Saxon & Abeka Maths

[Guest]

Are Saxon & Abeka on the same level, grade-wise (and I'm talking 1st-3rd grade-ish)? For example, if we are using Saxon 2 right now, is Abeka 2 the same material? (roughly) I always thought that Saxon was a year behind (Saxon 2 was actually 1st grade material) and that Abeka was pretty on target, but was told otherwise today. Just curious. Thanks!

[misidawnrn]

We used Saxon 1 for a while and in K DD was doing it at the Christian school she was in. When I brought her home in APril of last year we continued it and then I decided I didn't like it so I bought Math Mammoth. That was getting too hard for DD (now in the middle of 1st grade) so I switched to Abeka. She loves it and it is still a bit challenging on some parts and easy on others. She is having a hard time with hundreds, tens, ones etc and counting coins. She does great counting by 10s and 5's and ones but has a hard time switching from dimes to nickels to pennies for some reason. I have no doubt she will get it.

So to answer your question, I think Abeka is right on for the middle of 1st grade.

[LisaKinVA]

In short... no. Abeka and Saxon are nothing alike, do not cover the same material in the same way, and approach the whole scope & sequence differently.

 

Saxon, in the early grades, is much, much slower at introducing topics, and Abeka will "out-pace it" by the middle-to-end of the 1st grade book...

 

That said, the two curriculums start doing a bit of a shift in grades 4-6. Abeka slows down the introduction of new concepts, and has a lot more drill of older concepts which were introduced earlier, and Saxon increases it's pace of concepts around 5/4... the two wind up in essentially the same place around 7/6 and Arithmetic 6.

 

When my now 8yo dd and 7yo ds completed Abeka 2, they were ready for most 4th grade math textbooks. The first curriculum we ever used was Saxon 1... and it didn't last long.

 

Here is the scope & sequence for Saxon

 

Here is the scope & sequence for Abeka

 

Pay particular attention to the differences in addition subtraction facts (Abeka does facts through 13, meaning 13+1, 2, 3, etc.; Saxon does facts through 18, meaning 9+9), Abeka does up to 3-digit addition with re-grouping, Saxon doesn't introduce re-grouping until it's 2nd grade math text.) These difference have grown exponentially by Math 3, but as I mentioned earlier, the differences between them become less and less pronounced during 4-6 levels.

Edited December 31, 2010 by LisaK in VA
Links to scope & sequence

[RootAnn]

:iagree: ABeka is 'ahead' of Saxon in the 1-3 levels, but evens out a lot more later. My oldest took the Saxon math placement tests & always tested into the next level up of Saxon. For example, she completed Abeka 1 & tested into Saxon 2. She completed ABeka 3 & tested into 6/5 although there were a LOT of differences in types of problems.

[2cents]

I've used both and A Beka moves along a lot faster than Saxon.