elmerRex
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Posts posted by elmerRex
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Is there a way to figure out what a 1st grade reader would or should sound like if they are reading on level?
I am ESOL and I can not judge what he should be sounding like well.
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Do not worry at all. At 2nd grade, its okay to concentrate on the basic concepts and skills in raw arithmetic and using application things like money, time and measurement to show the connection that arithmetic has with our real lives and when and how we might use it.
Money--buy or print some play money and work with it. Math U See uses blocks to show 1, 10 and 100. Well, you can use $1, $10 and $100 in play money and not always use just the blocks. If your son is learning the arithmetic concepts and skills well, then money is just the most common and logical application of arithmetic these days. Luckily, US money is base 10, so are numbers in the English language.
Time--We buyed a face clock for each childs room and keep them at the kids level on the wall. We made our own clocks with a craft and used that for practice. My 3yo is telling time on the face clock by doing a little bit every day.
Weights and Measures--again, this is a basic application of arithmetic. You can take one or two days a week and do experiments with containers in the kitchen with customary or Metric weights and measures.
You can buy a simple workbook if you feel you need worksheets to make it click or to feel official. We have this workbook
but I think that a real skill like money and time is learned better with real items and then maybe practiced if writing and reading helps the student learn.
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My son is bilingual and is more self emotional about his English accent because kids in the area tease him or say he talks weird. My son has good English--he can correct our English and he does it all the time, very sassy like.
My son has a 'kid accent' in both languages no matter what. But our accent + kid accent is not helping him with his English peers. Are there any clever helps we can try for him?
We will be traveling a lot this summer and English will be lost while we are East, so should we wait to address accent trouble until we come back to the states?
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Hope that I am saying this right: No.
Here is why: There are infinite numbers of "Pythagorean Triplets" it will be impossible for most students or teachers to tell--without effort if it is a PT they are looking at, but there are a couple of patterns to them as a whole.
Tripletss are always one of two types--or almost always one of these two types, I do not know an exception, but I am not a math master.
Type 1--ALL 3 are even
Type 2--2/3 are odd and 1/3 is even.
It can be much fun to talk about WHY these patterns exist.
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Yeah, I almost didn't say anything about the worksheets so I didn't derail your thread. Sorry! But seriously, when you first mentioned you were using Saxon with such a young child I couldn't imagine how he was going to cheerfully handle all of that work without a workbook! :)
I'm glad Saxon has worked so well for you. :)
My son would have been fine writing on the page print out.
We could have printed out the Lesson Practice big for him to write on like we did the Mixed Practice, but we--mom and dad--felt he should be keeping a math notebook so we found a compromise in creating him a Lesson Practice worksheet for each lesson. With this compromise we got him to collect his lesson notes into a math notebook that is coherent and useful for a long time and he didn't care because he was just writing on his sheet.
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I cut out parts to help me stay on track.
Thank you for this review. I think Saxon is a great math program and works well for many families. We tried many programs after leaving ps and Saxon has been the best. We never tried another math book, but we found Saxon because we knew what features we needed in a math book and looked for what matched that need--the book was Saxon.
The mixed problem section is the strength of the Saxon program.
Super agreement!
I would like to add that, for an older student, 54 and 65 can be used completely independently.
Yes, I think that this is the intent of the program--we had to change how we use it because of my son being "babish" and unable to read for himself.
Last, and only because I don't want anyone to not try Saxon for this reason, math facts do not have to be memorized before you start either of these books! It will help them work more quickly but as long as they know how to add/subtract, etc., they should do fine. Yes, agree. I want to be clear that knowing the math facts before starting is *my personal* recommendation. I do not personally recommend using Saxon Math 54 if you do not know the +/- math facts already OR you are NOT going to practice and drill them daily until they are automatic. That is just me though.
I do feel that Saxon is a great math program, not perfect, but definitely great. But it is probably not a good fit for the student who is immediately scared of having to do "a lot" because it is a lot of work but the work is very good for the student. So far, we manage the text by being diligent and committed to the Saxon method--daily practice, lots of snooping and tracking of student progress and discussion of mistakes to be sure that students understand about the concept beneath.
Not counting the examples that are worked through between teacher and student to teach the lessons themselves Math 54 has over 4000 problems in it for the student and you are supposed to do them all, not skip. It can quickly be made painfully slow and perilous if you don't know or won't learn your math facts by rote early on.
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Where are you finding the PDF's? I am wanting to look at Saxon 7/6.
You can search with Google to find the books by using "Saxon Book Name" + PDF. it is okay because schools have the texts online for free but do use carefulness because schools have the "newer" books. You can only find 3rd and 4th edition books, not 1st or 2nd edition books so you may not like the new books because they are stuffed with more content that old Saxon does not originally have.
I have found Math 54, Math 65 online. Newer versions (4th editions?) of Math 76, 87 and Algebra 1/2 have new names, but I **think** that the content is the same, but probably more "filler" content to make Schools use them that 1st or 2nd edition books wouldn't have. It was explained to me on this web board
Math 76 = Course 1
Math 87 = Course 2
Alg 1/2 = Course 3
Good luck.
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:grouphug:
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I just want to point out that the publisher recommends a test every 5 lessons, beginning with test 1 after lesson 10.
Thank you, I fixed that error. If you see any others please let me know and I will fix them when I can.
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I love the worksheets you have made. Do you have an on-line source for the 6/5 book? I am wanting to make printable sheets for my DD. It's her only complaint about Saxon 5/4- no worksheets.
Oh, happy that you like them. I find that these make easy reference for when my son needs or wants to look back at something and because it is ONLY about the lesson and not the mixed practice, it makes it go easier to review the idea of a lesson when he is doing the mixed practice for each lesson.
Math 65 as a PDF is online also.
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Here is a sample of the simple worksheets we made for my son to complete his Math 54 Lesson Practice with.
Math54LessonPractice1-10.pdf As you can see, this worksheet just has the Lessons Practice with a few extra (*) questions or prompts thrown in. We got smart after several lessons and added a word problem or two to each of the lesson practice worksheets.
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Will you post a link for the Saxon worksheets? :)
Which worksheets do you mean?
We got the PDF of Saxon Math off of a teachers website and printed the Mixed Practice pages that we needed for my son to write on.
We just typed up a simple template document for Lesson Practice. My husband will have to figure out how to share this document online when he gets back.
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When we first started using Saxon Math 54 last year, I wrote a message post of my early impressions and people said that I should write again when I finished the text, so I share the following because I said I would and it is my hope that this review helps another family that is considering or wondering about Saxon Math. If you are not curious about Saxon, then do not read. This is VERY long and has taken a long time to write up, save yourself the time if you don't have interest in Saxon.
If you already read this, I added the part "Saxon Lessons by the Numbers" for your consideration.
Saxon Math 54 3rd Edition In-Depth Review
Introducing Saxon Math 54
Saxon Math is a math program that is written for students with some familiarity with Arithmetic concepts and mastery over the fundamental number skills typically taught in K-2 or K-3 programs such that they are able to understand and think through simple scenario problems* even if they don't possess the arithmetic skills to solve the problem. Saxon Math 54 is meant to be used while learning and constantly drilling the math facts. In my humble opinion, Saxon Math 54 (or any grade 3+ program) is best used AFTER students have fluency with basic number bonds or number facts. There is a placement test for Saxon Math 54 available for free here.
*Example of what I meant:
“Teacher Bob has 10 balls, he needs 15 balls for all the kids in his class, does he have enough balls for the class?" a child should be able to tell that Teacher needs MORE even if he doesn't know how many more.
“There were 14 swans in the water. Half of them flew away and half were eaten by a crocodile. How many swans are left?†Without counting a student should know that there are NONE left because of understanding halves.
Overview of the Saxon Math 54 Program
This review is only covering the 3rd edition textbook which was used and does not include commentary on the tests or any teachers supplies which I did NOT use. Saxon Math 54 is named that way because the content of these books were initially created without regard for a target age or grade level. The books were written to fill a need for gradual teaching of mathematics from the ground up with a certain level of difficulty and built in constant review. AFTER the book had been completed, a grade guide number was added to the cover to satisfy the publishers need to target the books at someone in order to sale them to schools.
Do not be fooled by the idea that these books are for “X gradersâ€. These books can be used with anyone who has the appropriate skill set, regardless of age though some basic modifications may need to be made for varying output or stamina abilities.
Saxon Math 54 3rd edition contains
120 Lessons
12 Investigations (these same “investigations†were labeled LESSONS in the 2nd edition.)
4 additional topics
Totaling to 136 lessons broken down roughly as 93 arithmetic, 20 geometry, 5 time, 4 statistics and about 10 additional topics, applied math or strategy lessons). Those are rough estimates and there is overlap for some lessons, I will have to check exact break down later.
Ideally, one would be administering a test after every 5 lessons to better track a students progress or understanding. Because we did not have the tests/teacher resources and because of how closely I was able to work with my son directly, I did not feel the need to even use the tests. Some will use them, some will not. That is a choice I encourage each teacher to make on their own, if we'd gotten tests for free, we would have used them. Since we would have had to buy them, we did not use them. (I am a cheap mama! lol)
Each of the 120 “Lessons†are made up of Four parts:
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The Warm-Up. These are boxes at the start that call for you to do fact practice, and give some exercises for mental math and problem solving.
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New Concept(s). This is where the new lesson is introduced and taught through some examples.
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Lesson Practice. This is where a student is given the chance to practice on their own the lessons concept. This is strictly about the “New Conceptsâ€. Usually 2-10 problems. NOTE: For some lessons, there are additional lesson practice problems in the back if you need more practice with a lessons skill.
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Mixed Practice: This is the heart of the program. This is where students practice, extend and review skills from previous lessons. This is where a student essentially does a “cumulative review†each day. Usually 26-30 problems.
Each of the 12 Investigations are distinct from lessons in that they do NOT have different parts and they do NOT contain mixed practice. An investigation has only 2 basic features:
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Focus On – the topic of investigation with explanations and sometimes some manipulatives
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Practice problems for the topic of investigation. Amount of problems vary.
For an Investigation you are instructed to gather a couple of objects to do and observe something with math. A lot of times you are supposed to use something from the Teacher Resource book, but I have a friend in Google and I fake it at this point.
In short Investigation is a shorter lesson because it is a lot less work. It is like meeting to do a simple experiment or discussion about math. The skills from the investigations are reviewed in Mixed Practices for various lessons so they are not “optional†in that doing them or not makes no difference to the other lessons. I read that these exact same topics that are Investigations in the 3rd edition, were lessons in the 2nd edition. I have no idea WHY this change was made, but I guess it had something to do with having a “feature†that Public Schools wanted and Saxon did it to continue to sell books in peace. In the home school, we know that such labels do not matter so much.
In the 3rd edition, every single problem in the Mixed Practice is “referenced†back to the lesson(s) that the skill was taught in, so you can SKIP the investigation and skip every problem related to the investigation if you want to. Investigations were usually shorter days here so no big problem.
Each of the 4 Additional Topics have 2 parts
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New Concept: The lessons is introduced, explained and examples are given to work through.
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Lesson Practice: A few exercise problems given to help make firm your understanding of what you just learned.
There are 4 “AT†Lessons that expand on or teach new material. Aside from place value related to money, there were 2 on Roman Numerals and 1 on the Base 5 Number System. These are set up a little differently than the Lessons. There is no mixed review of Additional Topics built into the other lessons but there is often a review put into the WARM UP part of a Lesson. Topic A is showing money related to decimal number system which was introduced in an Investigation and practiced for several lessons throughout the book. Topics B and C are both on Roman Numerals are practiced for several lessons as an optional part of the warm up in the main lessons. There is no reinforcement of Topic D: Base 5. Which annoyed me because it meant I had to stop being lazy and make my own. (Oh well, at least it was cheap.)
If you skip the Additional Topics then you can ignore the Roman Numeral part of the warm ups because its the only thing that isn't taught but offered as practice in the main part of the text. Or if you want to stop and cover/introduce them, then you can and then you can practice them by using the Lesson Warm Ups for a few weeks until the student is proficient at it. You will have to supplement Base 5 if you decide to cover it and want more practice, this is simple to do.
***ADDED***
Saxon Lessons by the Numbers
Saxon is an intensive program--there is meant to be written drills, mental drills, problem solving, lessons, practice and review every day and Saxon is designed so that every student who uses this way of math is expected to have success if the teacher and the student will dedicate themselves to the method.
I did not count the text-examples that were used to teach a lesson, but I did quickly count up the number of problems in Math 54
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Math 54 Lesson Practice Problems = 659Math 54 Mixed Review Exercises = + 3401
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Total number of Student Problems = 4060
Thats right, the student is expected to solve over 4000 problems in this text alone.
This probably isn't for the softer students who will be paralyzed by the fear of how many problems are on the page. Please also know that I did NOT include the problems/questions found in the Investigations which are apart of the Math 54 program, NOR did I include the problems from the AT, which are part of "supplemental" topics you can ignore.
My Personal Review of Saxon Mathematics 54.
This is no longer strictly facts but lots and lots of my opinions and feelings based on my experiences.
The Way that We Use Saxon Math.
Preparation:
I do each lesson ahead of my son. Meaning that I (or my husband) read through the lesson and work all of the problems out—we try and stay 10 lessons ahead of our son—and take note of where little jumps might be required. We make a note of which lessons can be combined (some are shorter than most others), sometimes lessons A and B are very closely related, so we teach them together.
Teaching:
We do math in 2 sessions. In the morning, we cover new concepts and practice those concepts. In the evening, we review and practice. My son is a weak reader so he could never self-study from Saxon Math 54. Using my words, I teach the lesson(s) for the day and we work through the examples that are in Saxon Math 54.Then my son does the lesson practice on a simple work sheet that goes in his notebook when he is done. After this this morning lessons are over. I check over his lesson practice ASAP and we talk about any mistake he made if he made any.
In the evening my son sits for quiet study time at the table where we monitor him and does the Mixed Practice for the lesson(s) that we covered that day. We check and grade his work daily, if he makes a mistake on the same type of problem more than once we give that extra attention for a couple of days to remedy the problem. For us, Saxon was such an amazing success :) We were all the way happy with Saxon Math 54 and are now using Saxon Math 65 with the same method and similar experiences. We intend to use Math 54 with my daughter for next year.
Summary:
Please realize that even though I taught the lessons in my words, we did the Saxon program. We used Saxons examples, lesson practice and mixed problems but mom (or dads') explanations. Saxon Math 54 was my sons first official math book, but not his first exposure to arithmetic or mathematics.
We did every problem, in order as it appeared. We have the eBook so were able to re-size and print the lesson practice and mixed practices so he wrote directly onto the pages but you could do your work in a dedicated math notebook or something, which is how my husband and I had WANTED it done, but this worked out fine too.
Basically, we loved it. I want to do it again with my younger kids when the time comes for them. I would recommend it to friends and I do recommend it. Saxon Math provides a solid arithmetic and basic math foundation for students with only good number sense and basic math skills to their credit at the start. After completing Saxon Math 54, my son does not make mistakes on anything that he's been taught. His skills are solid and he is almost always accurate. He is able to solve problems stronger than those offered in the book alone so I know he has not latched onto patterns but locked onto the understanding.
The Saxon method of thoroughly developing concepts slowly and constant review is genius, I love it. I have read online where people say that the newer editions of Saxon Math are not as good as older editions but I can not personally compare because I used only Saxon Math 54 3rd edition, Student Edition. There is this nice video summary of the 1st and 3rd editions compared and I can see why the older editions might be more tempting to use, especially if the kid will be using them alone.
Now that I have been all the way through Math 54 by Saxon, I have to say that even though I :wub: LOVE :wub: Saxon and can only praise it for its underlying technique and teaching principles. These books are works of educational art for their problem sets alone. I **do** understand a lot better why some people do not like Saxon based only on its quality of teaching math.
It was not a deal breaker for us, because of how we used and are using Saxon Math. But if a child were to study from Saxon Math by themselves, I would probably feel differently. From reading I think that recommendation is to make sure that the independent Saxon pupil is a strong, fluent and speedy reader and use the older editions because they LOOK like they are easier on the eyes and minds of readers, but I have never used the 1st or 2nd editions of Saxon so I do not speak with experience, that is my understanding based on blogs, videos and reviews of others.
Common “Saxon Flaws†and My Experience with them:
Lots of Problems
Some people dislike Saxon because of the quantity of problems required—this wasn't a problem for us. Mom and Dad believe in practice, practice and practice. My son doing ~30 problems a lesson isn't a big concern for us. If Saxon came with fewer problems, we'd supplement to get more practice. Despite the length, we made sure that those lessons weren't a burden to him because we never left the son alone to do his mixed practice work. Instead we stood by and watched and kept him on task so the work didn't take too long. (His talking and daydreaming could take a long time, but not his working). In the beginning my son started out taking up to an hour to do 2 Mixed Problem sets in the evening but as we continued through the book he got down to 20-45 minutes and has stayed in that range of time consistently.
Math Teaching
Some people dislike Saxon because of the wording/explanations and this was--kind of--a problem for us. It didn't cause my son a problem because I pre-read and teach the lessons to him in my own words but I agree that this book does not always have fluid teaching explanations. Sometimes Saxon shows a long-way around a problem then they show a “one-step†way of doing it. Well, if you understand the previous topics well--which, with Saxon you should--then the “one step†method is the OBVIOUS method to begin with.
I think this could be a US way of looking at numbers but to me it seemed “clunkyâ€. If we'd used Saxons wording, I think that this could have been a problem for my son, but again, I pre-read and worked out all of the problems ahead of him, so I “cleaned up†the wording for efficiency. I do not know if fluent and native English speakers would feel the same way, but it did feel...“wordy†at times.
Vocabulary
I did not like the vague Mathlish terms “some and some more†in the explanations for the concepts. For us, addend is easier to say, think and follow in explanations. Saxon does teach the correct terms throughout the lessons though so this is not a big complaint. I just thought it weird that they weren't always consistent with vocabulary, this could be a language thing though.
Challenge Level
Some people dislike Saxon because it is “too easyâ€. This was not a problem for us, we felt that the level of difficulty was perfect for our sons every day math ability. I think that if Saxon Story problems are not 'enough' for you, you should supplement that, not skip the whole book if it works for you other in other ways. Before starting Saxon Math 54 we gave him some math problem each day that made him pause to think and we continued this practice while using Saxon Math 54 so there was no need to “supplement†the story problems in Saxon, we would continue this practice no matter what we used so this isn't a problem for us right now.
My Basic Ideas about Teaching.
Students are not here to GIVE purpose to a teacher in teaching, but to GET a service from the teacher.
As a teacher, the job is to assist students in learning, however they learn. The kids do not need me to be the “perfect teacher†in a way that makes no sense to them. They need me to perfect teaching them in the way that they learn. The books we choose are tools in the shed, but we are the artisan who has to know when and how to actually use them.I and my husband are the first and most important source of instruction for our kids in mathematics. We picked Saxon Math for our son because it is what he needed and it helps me to teach him the way that he learns.
Saxon Math 54 and 65 basically teach Arithmetic and some basic math skills so I do NOT need a Teachers Guide or answer key, but it probably would have been so much easier short term to have an answer key but in the long term, I am glad that I did this experience for my child—I think it made me a better teacher for him. It helped to prepare me to teach math for my next child because of the experience of working so closely to teach and communicate mathematical concepts to a child learner who thinks differently than I do.
My son loved the Saxon mathematics book. It was very satisfying to have lessons at his level and he liked the varied practice. His skills have grown and grown and grown using this method of gradual teaching and constant review. Saxon is a good level of challenge for him, I would say 10-20% of the problems were “challenging†for him mathematically, but Saxon challenged him with language (we do concepts bilingually), focus, persistence and diligence every lesson. Those are skills that he can take to problem solve later and so I'm very glad that he's developing those skills now with something that he loves.. My son has matured a lot in the several months that we used Saxon math and he is a better, faster, steadier worker now than he was before which is something that I love also.
So far, in Math 65 He does not make mistakes in anything that he's been taught. We are moving at a good pace with Math 65.
Important information about my sons prerequisite skills:
and skills I think that any Math 54 candidate should possess if they want to do well.
He understood numbers and quantities.
He could count and skip count fluently.
He understood place value and could add/subtract already.
He understood regrouping in base 10, but didn't always do it effectively.
He knew his number facts for + and - very well BEFORE beginning.
He knew his number facts for * and / well BEFORE beginning.
He also knew the concept (meaning he was not well-practiced with all of these concepts, but could summarize/explain them) of multiplication, division, inverses, and fractions.
We reviewed those math facts (almost) every day, even though he knew them.
PS: These are just MY thoughts and this is just MY review shared with the web-board because of requests made months ago. I am not telling others to do exactly as I have done, I am not calling any one who did differently from me wrong and if you tried Saxon but changed, then I am not saying that you were "bad" to give up Saxon. I am sharing this review to give my "hindsight" perspective on Saxon Math 54 and to say what I did and did not like about Saxon and how we made it work for us. Hopefully someone finds this helpful to them. If you do not find it helpful then I'm sorry you took the time to read it all :p
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There is no reason to make a task take longer than it takes. Mathematics is no different.
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I guess I am not communicating well. I used my son as an example specific, but I meant in a sense of generality. Ugh! this is so frustrating to communicate.
Anyway, I am not looking for a plan for the rest of his childhood, I'm asking in a broad general sense: Who is a Good Candidate for Challenge? But maybe the wording of the question is clumsy and is missing the point that I want to make.
My son--his personality--is that he does not like challenge. Even young he is content with medium level things.
My brother was like that as a child and is still like that now as a grown man, a couple of my friends are like that too. So to me, it is possible that my son will never like or want for challenging work. Is this a problem to be remedied eventually or not?
My son is able to accelerate because we break things down for him in a way that he understands. He can grasp lots of things and usually very easily, but holding on to them is harder. This is one reason why we liked Saxon when we found it. A lot of my sons frustration comes from bad retention of knowledge--he can only remember that he's forgetting something but can't remember what he has forgotten, if that makes sense.
I guess I wonder what is the value in challenge itself? Most people will live lives close to the middle of the road, so to speak. Of course I don't want poverty for my son and there is a basic amount of decency in willingness and ability to work that I demand my children develop--once they know how to work, whether they work or not is up to them--but is challenge itself important for all people, and if so, why?
Honestly, I don't think every subject needs to be challenging. I do think a student needs challenge from somewhere but it is totally ok to have easy subjects and hard subjects. As I recall, you were struggling with reading with him ... I would go ahead and let math be gentle while you work on the reading. I would look at ramping up the challenge eventually but I would go ahead and let him finish arithmetic for sure. Scope and sequence of arithmetic programs varies and I don't think changing in the middle of arithmetic is good unless it is clearly a bad fit. You can evaluate again when he is ready for algebra and decide then whether he will be better served by an easier program or more challenge.
I don't think you need a plan from now until the end of the road.
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I keep reading and every where on this web board I see mentionings of challenging students--especially if they are accelerated.
Now, my son is accelerated in some ways, not accelerated in others. He cries easily and at times he cries often. Everyone who knows him says he is bright and should be in school so he can be tested for gifted program and that he needs to be challenged and the gifted program is for him because its challenging.
Well my son hates "challenge". He doesn't mind working, he is a steady and dedicated worker. But he doesn't want to work hard. Is this a character flaw that we should monitor and remedy as parents or is this a personality thing that is okay for kids to have and retain to adulthood? My son enjoys middle of the road levels of challenge. I hope that I'm saying this correctly as English isn't my first language.
The best example to share with this web board is that he uses Saxon Math 65 ahead of grade level. People like other maths for "accelerated" math kids but my son likes Saxon. Its finally one thing we don't have to fight about with him. People on this web board know or feel that Saxon is not the most challenging or rigorous math book a boy can study from, but my boy, he is engaged by Saxon. He is gently challenged by Saxon, Saxon is a good fit for him because of the method.
The Saxon Method of gradual and constant review is the type of math program that he needs. It is--gentle, engaging and building a very good foundation. My son is making straight As with Saxon Math 65 now for many lessons in a row. Reading the web board I feel like I "should" be using something else, something with more challenge, but then I look at my son and think about how crazy it will make us both and I say "Naah," is this okay or is it me being a lazy mom? (sometimes I am lazy, I admit without shame).
If it is okay now, then when should I begin to direct him toward challenge?
My son is "babyish" he is not a self-starter book-student. If we didn't teach him from books, he wouldn't go learn book type things. He enjoys school okay, but is not independent like my daughter who is curious self-starter student and a harder worker than him. He likes to have help and guidance all the time but his sister is okay with having to figure it out. For my son using Saxon Method makes him more confident because when he sees a problem that he should know how to do--he does. No forgetting, no uncertainty, no pause and no frustration. He remembers what he learned last week, last month and last year because he has not forgotten it.
This is one example that I think many will understand, but there are other instances where my son is not a self-starter or does not like hard work, but is okay with doing work. He can work long time, but not always. He resists hard work almost every time.
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Give him the final exam tomorrow--if he aces it: 100% perfect, no mistakes or errors of anykind then yes you are done. The strength of Saxon is that it allows almost anyone to build mastery and long term retention of the concepts and skills. With Saxon it isn't about the ability to remember, tomorrow, but next month, next year. It is about being able to use what you know fluently and easily long after you finish the last page.
If you do not accept pauses and uncertainty about reading words that a student "should" know, then do not accept pauses and uncertainty about a math topic that the student "should" know. That is my interpretation of Saxon philosophy.
Saxon is wonderous for many, many people. For us, it absolutely works and I love it, my son loves it. Hooray.
But it isn't the universal top of the math tower.
There is more to math than Saxon, but the math that Saxon covers, it covers to mastery.
Your son may be able to easily go into the next book. Or it may be that he doesn't need Saxon at this level. Good luck.
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That's reassuring! I was starting to think of a new year in public school, spending weeks of review and my sheer boredom. I was hoping homeschool curriculum would be different somewhat and at least I can modify if needed. I love the freedom. :)
Note: Singapore is not a homeschool curriculum. Its the curriculum of Singaporean Public schools ;). But as a homeschooler you do have the freedom to modify as needed.
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I would begin re-viewing weak spots right now, not after we had completed the book. This is giving mini-problems chance to be mountain problems.
If it were me, I would figure out which 3-5 topics that she always needs that extra-nudge on and do 1 or 2 of each type of problem every day until we finish the book. It really is that simple.
To make it "Open and Go" just take the time and print out sheets of those problems, cut the sheets into strips and staple/insert them between the pages of the childs workbook. For one hour tops of work, you can be prepared to do something logical and easy every day until you complete Singapore Grade 1 math.
Since the slips of paper are already in the book, then the first thing you do is your "math slip" and then your work pages. I do not understand this problem you describe at all.To my mind, what you suggest doing--waiting for later to address a problem that is apparent now, makes no sense. (I hope that is not the rude way of saying it, my English isn't "polished" or fluent.) Practice number bonds every day--keep the stack of cards by your bedside or kitchen drawer. My kids do their math facts at meal times after setting the table and waiting to eat and again at night before sleeping.
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Note: I have never seen Singapore Math first hand, but Singapore is an Asian country so I fully expect that there will only be extension of/next level material in the next grade.
School children do drill and practice all.the.time in Asian countries (generally, there are exceptions!) and most kids do not have a slump of learning that you see in US schools because they do not equate basic drill/practice/review with school, but with home.
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If she does well with CLE then maybe stick with it as long as possible. Saxon is apparently fairly easy to transition to from CLE so you could just switch to Saxon for Algebra II. Especially with a child that struggles I would hesitate to switch when the progam being used is solid and its working. But are there samples you and your child could review? Maybe Give her the Saxon placement test to see where she'd place?
If you continue with CLE--and if it works, then you should continue with it, IMO--I would give the Saxon Placement test after CLE 800 or CLE Algebra, instead of just placing her in Saxon Algebra because Saxons Algebra 1, 2 and Advanced Math are different from many others in that they have a Geometry text split between/integrated into them, instead of just separated. Plus, the coverage of topics is a little different from CLE.
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What are some math programs that I might look at that aren't from the US and so won't have the random separations in math topics at the upper levels?
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We used Saxon 54 and are using 65 but I pre-read and teach the material. I do not give the book to my son. We use the PDF from the website, so we don't have a physical book anyway but it works better this way because my ESOL son can not read well enough/long enough to learn from the Saxon text, but the Saxon method works spectacularly for him. The daily drill, incremental lessons, the variety of problems and the constant review. I teach Saxon using their examples and their lessons but my words if my way of explaining is "cleaner" than Saxons.
Because we have the PDF we print the mixed practices out larger than usual and my son writes on the pages themselves--no copying needed. He does the Lesson Practices with me near by but he has a simple Copy Sheet that we use for the lesson practice (hint: if my son does not have enough lesson practice problems, I just give him some more mom-made practice on the lesson topic.)
We split math into 2 sessions, in the morning I teach Saxon lessons to my son using a white board and he does the lesson practice for each lesson and maybe the first mixed practice if there is time. I don't know what would happen if we skipped, but for no special reason we do every problem, every time simply because that is as the book was intended.
Later in the day my son does the practice sets to a timer. He works for one hour but usually less to do the mixed practice sets for the lessons needed that day.
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Thank you, just wanted to get others experience and feedback on the thought.
For clarity the woman who said it was an assistant principal at a local middle school who had this thoughth, so I guess that is why she said it. Makes no sense to me instinctively, but I thought maybe it was an American view or tradition.
"Hard Math for Elementary" -- Full Review **Part 2 in #16**
in K-8 Curriculum Board
Posted
There is not a good review that I have found of this books, so my new hobby this season is sharing my reviews of books and curriculum that I am finding out about and am trying to be "fair" in my assessment. I want to share my bland judgement, but not my prejudice so hopefully this can go well for everyone. Please know that I am ESL, so my English is not perfect and sometimes I say wrong things because I don't have good command of English tone for communicating things. Without body lanugage sometimes it sounds "snobby" but that is not my intent. Okay, lets go.
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Hard Math for Elementary School
Background: My son has been exposed to many topics in basic maths. He understands the concepts for almost all of arithmetic skills, but he could not always solve any arithmetic problem. He would know how to do something on Monday and forget by Thursday so he is a forgetful child and he is emotional about it--he is frustrated and discouraged by not being able to remember how to do it, because he knows what he is supposed to do, but can't always make it work.
To help him master the doing part of arithmetic, we got him started in a maths book called Saxon Math. He likes maths and we want him to have success. My son did 2 math contests and really liked them--one he succeed in, the other he was not happy about :(. So he wanted a new book to use and we are trying out Hard Math for Elementary School.
This book is my early impressions because *I* have not finished the whole book, but have gone over the first ten chapters and done the material with my son that we have not already discussed or studied from the book. If the topic looks like this my son and I have gone over the material. If the topic looks like this then I *think* that we will use that chapter also but have not read that far yet.
The Book: This book has 21 chapters and these are the topics of them
01 - Addition with Carrying
02 - Base 8
03 - Mental Math
04 - Tiling Floors
05 - Addition Puzzles
06 - Multiplication Table
07 - Prime Numbers
08 - Subtraction
09 - The Distributive Property
10 - Finding Areas
11 - Modular Arithmetic
12 - Long Multiplication
13 - Combinatorics
14 - Squaring Numbers in Your Head
15 - Regular Polyhedra
16 - Unmultiplying and the Prime Factorization Number System
17 - Fractions
18 - Probability
19 - Division
20 - Fractions Part 2
21 - Decimals
Material: As you see, I have only read the first 10 chapters of the book. I plan to read the rest and share more material with my son but probably not all of it. Hard Math for Elementary School is "enrichment textbook" and also there is a workbook with sheets in it that go along to each chapter and another book which is answer key but we do NOT have workbook and answer key. We only have the textbook.
We have been working from the textbook only and I have been working the material ahead of my son. We are up to chapter 10 now. This is a nice enough book, but not very good. I have highlighted the chapters I feel are most beneficial for a child who knows basic arithmetic already, but I will read it all in case there is something nice in the book that I can't see about from the topic.
Presentation: You can look into the book on amazon, but it does not give you a look at the lessons you can see only the preface or instructions to parents on Amazon.
In my opinion the student material is not easy to read for a student. Admittedly my son is ESL and a weakling reader so I have to read his school books and share with him the explanations, but these books are not easy for an elementary student to read at all, I think. The formatting is very close together with the instructions and explanations as lots and lots of paragraphs, just like on this web-board so it isn't easy to see step 1, step 2, step 3. A student would have to be a fluent and careful reader who is good at going back and forth in the lesson to read through the explanations of an example. So, even if my son was a good reader I do not think that he could study from this book, which is not graceful writing.
The book is "boring" to study from . There are no colors and few pictures or diagrams, but in my home we do not care about that because mama is the one who reads the book, then explains the lessons to the son. Some moms may want color or better diagrams, or if your student can read the book maybe they want diagrams and pictures, but I do not care about that and because he does not study the book independent my son does not care either.
My Thoughts on Teaching and Topics:
Bad News: I was a little disappointed as I feel that for a child who has made it to 3rd or 4th grade, most of this is not new material and the title had promised Hard Maths lessons, but most of these lessons are not hard, but is okay. It is actually giving my son lots of confidence to think that he can do hard maths. I think that this book could be used to extend lessons to many 3rd and 4th graders and being specially bright in maths is not the prerequisite skill needed.
For the chapters 1, 2, and 8. I just gave him the problems and he could do them, no wordy explanation needed.
I do not like the way that US books teach number awareness. This way that I see often in US maths books makes poor sense and is often illogical to me, so I do not teach my son to do math facts like they recommend in US Maths books. To me, numbers make sense, and I teach my son the way that shows the sense of numbers.
I was not liking chapters 6 and 7. In chapter 6 they talk about the multiplication table, but do not teach commutative property. They talk like 1 x 7 and 7 x 1 are different facts when they are not. Whoa no way! I do not let my kids think that 1 x 7 and 7 x 1 are seperate, I teach him so that he knows that they are the same, no comment. I feel that a book calling itself Hard Maths and meant to be used by kids who are interested in maths should be including insights and clarity that is not in the elementary texts, not allowing the same medium level explanations and certainly not teaching in a sloppy way.
Chapter 7 is about prime numbers but they did not teach in a logical way and I was very sad to see their teaching of this.
To teach prime number the books teach kids to count how many times a number is in the multiplication table--if a number is in the table twice (as a x b and b x a since they do not teach commutative property), then it is "prime"!!! :confused: Oh no! That is incorrect and unreliable and crazy. A number is prime if the only factors are 1 and the number itself. That is easier to teach, more logical, reliable and actually correct every time.
If the book explained what a prime number was first, then it is easy and logical to see that a prime number appears once in a multiplication table. But a number is not prime because it is only on the multiplication once. And if you want to consider a bigger number, say 153, then are kids supposed to do a 14 x 14 times table??? :huh: This is silly, so I didn't teach that part of the book. My son was familiar with prime and composite numbers from our discussions and even though it is not in Math 54, when we did Math 54 and covered the multiplication table I included some talk of prime numbers again and again with him. Saxon will teach prime numbers in Math 65 also so he will have Prime numbers again.
There are some parts in Chapter 7 that are okay: 7.4, 7.5 and 7.6 are useful to teach, but I would preview 7.1, 7.2, and 7.3 and teach this differently if you are not comfortable with careless teaching styles.
This type of teaching is one reason why I am very glad that I am reading the material ahead of my son because I would not want him to have wrong teachings in his mind about maths--or anything, but certainly not maths. You try and make maths fit with what you learned from your textbook and so if your textbook is bad it is going to grow into bigger and bigger problems later. No thanks!
A big annoyance for me in this book is made up terms for maths. Saxon does this also and it makes me a little crazy, but I see that this is an American English thing to do, and so I do not get angry as it is clearly cultural.
Personally, I do not like the word "borrowing" and "carrying" in arithmetic. The translation to me is so weird to think because you are not borrowing anything, you will never give it back. You are restructuring the number--that is all. The quantity does not change, but its form does. You change the form to something simpler so that you can perform the additions and that is all. I think the term would be better as "stealing" but I do not know Americans do not just say "regroup" "rebuild" or even "rearrange". Oh well.
Chapter 9 is on Distributive Property and again it had weird and ungraceful explanations. The property is the property, there is no "single sided" or "double sided" version. The property can be extended, but the general idea holds no matter how many parts you are distributing over. It was still good to walk through the property again, but we did not teach difference of squares formula. It is not important to know it before you really understand it.
Good news: even though I am not very happy with the teaching of the material, the topics are okay and most important, my son is enjoying the material in this book. He likes that it is called Hard Maths and he gets confidence from doing the lessons--even if they aren't usually hard. This book has good topics that my son would not get to yet other wise. When we do extra lessons with him, it is concepts or problem solving for him, but rarely exotic topics like base-n number systems.
Honestly, my son loved Base 5 in Saxon Math 54 and since Math 65 does not teach new Base 5 material, we was happy to see Base 8 lessons from this book. We have done the first 10 chapters and will start the 11th chapter soon. My sons favorite sections so far was Chapter 2 (Base 8) and section 8.6 ("Borrowing" with Base 8).
My problem with Chapter 2 on Base 8 is that it uses The Simpsons as an example throughout the whole chapter. I looked up The Simpsons and this is not good TV show for a kid and I do not understand why he picked it. There are many, many, many cartoons who have 4 fingers and I feel that the the author was thoughtless of his audience to include The Simpsons. My son will never be allowed to watch The Simpsons in my house, but he can watch Mickey Mouse and Pocoyo or something else that is innocent enough for kids. There are many cartoons he can watch that have 4 fingers (even though he does not like cartoons.) When we did Base 8, we did not use Simpson examples. We used Pocoyo.
UPDATE:
I forgot to mention that one thing that I did not approve of in the section on Subtracting in Base 8 (page 78) is that when working in base 8, Mr. Ellison uses the digit "9" which, does not exist in base 8. In base 8 you should only access digits 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. Once you go higher than 7 you regroup into the the next power of 8. So from units to 8s, and from 8s to 64s and from 64s to 512s and so on.
I feel that this lack of consistency is not fair to students who are learning from this book. My son was not deceived because he has done a lot of work in base-10 and base-5. We talked for a long time about why quantity xxxxx xxxxx x was "11" and not something else like say..."A" or some other symbol and all of this was made even more clear by working in base-5
End of Update
Then he liked Chapter 4 which is on Tiling patterns (tessellations and geometry)--something that he likes. Chapter 9 was distributive property and even though my son he has met the distributive property many times-- papa and I teaches this before we teaches the algorithm for multiplication by 2+ digits so kids know why multiplying 8 x 36 works, and Saxon Math 54 also teaches the distributive property, and Saxon Math 65 teach it by name and now this book too. My son enjoyed doing some of the problems though so it was not a waste and we extended the distributive property to many, many places until we had:
(a + b + c+ d + e + f+ g+ h + i + j + k + l + m) x (n + o+ p +q+r+s+t+u+z+w+x+y+z).
My kids had a lot of fun distributing and adding up the numbers and so I do not regret doing Distributive property again. Now they should never forget it. Ever.
Chapter 10 is on Areas and this is also something that my son enjoyed--it wasn't all new to him, because Saxon Math 54 taught it in a project that we did, but he likes geometry and is always ready for more shapes and numbers. This chapter was actually a little better written than some of the other chapters on basics like addition, subtraction and multiplication. The explanations are not so wordy that you can't follow, formulas are found by discussion first and then summarized so that you understand why the formula is what it is.
My husband and I, we do not like too many formulas for area and perimeter. It is my opinion but I feel that my son should be reasoning it and figuring it out each time during the elementary stage and once he understands it fully for a year or two, then he can memorize it--because this boy needs to memorize and drill or he will forget everything. Even his name. My poor child will have it hard in life his memory is so bad. :lol:
The Ending:
We have 11 more chapters and even though there are things wrong with the book, we are planning to finish it. I also plan to buy and give my son the workbook to review materials we've covered already and when he does the chapters on material that the text didn't teach well, he will just use the mama and baba way that he knows and it will not be a big loss.
I will update my review to share my oponion and experience when I am done with the whole book. To be clear:So far, this book is not bad--it just isn't very good.
I wouldn't want to hand this book to any child to learn from, because I do not like the clumsy and half-correct explanations. I would use this book as a guide with any child who has finished or is doing well in a 3rd or 4th grade maths program. I think that any kid who does well with Math 54 would enjoy this book for its extra topics. I wouldn't teach new material from this book that would be covered in maths class--such as division or subtraction, and I wouldn't rely on this book for mental math strategies. But this book has neat topics for kids and interesting problems that are not that hard, but are novel and if they get them right, they feel like they are cool and if they get one wrong its okay because it was "hard" and they want to try again.
It isn't exactly what I wanted for my son, but my son is liking and enjoying the book and more than anything, his enjoying maths is important to me. I think that if we had the workbook it would be better as we are going fast through the book.
When we finish the textbook, I will probably order my son the workbook so that he can review and solve more problems--he likes the problems and there aren't enough of them in the textbook for his liking.
Hopefully, this review will help others who are considering this book.