Speaking of Teaching Textbooks...What would you do??

[Mommyfaithe]

My ds was completely math phobic after a few treacherous, tearful years of Saxon. I placed him in TT Alg. 1 in 7th grade. He has completed 1 and will complete 2 by the end of this school year. Mission accomplished...he no longer fears math...he no longer cries...he LOVES math.

Now my dilemna....I think he needs a more rigorous math program for high School. He needs a program that is as self teaching as possible...although my older students are available to help...I am not able to help after Algebra 2, as I took a business track (which proved VERY beneficial to me.)

Anyhow, I don't want him to feel as if we moved backwards by seeing Algebra 1 on a text.

I do have a copy of Larson's College Algebra...does anyone know if there are any teacher helps available to homeschoolers?? Or, does anyone have any other suggestions on how to proceed in our math sequence for High School?

 

Faithe

[Mx5]

My son (now a senior in high school...homeschooled his whole life) did TT Algebra 1, 2, & Geometry. Now he's using Thinkwell's Precalculus. It was a perfect progression from TT. We LOVE the video lectures.

 

Also, TT does have precalculus, however their lecture/solution cd's weren't finished this year for my son to use.

 

Regardless, I have been very pleased with TT, and my son's 98th percentile math scores on standardized tests for years have confirmed that TT is great.

[Mommyfaithe]

You are the first one I have heard of whose son used TT throughout high school. I guess we are all waiting to see how this experiment works out. It's always like this when I am nervy enough to try out a new program that I happen to love...sigh. I am so glad to hear your son did so well in Math. My Saxon experiment failed miserably!!! My 2 oldest girls did terribly on their math portion of the SAT after finishing up to Saxon Advanced Math...both scoring well all the way through. After trusting that Saxon was tried and true....well thought of both in homeschool AND Public School arenas and being totally disappointed in the final product...2 kids who would rather not ever see a math book again.....I was ready to try a new route.

Then I keep hearing about the lack of rigor...the left out topics....how behind TT is...etc. It made me second guess my choices.

In the long run.....TT changed my math phobic ds into a math lover. I gues I shouldn't fix what isn't broken. I just wasn't sure it wasn't broken.

 

Thanks for your input.

And congrats on your ds's high scores...sounds wonderful!

Faithe

[susie in tx]

I'm also trying to decide what to do about algebra. I cannot teach it. I remember very little algebra from when I was in school. I'll have to learn it with my dd. I have a huge math phobia. So, I need some extra help. There seem to be few programs out there that teach with cd. Thinkwell, TT, Chalkdust and Videotext come to mind.

 

I've looked at them all. I had my dh look at them. He thinks that our dd will learn best with TT. However, I hear on these boards about the problems with TT.

 

So, I spent some time on the SL boards reading about people who have used TT for a little while. For the most part, they are happy with it. There are some it hasn't worked for, but another program is working. But, that happens with any program.

 

This may be one of those cases where...if it works for Your child in Your situation, then it's all good.

[Lolly]

If it is working, I would stick with it. My dc are thriving with TT. Just because some people seem to have decided that it isn't up to snuff doesn't mean that it isn't. The people on the board who dislike it are very strong with their opinions. I just stay out of the mess when it starts up in a thread. I usually just don't feel like arguing about it. I certainly wouldn't change what is working just because a few people have declared it an inferior program. That is only their opinion.

[Robin in DFW]

AMEN~~~

[Chris in CA]

You bring up an interesting point. Those who like a program that is getting a negative post may not jump in and defend it, I probably wouldn't either, unless I'm in a particularly cantankerous mood ;)

but that's my personality, nonconfrontational. That doesn't mean that those people aren't out there, they are just silent

thanks for bringing this up

[Julie in CA]

I was pretty happy with Teaching Textbooks, and so was my ds. At the end of it all though, it was pretty clear that my ds still didn't completely grasp all of the Algebra he'd worked through. I don't fault the TT, because it was the same problem we'd had with a previous Algebra text. Just recently, I've switched two of my ds's to Thinkwell. It's TT "on steroids" imo. It has all of the great stuff about TT, but has other features that are even better. I like that with the Thinkwell, if you need more practice on a lesson, you just click and the program will give you a whole 'nother set of practice problems, as many times as you need. My kids *love* the humor of Professor Berger (sp?). The Thinkwell also functions more like the lower level TT, in that the exercises are interactive and self-scoring. There's a handy checklist page where I can easily see if my kid 1)watched the video lesson 2)printed out any available notes 3)completed the exercises satisfactorily 4)took the test & grade.

I'll be using Thinkwell for all 5 dc, from 8th grade on.

I'm not trying to convince you to switch to Thinkwell, but if you're looking for an alternative to TT, Thinkwell is a great choice!

~Julie~

[Kelli in TN]

I am another one who uses TT happily. I stay out of the fray when most TT conversations come up, unless you are a math expert it is best to keep a low profile on math curriculum.

 

I cannot give you test scores yet, but TT is the math we can do. My kids get it, I get it.

 

If the budget allows, may I suggest using Aleks along with TT? This has been a very good solution for us. My high schooler does a TT lesson and 20-30 minutes of Aleks per day. I feel good about this arrangement and I am pretty sure I am not destroying her chances to succeed in life.