Need Math Advice Please

[HSMom2One]

Dd did really great grade-wise with a different math program than we are using now, but when I tested her last summer prior to ordering new curriculum I discovered that her retention of concepts was considerably lower than it should be. It occurred to me that she might do better going back to the spiral method that she hated back in the primary grades, so I tested her for Saxon and placed her in 7/6 for 7th grade math. This year she is doing much, much better in math and says that Saxon is perfect for her needs. She is enjoying math for the first time EVER! Although she is not a mathy person, and I would be surprised if she headed into a career in a technical field, I still want to see her move on up to advanced math and do well.

 

I, too, am not a mathy person, but I believe that if someone had worked more closely with me I would have done much better in the subject than I did. Because of my own struggles, I am very sensitive to her needs - and as you might guess - I'm not a good math teacher. Dd and I are both words and pictures kind of people that are above average in intelligence - just not naturally analytical with numbers.

 

After much thought and prayer, we've decided that our goal for school is to prepare for dd to attend the classical school where I teach part time. She would love to go there for high school, and dh and I are totally supportive of that if we can possibly find a way to pay tuition. Unfortunately, she is a year behind in math, and would need to have completed Algebra 1 by the time she enters 9th grade. She is a mature 7th grader and is doing extremely well in all other subjects -- it's just the math that is the concern. We need to find a way to help her accelerate up to where she can enter high school with more confidence in that subject.

 

I'm going to finish up the Saxon 7/6 with her (we are halfway through right now), then go straight into 8/7 as soon as she's done. We will have to continue math year round with short breaks here and there rather than totally breaking over the summers. We will have to start Algebra 1 as soon as she's done with 8/7 and hopefully finish that prior to the fall of 2013, which is 1 1/2 years from now. I am also willing to hire a tutor for her at some point, but not sure where would be the best point to do that.

 

Does this seem realistic to do, or am I pushing dd too much? Are there other options that might be considered? What would you do if you were me?

 

Thanks in advance for your input.

 

Blessings,

Lucinda

Edited December 14, 2011 by HSMom2One
Typo - oops!

[Julieofsardis]

I would not suggest skipping 7/6. I would allow her to take the tests for 7/6 until she receives less than 85%. Pick up there with daily lessons, then do the same thing when she reaches the next book. She will most likely take the same amount of time with this approach, but she will not miss any crucial introductions to topics.

[HSMom2One]

I would not suggest skipping 7/6. I would allow her to take the tests for 7/6 until she receives less than 85%. Pick up there with daily lessons, then do the same thing when she reaches the next book. She will most likely take the same amount of time with this approach, but she will not miss any crucial introductions to topics.

 

She is currently in the middle of 7/6. My typo!

[regentrude]

I'm going to finish up the Saxon 7/6 with her (we are halfway through right now), then go straight into 8/7 as soon as she's done. We will have to continue math year round with short breaks here and there rather than totally breaking over the summers. We will have to start Algebra 1 as soon as she's done with 8/7 and hopefully finish that prior to the fall of 2013, which is 1 1/2 years from now. ...

Does this seem realistic to do, or am I pushing dd too much? Are there other options that might be considered? What would you do if you were me?

 

 

That seems like a realistic, doable plan to me.

 

If you find yourself under time pressure, one way to shorten the time through 8/7 is to skip the lessons that deal with purely geometrical concepts and focus on the prealgebra skills. Your DD will most likely take a full geometry course at school, so she'll see this material later. (If you were planning to continue with Saxon at home throughout highschool, I would not necessarily recommend this, but it worked very well for my kids who switched to a different curriculum which included a stand-alone geometry course after completing Saxon 8/7)

[HSMom2One]

That seems like a realistic, doable plan to me.

 

If you find yourself under time pressure, one way to shorten the time through 8/7 is to skip the lessons that deal with purely geometrical concepts and focus on the prealgebra skills. Your DD will most likely take a full geometry course at school, so she'll see this material later. (If you were planning to continue with Saxon at home throughout highschool, I would not necessarily recommend this, but it worked very well for my kids who switched to a different curriculum which included a stand-alone geometry course after completing Saxon 8/7)

 

That's a really good idea, Regentrude. I will keep that in mind for sure, but I do have a question. If we did skip over the geometry and then it turned out we had to continue hs'ing, how would we backtrack while staying with Saxon math for high school? Hmmmmmm. I need to be ready for either option.

 

Blessings,

Lucinda

[regentrude]

That's a really good idea, Regentrude. I will keep that in mind for sure, but I do have a question. If we did skip over the geometry and then it turned out we had to continue hs'ing, how would we backtrack while staying with Saxon math for high school? Hmmmmmm. I need to be ready for either option.

 

 

I can't really answer this question because I have not seen the higher Saxon texts (I only read that they have no separate geometry text). There really is not a whole lot to the simple geometry Saxon does in 8/7; it should be easy to go back and look over it, should you decide you need it.

[HSMom2One]

I really do need some help with this, dear friends. Your suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

Blessings,

Lucinda

[mjbucks1]

You could also skip Saxon 8/7 and do Saxon Algebra 1/2. My ds did this and has done very well. I am having my dd complete 8/7 becuase I thought she might need to go a little slower, but we are on lesson 72 and dd is flying through it because there is so much review. The 8/7 book has 120 lessons with 12 investigations. The Alg 1/2 book has 123 lessons and no investigations, so this would save a little time. I often have my children do a math lesson on Saturday, as well as some work through the summer. I think it is doable to have her ready for the classical school by 9th grade if she is willing to do the work.

Blessings!

Michelle

[Deniseibase]

It's not quite the same, but there was a point with my DD where I thought the answer to her math issues was to accelerate her through Saxon material. This was actually surprisingly easy to do - we would just go through 2 lessons per day, BUT only do the 30 mixed review problems for the second lesson. We WOULD still do the practice exercises covering the new concept from the first lesson to make sure she understood it thoroughly, and if she did NOT understand the new concept with the first lesson, we would not move on to the second lesson that day but get extra practice. I'm sure that's not the recommended way to do Saxon! :) But, it worked well for us because of the practice built into the spiral method - even skipping every other lesson's mixed review, she was still being exposed to several days on a row of practice on any new concepts, and Saxon breaks everything down SO completely that many of the lessons seemed to be very SLIGHT variants on a previous lesson. If you find your DD is able to 'get' the concepts pretty quickly and doesn't need the '20 days in a row of practice' and can 'get it' thoroughly with '10 days in a row', then it might be something to consider. It made the daily lessons about 5-10 minutes longer (this was for the middle school books), but it let us get through two math books in a year instead of just one. Just remember if you try it that it's ok to slow back down to 1 lesson per day if you hit a rough patch, it seems like the Saxon books always have a stretch of harder lessons around halfway through, and again the last several lessons of the book always seem harder.

[HSMom2One]

You could also skip Saxon 8/7 and do Saxon Algebra 1/2. My ds did this and has done very well. I am having my dd complete 8/7 becuase I thought she might need to go a little slower, but we are on lesson 72 and dd is flying through it because there is so much review. The 8/7 book has 120 lessons with 12 investigations. The Alg 1/2 book has 123 lessons and no investigations, so this would save a little time. I often have my children do a math lesson on Saturday, as well as some work through the summer. I think it is doable to have her ready for the classical school by 9th grade if she is willing to do the work.

Blessings!

Michelle

 

I like this idea a LOT!! Thank you so much! And, yes, the Saturday and summer lessons would have to be the way we go if dd wants to go to school for high school.

 

It's not quite the same, but there was a point with my DD where I thought the answer to her math issues was to accelerate her through Saxon material. This was actually surprisingly easy to do - we would just go through 2 lessons per day, BUT only do the 30 mixed review problems for the second lesson. We WOULD still do the practice exercises covering the new concept from the first lesson to make sure she understood it thoroughly, and if she did NOT understand the new concept with the first lesson, we would not move on to the second lesson that day but get extra practice. I'm sure that's not the recommended way to do Saxon! :) But, it worked well for us because of the practice built into the spiral method - even skipping every other lesson's mixed review, she was still being exposed to several days on a row of practice on any new concepts, and Saxon breaks everything down SO completely that many of the lessons seemed to be very SLIGHT variants on a previous lesson. If you find your DD is able to 'get' the concepts pretty quickly and doesn't need the '20 days in a row of practice' and can 'get it' thoroughly with '10 days in a row', then it might be something to consider. It made the daily lessons about 5-10 minutes longer (this was for the middle school books), but it let us get through two math books in a year instead of just one. Just remember if you try it that it's ok to slow back down to 1 lesson per day if you hit a rough patch, it seems like the Saxon books always have a stretch of harder lessons around halfway through, and again the last several lessons of the book always seem harder.

 

Dr. Shormann with the DIVE into Math videos has students double up on Mondays exactly like you have described, Deniseibase. I had not thought of doing it more than once per week though. What a great idea!

 

Yes! These are the types of suggestions that I was hoping to get! I knew that some of you moms out there that have used Saxon a lot more than me would have some great ideas to share. Some of you have lots of practice and I am so thankful to draw upon your experience.

 

I am hopeful, really hopeful that we can get daughter caught up soon. You're all giving me the encouragement I need.

 

Blessings,

Lucinda

[SailorMom]

It's not quite the same, but there was a point with my DD where I thought the answer to her math issues was to accelerate her through Saxon material. This was actually surprisingly easy to do - we would just go through 2 lessons per day, BUT only do the 30 mixed review problems for the second lesson. We WOULD still do the practice exercises covering the new concept from the first lesson to make sure she understood it thoroughly, and if she did NOT understand the new concept with the first lesson, we would not move on to the second lesson that day but get extra practice. I'm sure that's not the recommended way to do Saxon! :) But, it worked well for us because of the practice built into the spiral method - even skipping every other lesson's mixed review, she was still being exposed to several days on a row of practice on any new concepts, and Saxon breaks everything down SO completely that many of the lessons seemed to be very SLIGHT variants on a previous lesson. If you find your DD is able to 'get' the concepts pretty quickly and doesn't need the '20 days in a row of practice' and can 'get it' thoroughly with '10 days in a row', then it might be something to consider. It made the daily lessons about 5-10 minutes longer (this was for the middle school books), but it let us get through two math books in a year instead of just one. Just remember if you try it that it's ok to slow back down to 1 lesson per day if you hit a rough patch, it seems like the Saxon books always have a stretch of harder lessons around halfway through, and again the last several lessons of the book always seem harder.

 

:iagree: