Lemme tell you a little story.  Ben, a young father that I know, has a son in the second grade.  Ben told me that every night it was a battle to get his son to do his homework.  It took an hour and a half to get his son to do 20 minutes worth of math homework.  Then Ben discovered Khan Academy.

Khan Academy was established by Salman Khan. Khan is a commodities broker and has a BS in mathematics from MIT.  (And a BS in computer science and a BS in electrical engineering both from MIT and an MBA from Harvard. I think it is safe to say he is rather smart.  Rather.)

Khan’s young cousin was struggling in math and she asked him to help her.  The only problem was they lived hundreds of miles apart.  Being the smart problem solving person that he is, Khan created a little video.  He posted it to YouTube so his cousin could access it anytime she wanted — and as often as she wanted.

Time went on.  She asked for more help so he created several more videos.  Then, Khan noticed something.  His videos were getting lots of hits on YouTube.  That meant lots of people were viewing them.  This gave him an idea.  Khan quit his commodities broker job and started Khan Academy where he developed videos on how to solve mathematical problems.  And it was all online.  And it is all free.  Free as in nobody has to pay anything for it.

There’s lots more interesting facts about Khan Academy that I could share with you.  But I won’t.  I want to get back to Ben’s story.

When Ben learned about Khan Academy, he had his son log on.  Ben sat by his son as his son worked through some problems.  The son willingly spent 30 minutes on the site.  The next night, his son logged on to Khan Academy without any nudging from his father.

Now, the son is mastering multiplication which he should learn in the third grade.  All on his own, he’s stared learning division — something that he won’t get introduced to until the 4th grade.   Remember, this kid is just in the second grade.  Ben’s son now spends an hour and a half on the site doing math problems and Ben has to fight to get him to stop doing math so that his son could go to bed.

At school when students finish their seat work early, the teacher allows them free reading time.  Ben’s son asked his teacher if he could work on math problems instead.  He created his own problem — a seven digit number multiplied by a 5 digit number.  Think about that for a moment.  That’s like doing a math problem like this:

9483726
x 38259

Do you know any second graders who could do that kind of a multiplication problem?  I didn’t think so.

Part of the reason Ben’s son likes this site so well is that he earns points for getting correct answers.  He also earns badges.  It’s like a game.  And Ben doesn’t care because his son is excited to do math homework.  He is excited to do math problems.  No more tears and no more fighting over homework in the evenings. (Just when he has to stop and go to bed!)

Do you have a grandchild that is struggling with math?  Do you have one that is just starting to learn how to add and subtract?  Do you have a grandchild that is doing calculus and his parents can’t help him with his homework because they don’t know calculus?

Tell them about Khan Academy.  The academy covers K-12 math.  And stuff like rational inequalities, function inverses, polynomial approximation of function, and line integral of conservative vector field.  Now, those words are in English.  I have a BA in English — but I have absolutely no clue whatsoever about what those words mean.  Isn’t it nice that there is someone nice like Sal to help our grandchildren with math problems like these. (There’s also stuff like chemistry, physics, economics, and finance.)

I highly recommend that you share Khan Academy with your grandchildren. If they are young, sit down together to explore and use the site.  If your grandchildren are in junior high and high school, you can sit down together with them, too — if they would let you!

Khan Academy.  Got that?  Good.

Here’s to improving our grandchildren’s ability to do math!

(Disclaimer: I do not get any financial remuneration whatsoever for talking about this site. But, I do get a good feeling inside that possibly, just possibly, by sharing this information I may be helping out some child somewhere in the world who is struggling with math.  And that’s the best payment there is!)

Reading is very important to me. I enjoy reading.  Lots.

I made sure my children could read.

Now, I want to be supportive in helping my grandchildren learn to read.  So I was very excited when I learned about the great site Starfall.com.

A young father told me about this site.  He said that his 7 year-old son was struggling with reading.  Because he was struggling, he didn’t want to read.  He didn’t want to try.  The young father spent time with his son on Starfall.com.  After a few time, his son improved his reading and now loves to read.  Once he got over the struggle, once he gained confidence, once he had some successful reading experiences, there was no stopping the son.

This is a pretty amazing site.  If you have a grandchild that is learning her ABCs, there are activities that will help her learn to recognize the letters and their sounds.

If your grandchild is a beginning reader, there are simple stories for her to read. There are fun activities: all about me (creating a little “journal”), go to the art gallery to learn about famous artists, create a magician and do magic tricks, listen to music (Beethoven, Scott Joplin, Peter Tchaikovsky), and learn tongue twisters.

There’s a download center where you can print out a reading and writing journal, cut-up and take home books, puzzles, and ABC printouts.  If your grandchildren live far away, you could print some up and send them in a package with fun pencils, crayons, or markers.

I think that the key to this site is sharing it WITH your grandchildren. They spend time quality time with grandma doing fun activities that will help the learn to read.

Check it out.

And most importantly, spend time reading with your grandchildren!