What do you think about Jacobs alg. for non mathy kid?

[Momma H]

Just wondering. I am planning for the future and algebra. I see that Maria Miller recommends Jacobs and Foeresters (sp?) texts but I am not sure if my non mathy kid would be successful. What do you think? Anyone had a non mathy kid do well with it?

ETA: Do those include pre-algebra or is that separate?

 

Thanks!

[Chris in VA]

My son is not good in math. I thought he'd do well with Jacobs, as it is "talky" and almost narrative.

He needed something cut and dried.

[EKS]

I don't see why a child like this couldn't be successful with Jacobs. I would be sure to teach the lesson yourself (and not expect it to be done completely independently) and do as many practice problems as necessary together to be sure your child understands everything before assigning problems to be worked independently.

 

I would also do a separate prealgebra program before starting, unless the child is a very strong math student.

 

All that said, I've only used Jacobs with my son who is very strong in math. However, he does have some learning disabilities which made certain algebra programs impossible for him. He found Jacobs to be crystal clear.

[Melissa in CA]

My oldest ds was not at all mathy. We tired a variety of algebra programs with him, one being Jacobs. Jacobs started out well, but then he just got lost. Perhaps if I were better at algebra I could have helped him through it, but I only barely got through Alg 1 and that was 20+ years ago...I basically don't remember a thing.

 

I even pulled in a lady who is a math tutor and who is VERY mathy, and she could not make heads nor tales of what they were trying to teach him when he got stuck. So, my advice from my personal experience is only use Jacobs if you yourself are mathy.

 

After trying Jacobs, Saxon, and MMM, what we finally found and used successfully was Math Relief http://www.mathrelief.com/ My ds understood the teacher and was able to pass the class without any help from me. ;) it also contains prealgebra in the Algebra 1 set and states that prealgebra is not required. My middle son, who was in 8th, did the Math Relief videos with his brother as his prealg and alg 1. He did well and moved on to BJU's Alg 2 w/DVDs having no problem whatsoever.