.
- Progress reports help educators identify strong and weak points. These are sent to parents every week via email.
- Because you get unlimited access to all lessons in all grades, you can advance your children if you find they’re topping a grade, or keep them back if you find they need more work in a grade.
- The fun colors and green ticks when you get an answer right makes it feel almost like you’re playing a game.
- You can expect a higher standard of your children by requiring them to get over a certain percentile. (That is, you can expect more than 50% from your children.)
Cons of CTC Math
Some cons of CTC Math are:
- Some drag and drop exercises were a little clunky. This was annoying as I felt like my time was wasted a little.
- Initially, I felt a little lost and would have liked more prompts about where to go next and what to do. However, these teething issues disappeared quickly.
The cons list is relatively small and wouldn’t stop me using the program.
What Happens if I Have Problems With CTC Math?
Easy. Just email info@ctcmath.com or call 310-281-2217 and they can help you out. This information is also available at the top of the dashboard when you login.
Conclusion
CTC Math seems to be a good option for teaching a kindergarten-aged homeschool child. The program uses different forms of media to reinforce various mathematical concepts and gives parents a detailed report of how the child has performed week-after-week. With your subscription, you can skip lessons if your child knows the material, or even skip a grade if they’re well ahead without purchasing extra curriculum.
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