langfam Posted October 27, 2009 Share Posted October 27, 2009 (edited) About 8 years ago the school my husband works at had several classes pilot Saxon. He taught 5/4 that year to 4th graders. The test scores for the 4th grade classes using Saxon was around 90 percentile for computation, but 50 percentile for problem solving. Saxon was dropped the next year as a result. I wanted to add that the county was piloting Saxon by testing it county-wide only with some classes, but across all grade levels. Edited October 27, 2009 by langfam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nestof3 Posted October 27, 2009 Share Posted October 27, 2009 About 8 years ago the school my husband works at had several classes pilot Saxon. He taught 5/4 that year to 4th graders. The test scores for the 4th grade classes using Saxon was around 90 percentile for computation, but 50 percentile for problem solving. Saxon was dropped the next year as a result. That's odd. It seems it would have been easier and cheaper just to add some problem solving. I like the Figure it Out Series. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
langfam Posted October 27, 2009 Share Posted October 27, 2009 (edited) I think because the test scores showed similar results across the different grade levels county-wide, they went with the curriculum that had better results in problem solving. It's easier to supplement math facts than problem solving. They have probably moved on to a different curriculum by now. I think it might be more difficult to teach Saxon with success in a classroom setting because it's difficult to identify what gaps different kids are having and reteaching can be a pain. For myself, reteaching a concept from the Saxon text meant searching back several lessons and trying to pull it together in some coherent form. This must be practically impossible to do in a classroom setting. Many kids too have trouble with seeing how one concept relates to another when presented in random order. One of my children has this problem. The concepts were a big jumbled mess in his head and he could not connect the dots. Kids who are more math naturals can do this , but there are those kids who can't, and in a classroom setting it's difficult to identify those kids. For these reasons, it's probably more practical to use a traditional text in a classroom setting. From my own experience from using Saxon for 11 years, it worked for 2 of my 5 children, but these 2 would have probably would've done just as well with any decent math curriculum because they are naturals at math. My other dc have done better with a more traditional text where one concept builds upon the previous one taught and they can see the progression of concepts. Gaps in understanding are easy to identify through the chapter and cumulative reviews and reteaching is a breeze because you can just go back to that section in the text. The greatest worry about leaving Saxon was that we would be giving up built-in review feature, but I have found that there is plenty of review in the traditional method, and I've discovered that for most of my kids the incremental method doesn't work, especially in the upper levels, so we don't use it anymore. Edited October 27, 2009 by langfam typos Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Barb B Posted October 27, 2009 Share Posted October 27, 2009 Well I'll add my 2 cents. We use abeka for early years then switch to Saxon at about 5th grade. We then stay with saxon through high school, including calculus. I love saxon, combined with the dive cds it teaches all it needs to. I have never felt that it doesn't teach the concepts (it does at the levels I have used), and the constant review is wonderful. I don't homeschool to be swayed by what "schools" are doing. In fact, if some schools seem to be dropping Saxon then that would be a good reason to use it:lol:. Honestly, homeschoolers have a better track record then "schools", why would I let what they use or don't use influence me! I don't thing Saxon would work well in a classroom anyway. There are behavior problems, learning problems and especially attention problems in the average public school classroom and student. As homeschoolers, my kids have the attention to stick to saxon and do all the problems. There is another difficulty, public schools don't have time to do all the problems in Saxon plus have students to "redos" of what they get wrong. You have to do ALL the problems plus redos to do saxon correctly. Barb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tammyla Posted October 27, 2009 Share Posted October 27, 2009 (edited) :iagree: And my sister a public school teacher...doesn't grade homework and 2/3 completion of a textbook meets their standard:001_huh:. Apparently this is the norm in her district. She doesn't like it, but she simply doesn't have time. And the sop is to change their math all the time... Well I'll add my 2 cents. We use abeka for early years then switch to Saxon at about 5th grade. We then stay with saxon through high school, including calculus. I love saxon, combined with the dive cds it teaches all it needs to. I have never felt that it doesn't teach the concepts (it does at the levels I have used), and the constant review is wonderful. I don't homeschool to be swayed by what "schools" are doing. In fact, if some schools seem to be dropping Saxon then that would be a good reason to use it:lol:. Honestly, homeschoolers have a better track record then "schools", why would I let what they use or don't use influence me! I don't thing Saxon would work well in a classroom anyway. There are behavior problems, learning problems and especially attention problems in the average public school classroom and student. As homeschoolers, my kids have the attention to stick to saxon and do all the problems. There is another difficulty, public schools don't have time to do all the problems in Saxon plus have students to "redos" of what they get wrong. You have to do ALL the problems plus redos to do saxon correctly. Barb Edited October 27, 2009 by Tammyla Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Haiku Posted October 27, 2009 Share Posted October 27, 2009 Should I be looking for a new math program? When my dd was in seventh grade, her teacher was required to use Saxon. Te teacher hated it. She had 45 minutes per day to do math, and she said that there was no way that she could effectively teach 20 kids Saxon math in 45 minutes a day. What she ended up doing was having the kids put their Saxon books on their desks, open to the topic that she was teaching about, and then teach the topic the same way she always had. I think Saxon is fine for homeschools, where you have the time to actually do it right. Tara Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
creekmom Posted October 27, 2009 Share Posted October 27, 2009 That's odd. It seems it would have been easier and cheaper just to add some problem solving. I like the Figure it Out Series. Can you tell us more about this series? I've never heard of it. Thanks!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msjones Posted October 27, 2009 Share Posted October 27, 2009 Reading a thread like this reminds me how thankful I am to be home-schooling. As a previous poster mentioned, it's much more difficult to use ANY math program in a classroom setting. When I taught public school, I was constantly frustrated about how difficult it was to make any meaningful changes in 'The Plan.' It's like turning the Titanic to switch curriculum, and nearly impossible to keep track of how each individual child is doing. I love home-schooling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nestof3 Posted October 27, 2009 Share Posted October 27, 2009 (edited) Can you tell us more about this series? I've never heard of it. Thanks!! Here's a sample: http://www.casamples.com/downloads/9186.9s.pdf Rainbow Resource sells them. They've pretty inexpensive. The Singapore word problem books are nice too. Another fun one is Math by Kids: http://www.googolpower.com/store/susan-richmans-math-by-kids-p-219.html Edited October 27, 2009 by nestof3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alegnab Posted October 28, 2009 Share Posted October 28, 2009 Having used Saxon K-3 with my first child and K-1 with my second, I can't imagine trying to use it in a classroom. It takes too much time. Dc#2, 3, & 4 have/are using Math-U-See. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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