What makes the Basic Genius Program Unique? 

The Skills and Drills Approach 

First, the Basic Genius Program uses what we call the Skills and Drills Approach.  That means that we don’t start throwing TAKS Math questions at students on Day 1, long before they are ready to handle the complexity of those questions.  Instead, we work on the students’ Skills by helping them build a math toolkit with all the key foundational skills they need to answer the TAKS questions.  Then, after spending more than half the course building students’ Skills, we move into Drills.  In the Drills section of the Course, students work systematically through released TAKS exams from all the available years, applying the Skills acquired in the first part of the course.

Failure Is Not an Option    

The Basic Genius Program is designed around the FINO (Failure Is Not an Option) classroom model that creates a culture of success for students who think of themselves as doomed to failure.  This model builds a sense of student responsibility, achievement, and success that creates the right attitude and foundation for succeeding on the TAKS and in Algebra I.  The training program is essential to understanding and implementing the FINO classroom model with the Basic Genius TAKS Program. 

Abundant Practice Problems  

The Basic Genius Program is designed specifically for TAKS remediation students by teachers that know these students and their abilities.  The other programs we’ve seen generally introduce a concept and include 3 – 4 practice problems.  We know that these students master skills by repetition and that 3 problems are NOT sufficient.  Therefore, each Basic Genius lesson introduces a concept and includes 20 to 40 practice problems.  In the Introductory materials and in the Training, you’ll learn how to manage the classroom to maximize the learning for all the students while keeping the pace moving forward. 

Consumable Workbooks  

We know our target audience – TAKS remediation students.  So, we take a “no excuses” approach that includes individual workbooks that each student “owns.”  The workbooks stay in the classroom and include perforated pages that are torn out and turned in by lesson.  As their workbooks become smaller, students earn a sense of achievement (look how far I’ve come!).  Plus, the turned in lessons make it easy for the teacher to grade assignments. 

Ready to Teach Curriculum  

The Basic Genius Program is designed to be easy to use and ready to implement by new and veteran teachers.  We know how busy teachers are, so we do absolutely EVERYTHING we can to make sure this product is easy to use right “out of the box.”  That means the following:

1. The Program comes with a 4-hour training to jump start the program and get everything going on the right foot
2. Every lesson has an on-target, easy to teach introduction and plenty of problems for students to work through.
3. The pages in the Teacher Edition and the Student Edition align exactly and the Teacher Edition includes the answers under each problem (in the student work space) and in a convenient list at the back
4. The unit tests are already written and ready to print, along with coordinated answer sheets for the students to turn in
5. The Released TAKS Math Exams have been separated and uploaded to our website for easy access and printing by teachers
6. Every Released TAKS Math Exam comes with detailed solutions (not just answers) for every problem
7. Solutions to the Released TAKS Math Exams focus on the most efficient way for this level of student to answer problems
8. Workbooks come with the Basic Genius Reference Guide – the handy summary of everything the students need to know that is NOT included in the state formula chart!
9. A detailed, class-by-class Syllabus that organizes the classroom lessons around 45-minute periods.