I'd like ds to continue using Saxon for upper level math,

[creekmom]

but my friend (a math professor at local university) believes Saxon doesn't teach the "why" behind the math. She also homeschools her kids and teaches math at a co-op. She said that Saxon basically teaches the how -not the why. My son has been very successful with Saxon (last year as a 5th grader, he scored the equivalent of post high school in every section of the math on the Stanford), but I don't want him to have a disadvantage in college. Should I supplement with something else to cover the "why"? Any advice?

[delaney]

Honestly I am not sure I even know many of the whys behind math and I don't care to unless I need to. I am a show and go kind of math learner. I remember getting frustrated with the explanations. Maybe he is that kind of learner. I had no issues with high school, college, or grad school. :)

[Guest Cheryl in SoCal]

We only used Saxon 6/5 for 3 quarters because that was our experience as well. We (my kids and myself) also hated the incremental approach. You couldn't pay me money to use Saxon again.

 

ETA that one of my sons looked like he was doing well with Saxon (rarely got anything wrong) because he has an excellent memory and could memorize what to "do." Great, right? No, because he had no idea what he was doing and was just going through the motions. Thankfully, his brother couldn't memorize fast enough so we realized there was a problem and switched. It wasn't until we switched (we switched both) that we realized they both had serious issues with Saxon.

Edited November 22, 2010 by Cheryl in SoCal

[Zanyan]

One thing I have learned through my many years of homeschooling - if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

 

My daughter used Miquon and Singapore math in elementary and middle school and she "hated" math. She would understand whatever math concept we were working on at the time, but she would get upset and say I explained too much. The other problem was that even though she understood and could work problems during each session, if we weren't actively working on a topic, she would forget the processes once we came back to a topic, and she'd have to start over almost as from scratch!

 

I had heard so many negatives about Saxon from other people that I had never even given it a thought until a teacher who had worked with many homeschoolers listened to my complaints about my daughter's math learning and suggested that Saxon might be her perfect fit. I was skeptical at first - it looks so dull! But dd has been working her way through the Algebra 1 text, and she and I are both astonished at how well she is doing (finally!) in math. For the first time, she understands what she is doing, WHY she is doing it, and she doesn't forget how to do problems. It's the perfect fit for her. I do modify the explanations. For my taste (and dd's) the text explanations seem to over-complicate processes. My dd also uses the "Mastering Algebra" DVDs from Art Reed. She enjoys Mr. Reed's teaching style.

 

If your son has been successful with Saxon, plug your ears or avert your eyes when hearing or reading negatives about Saxon and forge ahead. There are plenty of stories about students who became engineers, scientists, or mathematicians who grew up with Saxon as their only math curriculum. :001_smile:

[forty-two]

but my friend (a math professor at local university) believes Saxon doesn't teach the "why" behind the math. She also homeschools her kids and teaches math at a co-op. She said that Saxon basically teaches the how -not the why. My son has been very successful with Saxon (last year as a 5th grader, he scored the equivalent of post high school in every section of the math on the Stanford), but I don't want him to have a disadvantage in college. Should I supplement with something else to cover the "why"? Any advice?

Do you agree with her assessment about Saxon just covering the hows and not the whys, and you're wondering if it really matters if students know the whys? In this case, I'd be inclined to say supplement, especially as he is so strong in math - you don't want to artificially limit his math potential. Some programs that address whys:

*Art of Problem Solving

*60s Dolciani texts

*Life of Fred

 

Or are you not sure if you agree with her Saxon assessment in the first place? In that case, I'd be inclined to ask her for a few specific examples that she can walk you through: here's Saxon's approach, here's what it is lacking, here is how I think it should be taught. This could give you a better idea of what sort of things she is seeing, and whether you agree that they matter, and to what extent.

 

HTH

[regentrude]

but my friend (a math professor at local university) believes Saxon doesn't teach the "why" behind the math. She also homeschools her kids and teaches math at a co-op. She said that Saxon basically teaches the how -not the why. My son has been very successful with Saxon (last year as a 5th grader, he scored the equivalent of post high school in every section of the math on the Stanford), but I don't want him to have a disadvantage in college. Should I supplement with something else to cover the "why"? Any advice?

 

This is one of the (many) points we disliked about Saxon: too much drill, too little in-depth thinking. That is why we have switched to Art of Problem Solving.

This said, I know that Saxon gets good results and gets the kids to do the math. So if your son does fine with it and likes it, I would not change it. You might want to add materials that explore topics outside the standard sequence and incorporate mathematical thinking that way.

[dangermom]

I don't know if I quite agree with her assessment. The other day my daughter studied dividing fractions for the first time. One of the hardest things to do in arithmetic, right? The Saxon explanation was perfectly clear and for the first time in my life I understand why you divide fractions like that.

[Tenaj]

I don't know if I quite agree with her assessment. The other day my daughter studied dividing fractions for the first time. One of the hardest things to do in arithmetic, right? The Saxon explanation was perfectly clear and for the first time in my life I understand why you divide fractions like that.

 

:iagree: I think Saxon sometimes gets a bum rap in this area. We used MUS for years and switched two years ago back to Saxon because my kids that had use MUS from the beginning were not understanding math as well as my kids that had started out in Saxon. I'm not trying to give MUS a bad reputation, that was just our experience.

 

If your child likes Saxon and is doing well, I'd stick with it.

[Ellie]

But you know, there are at least as many math professors who like Saxon as there are those who don't. I say stick with it.

[Hunter]

I stopped using Saxon and then went back to it, later on, as we hit calculus. I should have stuck with it.

 

I do like supplementing with the word problems in the Aufmann math texts, if i as willing to take 2 years to cover what scope and sequences say should be covered in one.

 

If I were committed to a traditional high school scope and sequence, I'd use Saxon exactly how it is written to be used.

 

There was a movie about a 1980s teacher who coached a whole class of low income minority students through the AP Calculus exam, using Saxon. He then went on to coach many more classes of students through the exam.

 

Saxon works for many, many students.

 

When people tried to tutor me and my son a bit, I think one of the reasons they didn't like the text, is that it covered so many topics per lesson, it was hard for them to quickly review the lesson before helping us.

[1Togo]

"Stand and Deliver" is the movie.

[katilac]

I'm another who thinks that Saxon gets a bad rap in the "they don't explain the why" area, and who has seen (over the years) just as many math profs and scientists who like Saxon as dislike it. My b-i-l is a physicist, and he recc'd high school Saxon as very solid and thorough (while acknowledging that, yes, it's going to be pretty dry for most students).

 

We have always used a mix of math programs; dh thinks that learning different approaches is very important. We have used Saxon, Singapore, Right Start Geometry, various challenge and supplement books, and just started dd1 with AoPS algrebra this semester. We have gained a lot from ALL of the programs. Singapore is excellent for showing multiple strategies, but I find many of their explanations quite poor and even misleading. We would never have stuck with it if we didn't have other math books to refer to (and the teacher's guide, imo, is worse than the student books, very jumbled explanations that make things appear more complicated than they are).

 

So, I would never let such remarks keep me from a program that is working. If you want to stress the whys of math, that's easy enough to do with various supplements. Check your library for some of The Teaching Company lectures on math/science!