IsSaxonPlusSingaporeTooMuch < Kitchen

03 Nov 2005 - 05:19

Is Saxon plus Singapore too much?

We had a request today for some information about supplementing Saxon Math with Singapore Math...

I found this site several weeks ago and I LOVE IT! I started homeschooling my two sons last year after taking them out of public school. I have been using Saxon math. Last year they were in second and third grade and I had them in Saxon 2 and 3. This year, I have them both in Saxon 5/4. I like the Saxon program because it seems to be very thorough and they have plenty of practice. Neither I nor they are very strong in mental math and I have wondered about supplementing Saxon with Singapore Math. I'd like some advice on this. Would it be overkill? To let you know about where they are now: It takes them about an hour a day to do their math lessons. They are at lesson 28 in Saxon. (It's all pretty much review—nothing they haven't had before.) They have had four tests and have done well on all of them. (They both scored 100 percent on the first three.) My older son knows his multiplication facts through 12s pretty well. My younger son is shakier on these and hasn't learned sixes, eights and twelves. I tried giving them the Singapore 3a placement test and they just couldn't do it. I started giving them the Singapore 2a placement test and they are handling that fine (though with a lot of complaints because they have to THINK about what to do in the word problems.) They both like to have me walk them through problems instead of making a stab at it on their own. Thanks in advance for any help anyone can give me. Diane

First responders on the scene (with math tourniquets) were Susan and Dan...

Susan's response:

A homeschooler friend of mine once told me that many homeschoolers use both Singapore and Saxon at the same time. I'm presently using Saxon as the core supplement curriculum for my public school child, but I add Singapore problems to whatever chapter I'm on.
Singapore's word problems are better than any of the other books I've seen because they start with one and two steps and move up to 4+ steps by their level 5.
I don't know if you've seen The Well Trained Mind book, but it has an easy to follow schedule for homeschooling all subjects throughout the years of your child. You might get some ideas of how much to do from there. Since I'm an "after-schooler," as they call me, I haven't ever looked closely at the way they set up the teaching schedule, but it looks fairly thorough.

Dan's response:

I haven't homeschooled, so I feel a little uncomfortable commenting...but only a little.
I just wanted to ask if you were testing the multiplication (and, for that matter, addition) facts with timed tests. I'm pretty sure that timed fact tests are part of the Saxon school curriculum. It seems to be a consensus opinion here at KTM that these facts must be mastered to the point of automaticity. I certainly agree, and have found any lack of automaticity to be a major hindrance as students try to move forward.

And Diane replied..

DanK, Yes, I am using timed tests for addition and subtraction, and I use multiplication fact worksheets for drill, though I don't usually time them. We are just now moving into timed multiplication tests with Saxon.
SusanS, I have read "The Well Trained Mind" and I just revisited her suggestions for scheduling. An hour a day for math seems pretty typical for what most other homeschoolers I know are doing.
I am leaning towards getting Singapore and supplementing with it. Some of my friends who use Saxon with their kids just have the child work every other problem. I've been having my sons do every problem, and, as I commented earlier, it takes them about an hour. I don't want them to get overwhelmed by having an hour and a half of math every day, so I guess I would have to cut out some of the practice problems in Saxon.

So I'll weigh in now with a few thoughts...

I think an amalgam of Saxon and Singapore is a good choice for homeschooling. With Saxon, especially in the early grades, you can be sure that you're not missing out on any essential skills. I think Singapore has a good emphasis on word problems, and I like the way they get kids thinking algebraically very early.

I home-supplemented my son a lot the last two years (we had a constructivist curriculum in 4th and 5th grade—Everyday Math), and even though I'm knowledgeable about math, there were days when I felt up to the task of 'constructing his curriculum' (so to speak) and days when I just didn't. Saxon is a great support for homeschoolers who don't want to be carefully preparing their kids' lessons every day. Singapore takes a greater background knowledge of math, and is much harder for the kids to do independently than Saxon, so to do Singapore, you'll be making a commitment to get really involved with your kids' math. Not every homeschooler wants to do this.

I'd be reluctant to cut out every other Saxon problem on a regular basis, because I think those mixed practice problem sets are the genius of Saxon. They'll revisit a skill intermittently, and if your kids are only doing even problems, they'll miss getting the practice they need if the skill only appears in odd problems (it would be genius indeed if they had enough forethought to put a given skill alternately in even and odd problems!).

You could start by trying to add Singapore word problems to each math session, and see whether that worked; you might find the kids tolerate it pretty easily. If not, you might try switching off days. You wouldn't get through either curriculum as fast, but Saxon has a lot of repetition from one year to the next, so even if you didn't get all the way through a Saxon book you'd have little cause for worry.

Another thing you might consider doing is making Saxon your main text, and supplementing from one of the Singapore books that specializes in word problems, since that's where I think Singapore really has the most to offer. Singapore has a workbook series called Challenging Word Problems Books 1 - 6 ($7.80 plus shipping; 129 pages), in a U.S. (as opposed to British English) edition. You can start at the workbook that's at the level your kids placed into; the problems are marked at a mixture of difficulty levels. This is definitely what I would do if I were constructing a homeschool program.

One more thought—my son, who has Asperger's Syndrome, got balky in second grade about doing math timed tests. He would basically refuse to deal with them, in class; although he knew the facts, he wouldn't do the timed tests because he was reluctant to deal with the time pressure. We ended up doing some heavy bribing to get him to move on those tests (once he did, he was fine). I think adding the time pressure factor is important to nudge the kids toward automaticity. Rewards in the form of treats or outings or privileges are good, I think. Competition can also be good, if it's friendly competition and not cutthroat (and if they're siblings that close in age, it could get ugly).

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Well, all I have to say is that they sound like they're about where I was in 4th grade (times tables up to 12's, long division, multi-digit multiplication, etc.) I wasn't a little Gauss by any means, but I turned out alright. (I'm a grad student in math right now.)

-- PaulMiller - 03 Nov 2005

First responders on the scene (with math tourniquets) were Susan and Dan...

I love it!

-- CatherineJohnson - 03 Nov 2005

Challenging Word Problems Books 1 - 6 ($7.80 plus shipping; 129 pages)

-- CatherineJohnson - 03 Nov 2005

Hi Paul!

-- CatherineJohnson - 03 Nov 2005

My two cents:

Saxon & Singapore—WOW
Makes me wish I could homeschool Christopher
go for it!

you can probably cut their math time substantially by writing out the problems for them beforehand. This is a problem with Saxon Math you see everywhere on homeschooling forums: no 'consumables.' The kids have to recopy their problems. Watch any grade school child copying math problems and you'll see the cost. It's hard. When Christopher and I were powering our way through Saxon 6/5 (we were doing two complete lessons a day last summer, including one timed fast-facts sheet) I finally hit on the strategy of writing the problems down myself. In fact, I made up my own Saxon Math answer sheets I could print out. (I'll find them again & attach them here.) At one point, last school year, I was actually serving as Christopher's 'keyboard'; I was writing down each number of his answer as he came up with it. At the time I was worried this was going to be a big mistake, but it turned out fine. He was doing enough 'math writing' at school that I wasn't preventing him from getting math 'into his hand,' as Carolyn would say. SO: CREATE YOUR OWN SAXON CONSUMABLES.

Saxon worksheets are here These are Word documents that should download to your desktop. You can print them out for every lesson (in every book of the series through 8/7) and write or type the problems in the correct spaces). If you type in the problems, I'd love to get copies to upload to Kitchen Table Math. We'd have a set of Saxon workbooks people could download.

I no longer think Singapore Math is particularly hard to teach for parents starting over again in math, so I wouldn't let that stop me (though I'd start with Saxon, as you have, to be on the safe side.) What threw me about the Singapore Math series, the summer before last, was the teacher's manual, which I found almost impossible to read. Bad graphic design strikes again. The Singapore Math books themselves are brilliantly laid out; you almost can't not learn from them. Here's my advice: get the books and do every lesson yourself, including all the problems, before you teach it to your sons. You should be doing the same with Saxon, btw. I figured this out not too long into Saxon 6/5. I had assumed I could just read the lesson thoroughly & make some notes before teaching it to Christopher. But after awhile I realized I needed to do the math, not just read it. I think this is especially important for a homeschooler, since you're going to be your kids' primary math teacher at least 'til high school (yes?) In fact, I've been planning to write a post about this. I've come to believe all parents—homeschoolers, afterschoolers, and everyone else—should re-take elementary math with their kids. It's good for you, and it's fun.

A second point: when you start back at the beginning of elementary mathematics, or close to the beginning, and do every problem yourself it's like the old saying about lifting a baby cow. If you lift a baby cow every day you won't notice how heavy it is by the time it's an adult. (The only difference is that in the case of math this saying happens to be true.)

I agree with Carolyn on the every-other-problem approach. The Saxon problem sets aren't built like the problem sets in a normal textbook, which are specially constructed so that a student can do all the odd problems or all the even problems. You could get around this by going through the problems yourself and picking out the ones for them to do; each problem has a number after it identifying which Lesson it comes from. But frankly, I'd just create Saxon workbooks for them, using the Saxon pages I'll post.

I haven't gone through the entire Singapore series, though I hope to get to that. For my own learning, I'm using the Challenging Word Problems. I've done every problem in the third grade book, and am starting Book 4. However, I'd say you should get the series itself. This is another subject I've been planning to post on. I've come to believe that people need at least two math books on the same grade level to learn well. Since your strength isn't math, and since you're new to teaching math_—a whole new endeavor—you need two things: a) stronger knowledge of elementary mathematics AND b) _pedagogical content knowledge. You need more than one book for you.

The bar models start in the 3rd grade book! Do them with your kids! Even though Christopher has lots of homework, even though he's in pre-algebra at school, I'm still having him do 3 bar models a week. He's working his way through Primary Mathematics 3B now, I think. We started at the very beginning of 3A, and we are systematically doing every single bar model word problem in the book. Here's Sybilla Beckmann on "Solving Algebra and Other Story Problems with Simple Diagrams: a Method Demonstrated in Grade 4–6 Texts Used in Singapore." (pdf file)

The genius of Saxon is everywhere! Not just in the problem sets! I'm back in the thick of the Saxon books myself—Saxon 8/7—and they're incredible. I continue to see the word problems as the weakest element, so at a minimum I'd bring in Singapore word problems.

one last thing: depending on finances, I would consider ditching the Saxon Fast Facts sheets & putting Kumon in their place

-- CatherineJohnson - 03 Nov 2005

Hey—Saxon 8/7 has a lesson on unit conversion!

-- CatherineJohnson - 03 Nov 2005

on recopying math problems: think KUMON

children zip through math levels doing KUMON, and they never, ever recopy problems

-- CatherineJohnson - 03 Nov 2005

Catherine,

How much does it cost for you and your son to go to Kumon?

-- AnneDwyer - 03 Nov 2005

Hey—I was going to make that very question my New KTM Poll!

-- CatherineJohnson - 03 Nov 2005

While looking for some info on the DI math curriculum (connecting math concepts) I stumbled upon Wayne Bishop's review of Saxon and CMC at Mathematically Correct. He concludes "Both CMC and Saxon do this well and my impression is that Saxon does it better, at least in the hands of competent teachers."

I'd still like to get my hands on the CMC curriculum.

SRA also has a lot of good stuff on the DI curricula including CMC, including some research studies.

-- KDeRosa - 03 Nov 2005

Here is a sample lesson from DI math on adding fractions.

-- KDeRosa - 03 Nov 2005

Here's another.

-- KDeRosa - 03 Nov 2005

Here's one on subtraction.

-- KDeRosa - 03 Nov 2005

What is CMC?

I'm going to go look.

-- CatherineJohnson - 03 Nov 2005

I'm confused by all these acronyms.

SRA is the curriculum we had here, in Irvington.

It was extremely difficult to teach from, by all accounts, and not very direct instruction-ish...

-- CatherineJohnson - 03 Nov 2005

Cmc is the di curriculum. Connecting math concepts.

Sra produces many curricula, both good and bad,

-- KDeRosa - 03 Nov 2005

Paul

Where are you going to grad school and what do you want to study?

-- CarolynJohnston - 03 Nov 2005

Just read over the DI subtraction lessons. I'm also doing Sngapore math subtraction (1A) and it has a very similar vibe too it. Almost a scripted version. It uses the same number family triangle that Singapore does.

Can anyone compare it to Saxon subtraction?

-- KDeRosa - 03 Nov 2005

Unfortunately, I can't, because the first Saxon book I own is 6/5.

I'll take a look at Singapore 1A.

Does DI talk about subtraction as comparison? (That may come a bit later in Singapore; I don't know.)

-- CatherineJohnson - 03 Nov 2005

I agree on Singapore, though.

Those books give much more 'teacher support' than I thought at first.

They're close to scripted....

(True of the later books, as well.)

-- CatherineJohnson - 03 Nov 2005

I'm about halfway through 1A, and has already laid the foundation for subtraction as comparison.

You have the typical subtraction as "taking away" problems.

But, you also have the comparsion problems:

There are 10 fish altogether. 5 fish are blue. How many are Red?

So, its not quite all the waythere yet, but the groundwork is being laid.

-- KDeRosa - 03 Nov 2005

wow

In first grade.

-- CatherineJohnson - 03 Nov 2005

In the first three months of first grade.

-- KDeRosa - 03 Nov 2005

Have you read Parker & Baldridge?

-- CatherineJohnson - 03 Nov 2005

I just tracked down this commentary by Wayne Bishop (I'll get it posted up front today, I hope).

-- CatherineJohnson - 03 Nov 2005

Actually....I just realized, I have the Kindergarton Saxon book. (Either K or grade 1.)

I'll look later & see how they deal with subtraction.

-- CatherineJohnson - 03 Nov 2005

Haven't read this yet....

Singapore Math in Middlesex, MA

-- CatherineJohnson - 03 Nov 2005

Have you read Parker & Baldridge?

No I haven't. You've mentioned it before.

-- KDeRosa - 03 Nov 2005

The Singapore article is kind of interesting because the teacher seems to be trying to suggest that it is closer to constructivism than traditional teaching methods. Some people will never give up.

-- SusanS - 03 Nov 2005

The Singapore article is kind of interesting because the teacher seems to be trying to suggest that it is closer to constructivism than traditional teaching methods. Some people will never give up.

Oh, funny.

Well, as a person pretty familiar with both curricula at this point, I would have to say SAXON MATH IS CLOSER TO CONSTRUCTIVISM THAN SINGAPORE MATH!

-- CatherineJohnson - 04 Nov 2005

That's rather like saying that elephants are closer to wasps than rhinos are.

-- CarolynJohnston - 04 Nov 2005

not quite; I'm thinking of the Saxon Investigations, which I like so much.

I don't think Singapore has any investigation at all.

(I could be wrong about that....)

-- CatherineJohnson - 04 Nov 2005

I'm going to Western Michigan University (yes, the home of CorePlus). Right now I am working on a master's degree in math, as a prelude to a PhD. I intend to teach university level math.

-- PaulMiller - 04 Nov 2005

wow!

Paul!

I'm now able to conceive of taking undergraduate courses in math, which I plan to do.

I am not able to conceive of taking graduate courses in math.

-- CatherineJohnson - 05 Nov 2005

Funny thing about those math courses is that they aren't as sequential as their course numbers and traditional scheduling would make you think. Depending on someone's strengths/weaknesses and interests/inclinations, we offer some 300-level courses that are, in some sense, easier than calculus.

And Catherine is home-schooling herself in "Math for Elementary School Teachers." Six credit hours at the 200-level. This course that strikes fear into math faculty when we see how underprepared a substantial number of our students are. After teaching this course, one realizes why the PRAXIS exams are so easy -- you don't have to set the bar very high if you want to filter out the lowest-performing applicants.

-- RudbeckiaHirta - 05 Nov 2005

First responders on the scene (with math tourniquets)...

I think we can dismiss this as "knots for clots" :)

-- DanK - 05 Nov 2005

Re "easier than calculus":

Someone asked me the other day what I thought the easiest math course I'd taken in college was. I told them it was my 300 level abstract algebra class. The reason, I said, was that the grade was based on homework + 3 tests + final exam, and the prof said he would drop whichever of the homework and 3 regular tests was the worst. I, therefore, chose not to do any homework that semester after acing the first test.

I think the reason I felt it was so easy was that there was essentially no calculation involved. Calculations make it easy for me to make mistakes, as my algebra students will attest. Of course, I make mistakes in proofs, but those tend to be either the "it's mostly correct, except for a couple details" variety or the "this has no resemblence to mathematics" variety, with very few of the latter.

-- PaulMiller - 05 Nov 2005

The only thing I'd add about the Well-Trained Mind book is for you to avoid putting too much stock into the schedules; those were the publisher's idea. Some subjects can be done in much less time than the schedules suggest, particularly in the earlier grades.

Math takes an hour at my house (which, at the moment, consists of a Singapore lesson, 40 addition problems and 40 subtraction problems -- untimed). But my kid is a Certified Slowpoke.

Math takes up fully a quarter, if not a third, of our instruction time. But we'd never get our school day done if we had to spend even half an hour each on spelling or grammar. Four hours of work in second grade is plenty, let me tell ya.

-- BrendaM - 07 Nov 2005

And Catherine is home-schooling herself in "Math for Elementary School Teachers." Six credit hours at the 200-level.

I love it!

That's true. That's exactly what I'm doing.

(Also homeschooling myself in elementary mathematics pure and simple, which I realize is part of Math for Elementary School Teachers...but I'm a little more intense about it, probably.)

wow

Six credit hours

who knew?

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Nov 2005

Calculations make it easy for me to make mistakes, as my algebra students will attest. Of course, I make mistakes in proofs, but those tend to be either the "it's mostly correct, except for a couple details" variety or the "this has no resemblence to mathematics" variety, with very few of the latter.

I love it!

Do you get partial credit for it's-mostly-correct-except-for-a-couple-of-details???

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Nov 2005

Brenda

That reminds me.

Christopher needs to do his spelling.

Bad performance on today's math test. Sigh. (He just took it.)

Well, at least this will tell him he has to take me seriously when I tell him he has to study.

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Nov 2005

WebLogForm
Title:	Is Saxon plus Singapore too much?
TopicType:	WebLog
SubjectArea:	AboutCurricula, ElementaryMath, ParentsTeachingKids, SaxonMath, SingaporeMath
LogDate:	200511030017

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Is Saxon plus Singapore too much?

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