Posted on Jun 17, 2005 @ 09:23 by CatherineJohnson
I think I have decent advice for 3 kinds of kids:
- kids who, for whatever reason, have fallen significantly behind their classmates
- kids who are right on track, doing well, and you want to keep their math skills in shape over the summer
- kids whose parents want to accelerate their math learning -- in particular, to get them in position to take and master algebra in the 8th grade
One year ago, Christopher was in two of these categories, the first and the third.
kids who have fallen behind
My feeling is: get hold of Saxon Math homeschool edition today.
I wouldn't even bother with the placement test. There's so much review in the beginning of each Saxon text that you'll be going over the material your child missed this year in next year's book.
That's what I did with Christopher, who had failed two of the 6 units in his 4th grade math book. I bought the 5th grade Saxon text and we pounded through it. No problems at all.
I've seen commenters at other sites saying that Saxon is especially good for kids who have lost confidence in their ability to do math. That was certainly Christopher's situation last spring, and I agree with them. Will find the link later--
I also have terrific book recommendations for middle schoolers, but that will have to wait.
Any other thoughts from our readers?
+ + +
The Homeschool Supercenter has terrific prices on Saxon Math books. (They're asking $47.38 for the full set of 4th grade books, Saxon Math 5/4.)
Each grade has 3 books:
- textbook
- answer book
- worksheets & tests
The Homeschool Supercenter may be selling a previous edition, and that's fine. John Saxon died a few years ago, and his family has sold the company to Harcourt (I believe). There's worry that the new editions are becoming fuzzy, and apparently some of the language on the web site is now fuzzy.
I have no idea what's happening with the new editions, and I don't see a market reason for turning a bestselling direct instruction homeschool text into a clone of the NSF-funded constructivist texts. But we'll see.
In any case, if the reason for the Homeschool Center's low prices is that they are selling out stock on the previous edition, grab them & save the money.
+ + +
Speaking of Homeschool Editions, I have apparently purchased so many homeschool products that I qualify for special discount tickets to Six Flags Homeschool Day.
Which is where I'm going now!
I'll figure out my thoughts on the other 2 groups of kids when I get back.
FreeWorksheets
TreadingWater
SummerSupplement
SummerSupplementTime
SummerSupplementTimePart2
SummerSupplementTimePart3
SummerSupplementTimePart5 (resources for preventing summer regression)
SaxonPlacementTestsAndGuides
SingaporeMathPlacementTest
TeachYourChildToTypeThisSummer
TheSaxonMathOfSpelling
Megawords & Spelling Research
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I love the Saxon Homschooling package. Absolutely love it! As someone who has been piecing things together for years, this was the answer.
The interesting thing to me this time is that I've decided to do as you all suggested and not reactively teach, but teach parallel to whatever he's getting at school. I have old,used Saxon texts that I ordered over the last couple of years. They were all pretty beat up, but I felt I could make it work. I, too, thought some stuff was too easy and skipped around alot. I was very inconsistent, trying to patch up his knowledge gaps. Now that I've been sticking to the program exactly as written, I see what you mean about the confidence factor. My son actually seems to enjoy doing it with me. It does seem simple to me, but I can better see where we're going with this. Since he is my LD son, I am more aware of how one day (or minute) he understands something, the next day it's gone. The simplicity of Saxon seems to be working better.
We'll see how it goes later. It will be interesting to see if this makes a difference with him.
-- SusanS - 17 Jun 2005
Fantastic comment--I'll get it up front later!
Thank you!
-- CatherineJohnson - 17 Jun 2005