What about Saxon Algebra?

[Ginger]

The past several days, I feel like I have read just about every thread on this board related to Algebra/Pre-Algrebra, but none seem to have mentioned Saxon.

 

My dd is 13 in Saxon 8/7 and is failing miserably. She is about 3/4 of the way through and misses at least half of the problems in her daily work, and has done that for quiet a while. I guess I should have put the brakes on months ago, but I just figured that with the spiral approach, that she'd eventually 'get it'. She seems to do well with the new lesson material each day, but must break down when it comes up in subsequent lessons. Math is taking her hours to do each day and we are just both miserable.

 

The concepts that she seems to be struggling most with are ones that she has been doing for years: Perimeter/Area (she forgets which one uses 'square' cm vs. cm), finding area of a circle (mixes up radius/diameter, multiplies the radius by 2 instead of squaring it), adding/subtracting/multiplying/dividing negative numbers, converting decimals to percents and vice versa. She recently asked me 'aren't there 100cm in a yard?!' She also recently took the high school ACT as a 7th grader because she is in the Duke TIP program. When asked about how she did, she said she had to find the area of a rectangle and she had forgotten how to do it.

 

This is smart girl. She was a Classical Converstion Memory Master 2 years in a row. She had all that committed to memory. What happened?? It's like everything she has ever learned in math has gone out the window. I don't know if it is Saxon or something else? Last year in 7/6 she has similar problems with missing many many problems on her work. I just thought things would click. Now I'm in that conundrum of what to do next year for Pre Algebra. I'm going to try to spend the next few weeks having her do games online that have to do with negative numbers, area etc... And I also just bought Life of Fred Fractions, Decimals and Percents to do over the summer. But in my mind I was planning to just prepare her to go into either Saxon Algebra 1, or now more likely Algebra 1/2. But I'm wondering if I should stay far far away from Saxon. If it hasn't clicked with her these past few years, perhaps it won't in high school either. I do have the teaching CD's and we've been using them for about the past month. I thought that was helping, but she says she doesn't understand what the lady is saying....

 

So as I've perused the boards reading about different programs, I have not seen Saxon recommended, and I'm just wondering why that is. And if maybe I should not feel so guilty about leaving Saxon (if we do).

[Jann in TX]

Disclaimer-- I used to teach from Saxon exclusively--over 10 years! I really liked the program and I saw great results --for MOST students.

 

I stopped using Saxon when one of my own girls became one of the ones it DOESN'T work for-- and we found this out about half way through Saxon 8/7. I did what was recommended and we 'restarted' the program--but still she just was not retaining. Then I took a closer look at the program and HOW it was designed-- I have a degree in Math education-- I don't know why I hesitated! Saxon made 'sense' to me--but then I am an ADULT-- I'm not sure if I would have done well with this as my primary program in Jr High.

 

Saxon teaches in increments. Lesson 'concepts' vary from day to day. Whole concepts are NOT presented in one lesson-- only partial ones. After lesson 40 or so students are supposed to 'naturally' put the fragments of concepts together. Problems will appear in the REVIEW part of the problem set that the students have NEVER seen before (requiring combinations that are not modeled in current or prior lessons). This is fine for 'most' students--- but about 30% (in my experience) just cannot handle it-- they NEED to see someone teach them how to combine concepts and have that modeled in a lesson.

 

On the advice of another homeschool mom (from the WTM boards of course!) I purchased an inexpensive copy of Lial's Basic College Math. I think I spent less than $10 including shipping for an older edition. For DD it was like a BREATH OF FRESH AIR! She was able to see COMPLETE concepts--and it was wonderful at filling in some gaps (partial concepts in Saxon that she just did not retain). She BEGGED to stay with Lial so we moved on through Introductory then Intermediate Algebra (Algebra 1 and 2).

 

I was so impressed with the Lial series that I stopped tutoring from Saxon and now use Lial with my online classes (well I use Holt for Geometry).

 

Saxon is a solid, proven program--but it IS 'unique'-- and it is not a fit for all students--I don't think ANY program is.

[Ginger]

Thank you for your thoughts. I'm the same way. I really 'get' Saxon. It makes sense to me, but on the other hand, I do not remember doing the stuff she is learning now until high school.

I've been looking at Lial's today. (well, first off, do they have an actual website--looks like the sites I've found are just copies of the books). I found a used 2nd edition Pre Algebra on Abe Books for $1. It is from 2002. Has it changed that much over the years?

At this point, do you know if Pre-Alg would work, or should she just do the BCM. This late in the year I hate to start something new, so I'd probably wait until next year, and since I would like her to start Algebra in 9th grade (the following year, I feel like she'd need to do the Pre-Alg next year.

What do I need to order the Lial's--I saw some solution manuals listed and I assume they'd be needed. Anything else?

[Sebastian (a lady)]

We do use Saxon. I recommend it when I see math threads. But it certainly is not the fashionable program of the moment.

 

I agree that a lot of the learning how to handle problems happens within lesson practice rather than overtly within the lesson explanation.

 

The examples that you mentioned make me wonder if she is solid on what the math expressions are representing. Middle school is not too old for manipulative, imho. There is a lot going on in an adolescent brain. Sometimes going back to manipulating solid objects until the math makes sense is a good idea.

 

I remember drawing many figures in my own math days to illustrate what I then solved. So maybe one tactic would be to go back to a concrete example of the math problems. So for example, area vs perimeter might be demonstrated with a room that you are tiling in one foot square tiles and then triming with baseboard. How many tiles (area) and how many feet of baseboard (perimeter).

 

I do like Saxon, but then we have not struggled with it. And I have always felt free to stay on a lesson for longer if they were not getting the concept (we spent a week on learning division of fractions, looking at it every which way until it made sense to all of us). We don't use teaching cds or dvds. They read the lesson and work the problems.

 

FWIW, two last comments. The reenforcement and introduction of concepts through the lesson practice is one reason that I think that skipping problems in the lessons is an unwise idea. We used to do that and I learned that it wasn't helping us. My older kids actually got faster at completing 30 problems than they had been at doing 15, because each problem type was being more frequently worked.

 

The other thing I might suggest is the books Math Doesn't Suck and Kiss My Math. I think they do a great job of illustrating what math represents and why certain things work the way they do. It is a bit irreverent and fun, but still has solid math. (And I think it can be a fine resource for both boys and girls.)

[kiana]

She really doesn't sound like she understands the math, but more like she's memorizing algorithms to solve problems.

 

This works okay when you are only memorizing a few algorithm types, but as the level of math increases the amount of memorization needed to memorize instead of understand increases dramatically.

[Ginger]

You're right. She doesn't seem to understand the concepts, which is frustrating because we used RightStart all the way through E. So at that time she had good conceptual understanding, but with the limited practice with RightStart, she wasn't able to solidify what she was learning.

[Heather in WI]

Hi!

 

My oldest is 3/4 through the way 8/7 now, too. I definitely would put the brakes on now! Do you have the past lessons that she's completed or did you throw them away?

 

With our ds, we go through each problem in detail on our chalkboard that he's missed if he scored less than an 80%, if it's a type that he's frequently missed, if I can see from his work that it's a conceptual problem and not just a sloppy error, or if it is a test question.

 

I would start right now reviewing everything that you mentioned that she is getting wrong. If you have the past work, it's easy, just sit down and go over every single problem she got wrong on however many lessons you have. Then, change up the problems slightly on your own to make sure she gets it before you continue on to the next lesson.

 

I'm not Jann or a math teacher IRL, so I'm not suggesting you either stay with Saxon or don't switch to Lial's, but I would at least make the attempt to work with what you know are her weaknesses right now.

[Hunter]

The Robinson Curriculum people are the experts on Saxon math. I'd check out the main website or sign up for the yahoo group.

 

My favorite maths are Saxon and Aufmann. Aufmann is another remedial CC math program similar to Lials.

 

Many students do best SLOWING down and using a combination of Saxon and CC maths, and planning on only getting as far as Saxon 1/2 or 1 by 12th grade. The CC texts let you see where a student will place at the CC, relieving a lot of worries about being "behind".

 

My son's "College Algebra 101" class only did the easy problems in the Intermediate Algebra book. They didn't cover much more than Saxon Algebra 1.

 

You might also want to look into manipulatives and math journaling

[Ginger]

I check her work daily and we go over the problems that she misses and do them together. So I've gotten a feel for the types she is missing. But it just seem that no matter how many times we work through them....(for ex...to change a fraction to a percent, you divide and multiply by 100), it doesn't seem to sink in. What's most frustrating is that she used to be able to do these and understand why. I even bought posters from the school supply store and put them around our school room as cues for her.

 

My short term game plan is to not mover any farther in 8/7 and go back and work on the drill sheets. I ordered the first few LoFred books and I'll have her do those over the summer, then I think I'll have her do Lial's pre-algebra next year if things start to click, and if not, I guess she can do the BCM.

[Brenda in FL]

I'm going to add to this thread just in case its helpful for other readers. I too have a 12 year old that seems to be hitting a wall with 8/7!! I remember reading a thread about 2 years ago and this seemed to be a common occurrence with Saxon 87. It makes me wonder if part of the problem is just the pre-adolescent growth (or non-growth?) that's happening at this age.

 

At any rate - we have started doing the whole problem set. I also have just started teaching him the lessons rather than relying on him to read the lessons himself. It'll probably mean it will take a little longer to finish the book, but I hope it will help. We'll spend one day a week with me teaching the concepts for the next 3 lessons and having him work the lesson practice with me present. The he will do the mixed practice sets the following days. I sure hope that this will help!!

 

I think its also an attitude and laziness problem with him as well, which is why I am not about to scrap Saxon altogether yet.