Math Practice ver. 2.1 - Copyright (c) 1993-1995 John D. Reading

Welcome to Math Practice.  This started as a fairly simple program that I
wrote to help my third grader who needed a little help with her
multiplication.  It seemed to help her, so I decided to share it.  I
sent the first version of Math Practice out on the Internet in 1993 as
shareware, asking $1 for registration, and received 5 replies.  However,
the first reply was from a second grade teacher who was using the program
in her class, who asked for some simple extensions to the program.
Knowing it was being used in a class was very exciting to me, and I
immediately embarked on expanding and improving the program.

The third grader is now a fifth grader, and I now have another college
degree and our family survived the Northridge earthquake, but somehow
through it all I kept working on Math Practice.  The program is not
perfect, but it does help a student practice the mechanics of
addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.  The long division
mechanics took the longest to write, but I am quite proud of them.  I
hope they help kids learn arithmetic better.  Version 2.0 was released
a little prematurely, so version 2.1 fixes some bugs that surfaced.

Execute the program by typing mathprac.  The program keeps a very simple
log of performance, listing the name the child entered, the number of
problems attempted and the number correct.  This log is found in the file
mathprac.scr in the directory from which the program was run.

The program also repeats problems that the student has missed before.
This capability is implemented in a fairly simple way, so when a problem
is missed it may show up the very next time, and the program forgets all
about it once the student has gotten it right (or more correctly, once
right for each time it was missed).

There are a couple of places (the welcoming screen, and after a correct
problem) that the program puases for a "long" time (6 to 10 seconds).
Hitting a key will break out of these pauses.

Math Practice will present problems with the operands stacked on top
of each other and allowing the student to work with carries and borrows.
This happens whenever the "Largest Number Used" selection is set to 13
or higher (I felt that if the problems are 12 or lower they fit in the
category of "memorization").  Borrows are not done quite right because
the student doesn't have to calculate the borrow, just indicate that one
is desired.  This is largely because I couldn't figure out a good user
interface to allow the student to work through the borrow.

There is some customization allowed through the file parents.ini.  The
default parents.ini file will be created after you run the program once,
and can be recreated at any time by deleting the existing parents.ini file
and rerunning Math Practice.  The fields are not very well explained in
the file, so here are a few more clues:

Parameter name                 Default Value
--------------                 -------------
minimum_operand                     5       This is the lowest value that
					    can be selected as the maximum
					    to be used for problems.
					    Setting this higher forces larger
					    numbers in problems.

maximum_operand                   999       This is the maximum number
					    that can be selected as the
					    maximum to be used for problems.
					    The largest value it can be set
					    to is 999, it would make no
					    sense to set this lower than the
					    minimum_operand.  There is
					    probably no real reason to change
					    this value.

default_operand                    12       This is the value offered as the
					    default maximum when the program
					    starts.  It should be between the
					    minimum and the maximum.

min_entertainment_interval        120  seconds
					    There are some "entertainments"
					    which appear periodically after
					    either a certain time has passed
					    or a certain number of problems
					    have been worked correctly.  This
					    value sets the minimum time that
					    must elapse between enter-
					    tainments, although getting the
					    min_entertainment_count number
					    of problems right will override
					    this.

random_entertainment_interval     120  seconds
					    This is the range of the random
					    time increment that will be added
					    to the minimum interval.

min_entertainment_count             5       This is the minimum number of
					    correct answers before another
					    entertainment comes up.

random_entertainment_count          8       This is the range of the random
					    count that will be added to the
					    minimum count between enter-
					    tainments.  The idea is that the
					    student will not know exactly
					    when the next entertainment will
					    occur.


Math Practice requires an EGA or better (only uses EGA resolution) to run,
and a 286 or better.  Memory requirements are minimal.

Pricing shareware is a challenge for me, because I know how many hours I
have put into this, but I know that there is a lot of excellent software
available for relatively little money.  I am asking $10.00 as the
registration fee for Math Practice.  Your registration will allow you to
use the program with a clear conscience and will allow me to continue to
develope software.  Please register.  If you print out payment.txt (and your
printer spaces lines like mine does) then you will have a sheet that can be
folded to make a mailer for the payment.  If you use this, tape the check
or money firmly inside and tape the mailer shut.  In fact, you may want to
use a double piece of paper, because one sheet isn't opaque enough to hide
what is inside.

Thanks,

John Reading
Internet: readingj@aol.com
Mail (Send registration here): John D. Reading
			       1443 Roan St.
			       Simi Valley, Calif. 93065