Why don't more people use horizon math?

[Papillon Mom]

I'm wondering If its rigorous enough? My dd sails through it and we use right start to supplement. Why does sonlight switch to teaching textbooks in 3rd? Any thoughts?

Thanks

[8filltheheart]

Sonlight probably switches simply due to popularity.

 

Fwiw, I love Horizons. I have had 5 students go all the way through and #6 is in the 6th grade text and #7 is over 1/2 way through the 2nd grade text. My kids have all been well-prepared for higher level math.

 

With my current 6th grader, we have been doing a mix of Horizons and Math in Focus with some Hands on Equations. This is really more to do with her personality than anything else. I will continue to use HOE with my younger kids bc I really like it but probably won't with MiF. With my youngest, I might switch to Beast Academy when she is school age......but she is very precocious and reminds me a lot of my 12th grader who breathes math. He would have thrived with something like BA when he was litte. **but** and this is a big but, using just Horizons with zero supplementing did not harm him mathematically at all. He is taking 300 level math courses this yr at the local uni this yr as a 12th grader.

[Saddlemomma]

We've used Horizon's since K and dd is now going into 5th.  Now this summer, we tried Life of Fred Fractions to solidify her mastery of fractions.  While she liked the story, she disliked the math (she hates math anyway) but she did complete the book and it helped her.  What we did learn was that dd does much better with a spiral math like Horizons.  The teacher we have evaluate dd each year really likes Horizons and felt we should stick with the program.

 

We don't do all the problems. When there is a new concept, she has to do all the problems pertaining to that concept.  Then we do just a few of the problems for review concepts, as long as I can see that she understands them.

 

We don't supplement during the year, but we do plan to keep on supplementing with either Life of Fred (decimals & percents next) or some other math through the summer.

 

I hope this helps.

[strange_girl]

Horizons is a very solid program and considered to be a grade level advanced, I believe. We tried it, but it was just about that time I was figuring out that a spiral math just simply doesn't work with my daughter, so we didn't continue.

 

As for Sonlight, they probably switch in 3rd because 3rd Grade is TT first level :001_smile:

[FriedClams]

We used it 1-6 (one is finishing up 6 now). We do every problem, every day. My kids are rock solid in math. I think for some the number of problems is a problem, and that it takes some time to get it done. Grade 4 is a bear with TONS of long division, multi digit multiplication, etc. I think it's a fabulous math program - not flashy but will give kids a great foundation for upper level math.

[Tess in the Burbs]

We have done Horizons through 6 with my son.  Dd will do 6 this year.  I switched after a wall in math while doing MUS.  And every year I considered leaving Horizon.  There were many things I didn't like but didn't see any better option at that time for my kids.  Now that I have done 1-6 with one kid I can say I highly recommend it and it's one of those consistency things....it's worth doing all the way through.  Some of the stuff didn't make sense why it was being taught the way they did but my kids are good in math and I credit the program and just sticking with it through grade 6.  

 

We aren't going to use the pre-alg/alg though.  If they had a program in place already we would, but since they don't we are going to try Derek Owens math this year for Pre-alg.  But Horizon is my  backup plan!

[Bree]

I love Horizons :) My dd is doing well with it and I think it is plenty advanced. My ds who is in 3rd was a little more delayed when it came to writing so Horizons overwhelmed him. DD on the other hand loves to write so Horizons was a great fit. I think Sonlight switches over to TT because they say 7th and up TT is so strong so I guess they just recommend starting with their first level and continue working up. We did TT3 for ds his 2nd grade year and it was fine but we covered most the stuff in Singapore math 2. Sonlight still carries the other math programs just TT is their first recommendation.

[SorrelZG]

Horizons was my first choice back when oldest DS was 5. Horizons K was pretty, I'd heard it was a little advanced and friends were using it. Oh, and I could buy the TM for $5 on Amazon. That was cool.

 

I didn't continue with Horizons purely because I changed my mind about how I wanted to teach early arithmetic and part of what initially attracted me to it became the reason I went in search for something else.

[BakersDozen]

I love Horizons for on-going review. We use Singapore simply because I love the bar method and word problems, yet I want my dc to also have review so that's what Horizons is good for, at least for us. It's fairly cheap and includes things like Roman numerals that I want my dc to also learn.

[Tracy]

I used it in K, and I felt it was plenty rigorous.  But we dropped it because it was all textbook, and I discovered that textbooks don't work well for my dd.  And at that level, the teacher's manual had absolutely no teaching suggestions at all.  It just had the answers to the worksheets.  And with no suggestions for supplementation or games, it just wasn't going to work for us.  

[Crimson Wife]

I used the Horizons Pre-Algebra book to add spiral review to Singapore Discovering Math 7. After having used conceptual programs to cover elementary math (Singapore, Right Start, Math Mammoth), I found it rather frustrating that Horizons did not give better explanations in the TM for the handful of topics covered in their Pre-A book but not in Singapore DM7. DD would ask me questions and I wouldn't be able to answer them because the info wasn't in the TM and my own math instruction growing up was totally procedural.

[BlessedMom]

We use Horizon's and love it!

[SilverMoon]

I've never seen a textbook for Horizons. They're all workbooks. O_o

 

I used Horizons for the first time last year. We switched because the books my ds was using were textbooks, and he was getting far enough ahead his young hand couldn't keep up with the writing.

 

I couldn't be happier with his progress, and he'll continue in the series this year. It was plenty rigorous, and he never really noticed the intensity ramping up.

 

My next little one will be in the same place by fall 2014, too advanced for the hand to keep up. She'll start Horizons this fall instead, along with my K'er who felt left out.

[skirch]

We are in Horizons 6 now and have used it since Book 1. I agree with the others that it's a good, solid program but the TM isn't very helpful if you're not a math person. I am not a mathy person and as dd got into the higher books, it has gotten harder for me to explain things. She knows her math though; she sometimes has to explain things to me.  :blushing:

 

Every year I say I'm going to switch to something else that would be easier for ME to teach but Horizons works for dd so we have stuck it out. I'm glad we did.

[Tanikit]

I am using Horizons - we used K and it worked very well, but since then I have found the repetition at the beginning of Horizons 1 is far too much for my DD and I also do not give her all the problems so she can speed through it. I now use it as a supplement to Singapore and consider it her "easy math" but that may be because she is working further ahead in Singapore than she is in Horizons. 

[KL4567]

We used and loved Horizons K. I love the foundation it gives with the number line and place value. I felt my child came out of it with a very thorough understanding of numbers and how they work. That said, we switched to Abeka Math for first gr Bc horizons was moving too fast on the addition facts. Giving many many problems before he was ready. I like Abekas mastery/spiral technique for learning addition/sub.

[Mrs Twain]

I believe that the main reason for dislike of Horizons math is because the person teaching it is not a math person. The TM is very difficult to use if you don't understand math yourself. The TM is not scripted but rather gives ideas on how to present the concepts. Often it will tell you to review various concepts which you are supposed to remember on your own. If you are not a math person, this is either difficult or impossible.

 

After having used it from K-4th grade so far, I think Horizons math is a very solid, advanced program, and dh and I are extremely happy with it. However, we are both math/science people.

 

I do add Singapore's Challenging Word Problems as well as practice with mental math as supplements because I feel like these areas need to be beefed up.