Saxon Math Placement Dilema (cross post)

[DaisyMay]

I have a dilema with placing my son into Saxon math. He's 12 (almost 13) going into 7th grade. He's really good at math and has never struggled, although he does have dylsexia and attention problems. He's behind in his math because of some switching around I did :crying:, but I want to get him caught up.

 

He just finished the CLE 500 series and had no problem with any of the work or concepts. The problem with CLE is that my son doesn't take the time to read the lesson, he just skims and does the work. I would help him with it, but I'm not very good at math myself and struggle to explain things clearly. For that reason we are moving to Saxon with the DIVE cd's.

 

I had him take the placement test. He scored 2 points shy of getting into 8/7. The 7/6 samples that I saw looked like stuff we have covered, so I went ahead and bought the 8/7, thinking the challenge would be good for him, and that it would get him ready for algebra next year. Now that it's arrived, I'm wondering if the 8/7 is going to be too much for him. It looks pretty beefy.

 

I'm thinking my options at this point are: 1. Try the 8/7 for a bit and see how he does, with the thought of moving him back to 7/6 if necessary; 2. Return the 8/7 and get the 7/6 to go through quickly; 3. ????

 

Opinions or thougths on what I should do? Have I really blown it?? I really need someone to help me think this through.

 

Thank you!!

Gayle

[momee]

Hi,

just wanted to encourage first you have not blown it. Prealgebra is the perfect time to cement learning :) You are right on time, lol.

 

Math at this level is important and taking extra time with it pays off big!!! for algebra. Ask me how I know!

 

My advice - do 7/6 tests until you see a marked decrease in scoring, like a C or something. Then pick it up from there. I believe the Saxon folks will tell you the same thing. You could always call them yourself. They're very helpful. Though they do take a little while to return email or call you back.

 

The fact drills, mental math and process familiarity alone are worth redoing the whole program. Coming from something else, too, you may want to consider backing to 7/6 to be familiar with the way they present topics since your student...

" doesn't take the time to read the lesson, he just skims and does the work."

That is not! gonna fly with Saxon :)

 

My dd is starting over again at lesson 1 of 7/6 after getting to lesson 30 at the end of the schoolyear in May. We haven't touched a math book since then and it shows. They whine, yes but are so much better for it.

She was requesting self teaching, I relented and am seeing big gaps in her knowledge of fractions and decimals already.

 

Some will say why drill and kill? I say I do not want an algebra student still struggling with basic math computation issues on decimals and fractions.

HTH.

Edited August 17, 2010 by momee

[DaisyMay]

Hi,

just wanted to encourage first you have not blown it. Prealgebra is the perfect time to cement learning :) You are right on time, lol.

 

 

The fact drills, mental math and process familiarity alone are worth redoing the whole program. Coming from something else, too, you may want to consider backing to 7/6 to be familiar with the way they present topics since your student...

" doesn't take the time to read the lesson, he just skims and does the work."

That is not! gonna fly with Saxon :)

 

 

HTH.

 

Thank you for that encouragement. One of the reasons we're going with Saxon is for the drill and review. I want him really learn the concepts, not just skim & get by.

 

Do you think it's worth buying a 76 book for review? Or is there enough teaching/review in 87 to make things clear to him.

 

Thanks again!

Gayle

[Soph the vet]

We just finished 76 last year and looking at 87 there are probably 40 lessons of review at the beginning. If you feel like your ds is comfortable with the material from 76, I would just jump into 87 or he might get really bored. Just my two cents.

[KarenNC]

We just finished 76 last year and looking at 87 there are probably 40 lessons of review at the beginning. If you feel like your ds is comfortable with the material from 76, I would just jump into 87 or he might get really bored. Just my two cents.

 

A long time Saxon user at our homeschool consignment store told me that Saxon's pattern is the first 40 lessons are review, the next 40 are new material and the last 40 are more challenging. I'm in this situation with my daughter between 6/5 and 7/6 and we've chosen to go with 7/6, with the option to drop back down to 6/5 if the first 40 are a problem for her. We're on lesson 22 and it's been great so far---she's acing the tests---so I think we made the right decision. I based my decision in part on the specific questions she missed on the placement test. I gave a lot more weight to ones that were obviously conceptual errors rather than sloppiness in arithmetic.

 

With my daughter, who also doesn't like to pay attention to detail in math and therefore made a lot of careless errors, I've started grading her problem sets. I take off for wrong answers (obviously :)) as well as not doing things like including the units in the problem (if they ask how many cases of tomatoes, I want the answer to be 15 cases of tomatoes, not just the number 15). She also has to go back and rework any missed problems and figure out what went wrong. Her attention to detail has increased remarkably over the last 22 lessons!

Edited August 18, 2010 by KarenNC

[DaisyMay]

With my daughter, who also doesn't like to pay attention to detail in math and therefore made a lot of careless errors, I've started grading her problem sets. I take off for wrong answers (obviously :)) as well as not doing things like including the units in the problem (if they ask how many cases of tomatoes, I want the answer to be 15 cases of tomatoes, not just the number 15). She also has to go back and rework any missed problems and figure out what went wrong. Her attention to detail has increased remarkably over the last 22 lessons!

 

Sounds just like my son! I hope Saxon helps him as well!

 

Gayle

[JumpedIntoTheDeepEndFirst]

I think you are a bit stuck--you can go back and pick up 7/6 where the test scores drop off as suggested but you'll be in 8/7 before the end of the year. You could start 8/7 and do the extra problem sets for those areas where he needs reinforcement. Or you could start 8/7 and if it is awful go back to 7/6. I think you could try any of these solutions and not go wrong-you'll just end up with two sets of math books.

[KarenNC]

I think you are a bit stuck--you can go back and pick up 7/6 where the test scores drop off as suggested but you'll be in 8/7 before the end of the year. You could start 8/7 and do the extra problem sets for those areas where he needs reinforcement. Or you could start 8/7 and if it is awful go back to 7/6. I think you could try any of these solutions and not go wrong-you'll just end up with two sets of math books.

 

Another option might be to do what we did. I picked up a few of the Key to... books (topic-focused, very inexpensive) on the areas that my daughter missed on the placement test because she had not been exposed to them (she placed between 6/5 and 7/6 but very close to 7/6). We did those for a couple of months and then went into Saxon at 7/6. Seems to be working so far.

[Maverick_Mom]

 

He just finished the CLE 500 series and had no problem with any of the work or concepts. The problem with CLE is that my son doesn't take the time to read the lesson, he just skims and does the work. I would help him with it, but I'm not very good at math myself and struggle to explain things clearly.

 

 

 

This sounds very much like my son, the differences being that we're using another program and he has just finished Pre-Algebra. He did very well with the lessons, but then did poorly on the Algebra placement test. Like your son, my son got through the lesson as fast as he could and didn't always internalize the concepts. I hesitated to move him on to Algebra but finally decided to go ahead -- there's plenty of review in the beginning, and we're using the Key To... books to review those concepts that he *appeared* to understand but missed on the placement test.

 

It sounds like this might be a good approach for you, too -- move ahead, since Saxon does have plenty of review at the beginning of each book, and use something like the Key To... books as reinforcement.

[Homeschooling6]

You can email Art Reed. He taught Saxon math and was a friend of John Saxon.

[DaisyMay]

All good suggestions! Thank you for helping me think this through. I'm driving myself crazy questioning and just needed outside opinions.

 

I think I will contact Saxon to see what they would do. I'm thinking I should go ahead and buy 76 and have him test out of the lessons until he gets stuck. Now to decide if I need the DIVE cd for 76 or not!!

 

Thanks so much for all the help!!

Gayle

[momee]

on the cd's...we're not using them until 8/7 or algebra I because I want to see that she's mastering the infomation and not just watching a dvd. Just us though. Plus I want to watch those extra expenditures of the homeschool budget. I've bought things we don't need and scrimped on things we do. Trying to fix that personally.

 

I did hear the DIVEs are not as good as Saxon Teacher but haven't seriously looked too hard. I also like the Art Reed ones but they don't start until alg 1/2 I think. The reason I like them is he's more of a teacher than just repeating the lesson in the book. I have heard that he gives hints and warnings and those are things I'm not so great at doing as the math levels get higher. Just my thoughts...we haven't really needed them at this level.

 

The quote below is definitely one I agree with. Their is review in Saxon but if they don't know the processes, the review isn't going to help a ton. They'll end up missing problems as you go higher if they're missing some now. Saxon gets you like that unfortunately.

 

My personal choice would be the lower year at a quicker pace to ensure he's got it. Testing well will show you he's got it and it'll take what, a few months if he knows it? That's worth it I think to be sure.

 

I'm all about cushioning those emotional high testosterone roller coaster years with lots of reminders and review because we opted for quick and fast math with my older when he was that age and paid dearly later. He whined it was all easy when really he was just not willing to work. I allowed his noise to interfere :), kwim? Not saying you will. Just sayin...

 

 

 

"A long time Saxon user at our homeschool consignment store told me that Saxon's pattern is the first 40 lessons are review, the next 40 are new material and the last 40 are more challenging. I'm in this situation with my daughter between 6/5 and 7/6 and we've chosen to go with 7/6, with the option to drop back down to 6/5 if the first 40 are a problem for her. We're on lesson 22 and it's been great so far---she's acing the tests---so I think we made the right decision. I based my decision in part on the specific questions she missed on the placement test. I gave a lot more weight to ones that were obviously conceptual errors rather than sloppiness in arithmetic"

Edited August 18, 2010 by momee

[DaisyMay]

I just wanted to update this for anyone who might have this same question later on.

 

I ended up emailing Saxon to see what they would suggest. The person who emailed back said to do 76 with success rather than 87 with a struggle. I think that's what we'll end up doing, afterall, my ds IS going through puberty and sometimes doesn't know his own name!!!

 

I'm going to order th 76 with DIVE and test him through the lessons. We'll slow down when he gets stuck.

 

I had considered Saxon Teacher, but when we watched the demo, neither my son or I could stand the voice! For some reason it just grated on our nerves!

 

Thanks so much for everyone's helpful responses. I so appreciate having this board work through things.

 

Thanks again!

Gayle