Aunty Social Posted February 23, 2012 Share Posted February 23, 2012 . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wapiti Posted February 23, 2012 Share Posted February 23, 2012 Take this with a grain of salt because we haven't used LoF (though we have several of the books), but, if your student has mastered long division, you are ready for LoF Fractions. Fractions and the other books have been around for at least a few years, whereas the other books in the elementary series were only published recently. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aunty Social Posted February 23, 2012 Author Share Posted February 23, 2012 . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boscopup Posted February 23, 2012 Share Posted February 23, 2012 Hmm...He needs more work on multi-digit multiplication and division, both with whole numbers and decimal numbers. That's part of the reason I'm looking to switch. He's ready to learn it (and will probably master it in a couple weeks) and Saxon is so slow. Thorough, but slow. Why not use the Math Mammoth topic workbooks (blue) to catch up on those? It moves a lot faster than Saxon and is inexpensive (yet has good conceptual explanations). :) I just started using LoF Fractions with my DS, but it's just a supplement here. We're using Singapore as our main program (Saxon would not be a good fit for my DS either). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mandymom Posted February 23, 2012 Share Posted February 23, 2012 My suggestion would be to look at something like Math Mammoth for specific skills that need to be mastered, and then to move on to LoF fractions and then decimals/percents. LoF Elementary does not follow a mastery-type model. It is quite scattered in its presentation of skills, IMO. We use it for supplement for my youngest and as a primary program for my older student in Algebra. The elementary books are great but not adequate to use alone, and especially not for the purposes that you want. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wapiti Posted February 23, 2012 Share Posted February 23, 2012 If you are looking for something not as slow as Saxon but with more practice, and considering your post on the other board about possibly looking in the direction of AoPS in the future (though next year sounds too soon - you'd want to get through 5th grade math first at an absolute bare minimum), I'd recommend something like MM. I am skeptical of the amount of practice in the LoF books (though I haven't seen the ones below Fractions level) and the teaching of concepts seems to be a bit on the controversial side - at least, from reading around here, it seems to be a good fit for a narrower group of students. Eta, I see I'm late to the party in recommending MM :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aunty Social Posted February 23, 2012 Author Share Posted February 23, 2012 . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wapiti Posted February 23, 2012 Share Posted February 23, 2012 (edited) Would I be better off going with the topical or grade level MM? For your main curriculum, I'd choose the grade level. The topical is better for using as a supplement to something else. For moving over from Saxon 5/4, I'd start at the beginning of grade 4, breezing through the topics that he already knows (actually, that's what my dd did, coming from the beginning of 6/5). I wouldn't look in the direction of AoPS Prealg. until after MM 5B (or even 6B, depending, along with many other qualifiers). Edited February 23, 2012 by wapiti Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boscopup Posted February 23, 2012 Share Posted February 23, 2012 Would I be better off going with the topical or grade level MM? If you want to switch from Saxon to MM, I'd go with grade level (light blue). If you want to shore up a few skills before using something like LoF, I'd go with topical (blue). Technically, they're the same material, but organized differently. ETA: Wapiti beat me to it this time. :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aunty Social Posted February 23, 2012 Author Share Posted February 23, 2012 . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aunty Social Posted February 23, 2012 Author Share Posted February 23, 2012 . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EKS Posted February 23, 2012 Share Posted February 23, 2012 Hmm...He needs more work on multi-digit multiplication and division, both with whole numbers and decimal numbers. That's part of the reason I'm looking to switch. He's ready to learn it (and will probably master it in a couple weeks) and Saxon is so slow. Thorough, but slow. I would recommend using Singapore with a kid like this. It's very easy to accelerate but you won't miss anything. It also has supplements (the Intensive Practice and Challenging Word Problems books) that truly challenge the advanced math student. (I don't particularly like MM, but that's more of an aesthetics issue than for any substantial reason. LoF Fractions, on the other hand, is truly the most awful math book I've ever used. Not enough problems to build mastery and the explanations aren't explanations, just recipes. My son loved the story though.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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