Cottonwood Posted March 6, 2014 Share Posted March 6, 2014 Has anyone ever *not* finished up Pre-A and skipped on into Alg 1? I just skimmed DD13's Alg 1 book for next yr and the first 1/4 of it seems like a complete review of her last few months, on through to the end of the book. And it doesn't look like an abbreviated review to me, but whole lessons of stuff she's become good at already. I keep wondering if she should just transition into Alg 1 now. It couldn't hurt to have her finished the preA book...except she hates repetition....a lot. I guess she could finish Pre-A then do the first few tests in Alg 1 to see if she needs to start @ the beginning. ?? We are using Saxon..btw Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dereksurfs Posted March 6, 2014 Share Posted March 6, 2014 I think this varies a lot by program. But from what I have heard from Saxon users it can be very repetitive as its spiral in nature. If she hates repetition have you considered other possibilities for her? Just a thought. If not you could definitely skip repeated material as long as you and she are both confident in what was covered. We use CLE in part which is also spiral. There are sections which can be skipped, skimmed or even tested out of. So you could either skip the end of Pre-A or skim Algebra 1 taking the first few tests as you mentioned if they do overlap in scope. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
courtney.byrum Posted March 6, 2014 Share Posted March 6, 2014 We went through the 2nd half of PreA quickly. I touched on every unit to make sure he really did know the material - we found something near the end that was new to him so I'm glad we didn't just skip it completely. I would consider having her do some random problems from sections and skip what is review if she thoroughly understands the material. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cottonwood Posted March 6, 2014 Author Share Posted March 6, 2014 dereksurfs, what I mean when I say she hates repetition is that she hates to review or be re-taught stuff she knows. Once she 'gets' the lesson, she wants to get to the problems. She doesn't mind the spiraling of the exercises in each lesson. I think I will find a way that gives me a clear idea of what she already knows in PreA and move on if she is super familiar. This is really her 2nd yr of PreA as she was in public school last yr and that's what they taught. But she had forgotten a lot and had tons of really sloppy work so I worked with her to clean things up and refresh her. Now I think she's at the next stage. But with math I always second guess myself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiana Posted March 6, 2014 Share Posted March 6, 2014 I'd be more inclined to finish up and then test through the review in the Algebra book. To add to what I said earlier: The review in the algebra book is intended to review all of pre-algebra for students who have not been studying during the summer. Not finishing the pre-algebra (if there ARE unlearned bits, which is most likely at the end of the book) may cause her to switch from reviewing to learning too early, while she still knows 80% of what's going on. That is why I'd rather finish the book and move quickly through the review. When she gets to algebra, I'd have her take the tests until she gets under 85%, and then move back to the lessons that are covered on that test, and I'd also make sure she knows this, so that she'll be putting her best effort into avoiding arithmetical errors so she doesn't get switched into material she finds boring. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muttichen Posted March 6, 2014 Share Posted March 6, 2014 We never did Pre-Algebra at all -- our kids went right from 6th grade math to Algebra 1. If she's getting the material easily, I say jump ahead. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dereksurfs Posted March 6, 2014 Share Posted March 6, 2014 We never did Pre-Algebra at all -- our kids went right from 6th grade math to Algebra 1. If she's getting the material easily, I say jump ahead. I would be inclined to go this route given the additional information about going through Pre-A twice and also hating repetition. You will always have plenty of material to return to if something gets missed like negative numbers for example or (fill in the blank). But as a precaution you could always have her test out of each chapter first before moving ahead. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkT Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 dereksurfs, what I mean when I say she hates repetition is that she hates to review or be re-taught stuff she knows. Once she 'gets' the lesson, she wants to get to the problems. She doesn't mind the spiraling of the exercises in each lesson. I think I will find a way that gives me a clear idea of what she already knows in PreA and move on if she is super familiar. This is really her 2nd yr of PreA as she was in public school last yr and that's what they taught. But she had forgotten a lot and had tons of really sloppy work so I worked with her to clean things up and refresh her. Now I think she's at the next stage. But with math I always second guess myself. Do you have a summer break? If so then just have her do some of the problems from the review parts of the text to ease back into it. Almost every text has a review at the beginning. The good ones call it Chapter 0. Saxon uses Lessons so that doesn't work as well. Curious are you using/planning on the newer Saxon editions? older Orange Algebra 1 versus the newer Blue Algebra 1. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cottonwood Posted March 7, 2014 Author Share Posted March 7, 2014 Thanks everyone. Love a lot of these suggestions. MarkT, we will be taking the whole month of June off, but start a very abbreviated schedule July - Aug, then back full time in Sept. Thanks for the suggestion regarding review. We are using the 3rd edition of anything Saxon. This wil be orange Alg 1 when we get to it. Dereksurfs, the funny thing is, even going through preA AGAIN didn't seem like a repeat to her b/c honestly, I don't see that everything stuck when she did it in 6th grade public school. It's just at this point of our year that she is starting to say, "Hey, I've done this before!". Thus, my wondering if we should just move away from PreA. HOWEVER, since posting this, I have decided to let her decide when we move to Alg 1. The reason is that she was telling me how she is just feeling confident in her math, and things are just really clicking for her with it. I thought maybe jumping to Alg 1 would get her on shaky ground again so we plan to look at the first few chapters of Alg 1 together over the weekend and I will let her moreso make the call. She does know a good portion of the first part of the book, but I noticed some of it does look more involved than what she has learned. So... I'm hoping after we both take some real time with it together, a clear picture will emerge. She is a very mature thinker and so far, when she says something about herself with certainty, she's usually right. When she wavers, I step in and help out. This is one I think she will be able to figure out ..or at least I will know soon. I will also likely suggest a couple of things to her in this thread. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkT Posted March 11, 2014 Share Posted March 11, 2014 " ... many things that traditionally were in Algebra 1 that the Common Core has moved to the middle school (Pre-Algebra). Such as: Solving equations (one variable) Proportions Distributive property Combining like terms Using a formula to find a missing variable Graphing simple linear equations Unit conversions " Since you will be using a traditional (but integrated) Algebra 1 text (3rd edition) in the future you may want cover some of these in your "Pre-Algebra" course using that text. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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