You are the only one I have found that is actually using the Strayer-Upton books so far! I have a question for you - How many pages/day do you do for one "lesson"? Or do you go by time spent each day? What is the average number pages/day that you "usually" do? Thank you,

I have never heard of Jones Geniuses. I would love for you to report back after a while to tell us if it more successful for your non-mathy child. Also, how did you place your son in level 5? Was there a placement test of some kind? I have decided that our supplement for after finishing TT6 instead of TT7 to prep him for pre-algebra will be JUMP Math at Home 7 workbook. The consultant at Timberdoodle recommended using JUMP 7 and said that it would be a great way to "shore up" his skills and be able to be done more quickly, like even in a summer. Then the pre-algebra placement test and he should be ready.

Thanks, Angie. He is a lot like this, too. We just returned from a nearly 1-month-long vacation. We will start back up this week, but I am sure I will spend a week or more reviewing just to get him back to where he was when we left. We are still working through TT Math 6. I plan to stick with TT pretty much all the way through, giving placement tests after each level to see if he could more forward more quickly. About the only level I hope to be able to really skip is TT7 and go straight to Pre-Algebra. If he can't pass the placement test for PA, then we will do some review and practice and try again. If that doesn't work, then we will actually do TT7. That way, we may be able to skip TT7 and save some time.

Thank you all for your advice. I will stick with Teaching Textbooks and not worry about using Lial's. I might get a cheap used copy of Lial's BCM to have on hand, but it will just be a backup for extra problems and the like. I will stay focused on Teaching Textbooks for now. Thanks again!

Well, actually they are turning 14 at the end of June. The other son will be starting PS high school in the fall after homeschooling 3rd through 8th also. Here the cutoff date for starting school is September 30th, and the boys started school in PS for K-2. So 8th grade is their normal progression. They will be 14 before 9th grade starts. And the son going to PS high school is not behind on math (he'll do Algebra 1 in 9th grade) and is actually signed up for Honors English. However, I have no problems delaying this son's math courses in community college for 1-2 semesters if that's what it takes to get through his high school math and pass his placement tests to get into MATH 100+ courses. I would rather him continue with something like TT at home for math than pay the college for him to take remedial math courses (MATH 93, 96, or 97) that aren't even going to count for his Associate! Plus, the CC remedial math courses go much faster - the equivalent of Algebra 1 in 1 semester and Algebra 2 in the next semester, instead of 1 year for each. He could go ahead and start his English classes (provided he's ready for that, too) and his other classes and do math at home until he's actually ready for college level math. I guess that's where I am pretty much set for now. Still not sure how important a full year of Geometry is, but we'll cross that bridge later. I like the idea of him doing Algebra 1 and 2 back-to-back instead of splitting them with Geometry in between - for this son, in particular, he would lose too much algebra knowledge while doing geometry and would have to redo some of it before starting Algebra 2. If he does geometry, I like the idea of doing it alongside Algebra 2. Unless he does it before starting his algebra sequence.

That's what I was concerned with - that because Lial's covers a lot in each lesson whereas TT breaks it down into smaller chunks, it might be harder for him. Thanks for the heads-up on the potential issue with vocabulary in using TT. Maybe I should get an inexpensive Lial's book to use occasionally for practicing problems from another source that are worded differently. Thank you!

He hasn't been doing math year-round, but I told him that this summer, we should do math at least 3 days/week to keep him moving forward. After my Geometry class in high school, I never used those postulates, corallaries, theorems, or any of that other geometry in any of my more advanced math classes through Calculus, so I didn't figure taking a full-year geometry class was that important. TT6, TT7, and TT PA have basic geometry in them so I had figured that would be enough to get him by, but I will keep in mind that taking Geometry along with Algebra 2 (that would be his senior year) is an option. Hopefully, TT Geometry is not the heavily proof-based geometry that I had - maybe it is more practical geometry? Thanks for the feedback on Lial's in regards to the review issue. This son needs a good balance of practice on the current topic so he can feel like he's "getting it", but also needs consistent review on previous topics. Sometimes I don't feel TT gives him enough practice on the current topic, but I do like that it has consistent review. And I am starting to learn that it's the subsequent day's exercise sets where he gets more practice on the new topics, so it appears to be working for him right now. When I was working outside the home and this son started the fractions stuff, I was concerned that it was moving too fast through the concepts (expecting that by Math 6 the student had already been doing fractions operations in previous years) and not giving him enough practice. But now I am seeing that he gets that extra practice by continuing to review those problems in all of the follow-on lessons, which is good for him. It also made me feel better that when we move on to decimals and percents, he will still be reviewing his fractions as well, so there will be less chance of him forgetting it as soon as we move on to other topics. In the past, he would do well with something during that "chapter" in whatever curriculum he was using, but then by the end of the year he would not remember how to do it because he had not reviewed it in several months.

So how many lessons/day was she doing in order to get through all of that so quickly? And did she do all of the problems in the exercise set for each lesson, or only a selection of problems? My son, currently, isn't that motivated to do extra math. I have been home with the boys now for about a month to work side-by-side with them and he is doing much better, but I am not sure he is yet motivated to do a consistent 2 lessons/day. I do plan to do that in some of the non-fractions chapters when we get there, but right now he is just getting a handle on the fractions. He will sometimes forget what it means to reduce a fraction, but once he remembers what that means and how to set it up, he can do the work just fine. He is also finally starting to remember how to write remainders as fractions to division problems more consistently and how to convert improper fractions to mixed numbers. Thanks for your feedback!

To say I have a non-mathy son is probbably understating it a bit. For most of his elementary years, we were stuck on 2nd and 3rd grade math - he was unable to really get past multi-digit subtraction with borrowing. We didn't even START multplication and its concepts until the second half of 5th grade! He has LDs (working memory, sequential memory, and visual memory deficits) that have delayed his learning math, but it seems that the last year to year-and-a-half, things are starting to make sense. He's not fast, by any means, but he is learning much more easily now than ever before. This year, his 8th grade year, he has been working in Teaching Textbooks 6, took some sidetracks to work through some Khan Academy a bit, continued with TT6, then I had him work through one of the Key to Fractions books (adding/subtracting fractions), and is now working back in TT6. He had never done the 4 operations on fractions before this year, so I felt he needed more than TT6 could provide for his first time through. I AM a mathy person (AP Calculus in 12th grade with a score of a 5 - missed 1 problem), and I know that understanding operations on fractions is the single most determining factor for success in higher level math, so I didn't want to skimp on it. I was working full time away from home but have recently switched to working from home and am now able to work through his math lessons with him. He is making even better progress now with his lessons since I have started sitting with him and guiding him through the lessons. Even so, and with working on average 3 days/week this summer, he probably won't finish TT Math 6 until about Christmas time - the middle of his 9th grade year. This son will hopefully go to CC after high school for at least a 2-year degree that will give him some job skills and give him a foundation *in case* he ever decides to go to university. Ideally, I would like him to not have to take remedial math in college - I would like him to be able to place in at least a MATH 100-level class, meaning that he needs Algebra 1 and 2 in high school. If he doesn't pass the placement test for this level, I would rather continue his math education at home until he CAN pass the CC's placement than pay the college for remedial courses. OK, enough background and current status. So here are 2 scenarios for his high school math, staying with Teaching Textbooks, the first one is my hope: 9th grade: finish TT6, take TT placement tests, start TT Pre-Algebra v.2 (already have used with other son) 10th grade: finish TT Pre-Algebra v.2, begin TT Algebra 1 11th grade: finish TT Algebra 1, begin TT Algebra 2 12th grade: finish TT Algebra 2, study and prep for CC placement test 2nd scenario is that he doesn't place into TT Pre-Algebra at the end of TT6 and we have to go through TT Math 7 first. Unless we do some compressing of TT7 and TT Pre-Algebra (taking chapter tests at the beginning of each level to skip those chapters that he passes the tests for), he might not have time to finish Algebra 2 by the end of his senior year. So, I was wondering what the benefits, if any would be to use the Lial books? Also, why are the Lial books so much more preferred than other college developmental math books, like the Martin-Gay books that also get great ratings on Amazon? What are the advantages/disadvantages of TT versus Lial's? Should I just stick with TT and do what we can, or is there an advantage to using Lial? I got Lial's BCM 6th Edition through ILL and Martin-Gay's BCM 4th Edition to compare. They really look almost identical in content and often even in presentation, so I am not sure why so many homeschoolers favor Lial over the others. But I also noticed things when comparing it to TT like 1 lesson in one of the BCM books goes through as much as 4-7 lessons in TT. TT seems to break it down in little tiny pieces, so while I saw right away that the BCM lessons would need to be scheduled over 2 days/lesson on average, I still see TT as breaking it down even more, which might be a good thing for this son. I also know that Lial's would probably require me to teach each lesson where I have a choice with TT to either guide him through the lessons or let him loose at times on his own. In fact, as he gets older going through high school, I know that he will probably rather do more on his own even if now he is benefitting from my instruction/guidance. So should I "stay the course" with Teaching Textbooks, or is there a good reason to move to Lial's books and when? Even if staying with TT, I was seriously considering getting one of these BCM books to have as a "backup" or supplement for more practice problems as needed and/or alternate presentations of concepts/topics. Good idea?

:iagree: :thumbup:

Thank you, everyone, for your input! There have been some great resources listed here that I am saving!

Thanks, Mary! I would never have guess that a public school literature textbook would actually have classic authors! When I looked at elementary reading books in the past, I never recognized any of the stories or authors, so figured they were using sub-par literature. I will check that book out!

What are the brands of literature guides available that are secular, or at least easy to modify to be secular, available for middle/high school? What would you use to add short stories and poems to an 8th-grader's reading list, in addition to classic/good quality novels? Thank you,

For your dyslexic son, what did you use for the writing instead of the provided composition? Did you use the same basic assignment but immplement it differently with a different program? Or just ignored it completely and did a completely different writing program (like MCT.) If you do just the literature part, do you have to pay for the montly online subscription?

Can anyone compare Lightning Literature to K12's Literature (LA) for 7th-8th grades? Pros/cons? I am leaning towards LL for it's simplicity in use. For K12, I haven't been able to find any real good examples of the student materials for their Lit Anal/Comp course so that I can see what the actual student work is like and the load for the day/week. I did find a sample online lesson portion, but I am not sure what else goes with it. If he has to do that much online lesson every day including the days he has to read the actual literature (I'm thinking about the novels), it might be too much. Also, for K12 - if I sign up for a monthly subscription for 1 course, do I have to also pay for the books/materials (particularly the Classics for Young Readers)? Or are they included in the monthly fee? Is there any way to do the literature lessons without the online component? My son, who is in 8th grade now but has always struggled some with his language courses, will have to do the course mostly indpendently. I want him to be able to follow his lessons from one day to the next pretty much on his own, with my oversight primarily for his writing assignments and just to verify he's doing the reading. Thank you,