razorbackmama Posted September 24, 2012 Share Posted September 24, 2012 Is there such a thing? My son is doing well with the constant review of Saxon, but he's annoyed by the incremental-ness of it. He's tolerating it, and it's working, but I'm wondering if there is something not quite so incremental yet has the same amount of review? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted September 24, 2012 Share Posted September 24, 2012 TT? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
klmama Posted September 24, 2012 Share Posted September 24, 2012 We didn't use Saxon, but my dc have all found that they get bored using only incremental, spiral approaches and they forget too much with intensive, mastery approaches that only review once a month. We have to use a combination. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
razorbackmama Posted September 24, 2012 Author Share Posted September 24, 2012 klmama, what do you use? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted September 24, 2012 Share Posted September 24, 2012 Not Klama, but I've got the new edition BJU stuff and am trying to figure out if I can do it on top of TT. Dd really benefits from that spiral practice in TT, but it doesn't have the harder problems and seems to encourage her to turn her brain off. So like Klama, I'm hoping a bit of spiral plus something more mastery/conceptual will be the ticket. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
razorbackmama Posted September 24, 2012 Author Share Posted September 24, 2012 I've looked at TT pretty extensively but am not impressed.:blushing: What all BJU materials have they updated? I know they started with the elementary grades a while back...have they updated the high school stuff? Does it have as much review as the newer elementary versions do? How independent is BJU high school math? We used to use the elementary stuff, and "independent" is definitely now how I'd describe it LOL. So I didn't know if the high school materials were the same or not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Storm Bay Posted September 24, 2012 Share Posted September 24, 2012 (edited) I've looked at TT pretty extensively but am not impressed.:blushing: . We even own one TT and are not impressed--no need to blush. We don't do spiral math, so I don't have much to offer if that's what you want. None of Algebra texts we found to be well done that worked for us are spiral that I can think of (not that I'm an expert on this), and in our experience with Algebra many things build on what's taught earlier in the book. OTOH, we've owned at least 6 Algebra 1 texts, & still own most of them. My eldest tried a lot of them, and ended up doing it first with Lial's (well, the bulk of it as she tried others before it) & the second time around (I like my dc to do Alg 1 twice) with the 1965 Dolciani (1965-1975 are the best years for that book.) None of these are my favourite book, which is Gelfand's Algebra, seconded by LOF (but LOF would only be enough for my eldest, & we bought it when she was ready for Geometry, but used 2 books for that course in the end.) I don't know if Foerster's is spiral, but we own a copy of that; I didn't end up teaching that book to my middle dd after all. We've also tried Jacob's. That's 6, so I hit it on the nose, as we do own all of LOF from Fractions through Calculus/Statistics & that other "college level" one. Edited September 24, 2012 by Karin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted September 24, 2012 Share Posted September 24, 2012 I've looked at TT pretty extensively but am not impressed.:blushing: What all BJU materials have they updated? I know they started with the elementary grades a while back...have they updated the high school stuff? Does it have as much review as the newer elementary versions do? How independent is BJU high school math? We used to use the elementary stuff, and "independent" is definitely now how I'd describe it LOL. So I didn't know if the high school materials were the same or not. You can tell from the copyright dates which levels of the 7th-12 sequence have been updated. BJU weaves review into the warm-ups in the tm, review sections in the text, and cumulative reviews in the activities manual. So if you do all the components, I suppose it's comparable to the amount of review you were seeing in the updated versions of the lower levels. No, TT is not as challenging or in-depth as BJU, that's for sure. However TT was *awesome* for my dd's computation speed and just go-getter confidence. She aced her standardized testing in math this past year. No I'm not confident that it would continue every year, which is why I'm thinking of doing a blend. However I definitely think TT has its place. You know math is so individual. With my dd you get someone who gets it quickly, deserves to be challenged a bit, wears out easily (ie. needs short lessons like in TT), but who also needs an INSANE amount of practice to become proficient. I can't get all that in one program for her. I don't mind a mix. She's been doing the TT pre-algebra lessons two a day for the most part, and even then they only take her 20-30 minutes total. No I don't consider that an adequate amount of math challenge. But would I trade that amount of proficiency? That's the click I couldn't get using only hard material. So I'm going to stagger some things (BJU for the challenge, TT for the spiral and speed) and let it all pan out in the wash. Like Karin, I own or have owned just about everything out there btw. I've had Jacobs, Foerster, BJU, Lial, Dolciani, Discovering Algebra, etc. etc. Actually I never bought the upper level SM stuff. Anyways, I'm really impressed with the new edition BJU stuff. It seems to pull in what I like of a lot of other programs (the recursive patterns and graphing exploration of the Discovering books, set theory and C level problems of Dolciani, etc. etc.). I'm also not certain what's going on with testing standards. They've bumped up the BJU math *quite a bit* and the reps are saying it's in response to changing test standards. I'm beginning to wonder if in a few years the "classic" texts people hold onto and laud are actually going to be behind... It all pans out in the wash, but still it's a curiosity to me. Whatever. On the TT, no it's not impressive, but it has its place and can actually be really helpful for the right kid. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Storm Bay Posted September 24, 2012 Share Posted September 24, 2012 Whatever. On the TT, no it's not impressive, but it has its place and can actually be really helpful for the right kid. :) :iagree: re: TT. I haven't seen the BJU math, and it might be great, but how many can I buy;)? Ds is doing Calvert Math 8 this year because he does better if I use scripted lessons (not my cup of tea), but we're doing it along with LOF. I have no idea what we'll do for Algebra 1 yet and really don't want to buy another Algebra 1 curricula... . All I know is that Saxon & I are not a good fit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
razorbackmama Posted September 24, 2012 Author Share Posted September 24, 2012 Oh yeah, if I had a kid that struggled in math, I'd probably give TT a shot. That's not the case here.;) Maybe I'll stick with Saxon. It's definitely working. He just complains about the way it explains stuff from time to time, and I'm sure it's the incremental nature of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kendall Posted September 24, 2012 Share Posted September 24, 2012 What level of Saxon? You could look at MEP. I would call it spiral mastery:) I haven't used the upper levels though. It is free. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
razorbackmama Posted September 25, 2012 Author Share Posted September 25, 2012 What level of Saxon? You could look at MEP. I would call it spiral mastery:) I haven't used the upper levels though. It is free.Upper - algebra and up.:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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