Finish Saxon Math Books???

[BarbinTN]

We switched to Saxon Math last January. Finished 76 and proceeded to Prealgebra via tutorial teacher. She was only able to get thru lesson 80. She assured me my student is ready for Alg 1 cuz the books overlap. This is pretty much her policy thru all levels (finishing about 80 lessons) except Advanced Math cuz parents asked to complete the whole book which she will do over 2 years. So, should I just get Art Reeds teaching DVD an skip the tutorials? I will also have another student in PreAlgebra so I would b gone 3.5 hours on two did days of the week. Not to mention it is 440$ for the class and $400 for second student. I am not math savvy but can figure it out eventually:-). What wud u do???

[MarkT]

We switched to Saxon Math last January. Finished 76 and proceeded to Prealgebra via tutorial teacher. She was only able to get thru lesson 80. She assured me my student is ready for Alg 1 cuz the books overlap. This is pretty much her policy thru all levels (finishing about 80 lessons) except Advanced Math cuz parents asked to complete the whole book which she will do over 2 years. So, should I just get Art Reeds teaching DVD an skip the tutorials? I will also have another student in PreAlgebra so I would b gone 3.5 hours on two did days of the week. Not to mention it is 440$ for the class and $400 for second student. I am not math savvy but can figure it out eventually:-). What wud u do???

 

80 lessons is woefully incomplete.  Try http://www.virtualhomeschoolgroup.com/  they have a free Algebra 1class  if the Art Reed doesn't appeal to you.

 

[1Togo]

We worked every lesson, one book per year, including Advanced Math and Calculus.  One lesson per day, test on Saturday.

[Teachin'Mine]

You've got plenty of time now to finish the rest of pre-algebra.  I would not recommend skipping the final lessons as that's usually where the more difficult content lies.  The book itself explains things well, but we used 8/7 instead of pre-algebra.  With that, your student may find that reading the lesson and working the sample problems, with paper and pencil themselves, will be enough to complete the final lessons.   There's no way I would pay for a class when the text isn't even finished in a year!  We worked Saxon the same as Togo, but the test was on the same day as a lesson, so the weekends were free.   With that, until Advanced Math, the texts were completed by March or April.

[Ellie]

You've got plenty of time now to finish the rest of pre-algebra.  I would not recommend skipping the final lessons as that's usually where the more difficult content lies.  The book itself explains things well, but we used 8/7 instead of pre-algebra.  With that, your student may find that reading the lesson and working the sample problems, with paper and pencil themselves, will be enough to complete the final lessons.   There's no way I would pay for a class when the text isn't even finished in a year!  We worked Saxon the same as Togo, but the test was on the same day as a lesson, so the weekends were free.   With that, until Advanced Math, the texts were completed by March or April.

 

Math 87 *is* "pre-algebra." (I'm assuming you mean Algebra 1/2). Don't be confused by the titles. :-)

[BarbinTN]

Yes Ellie 1/2 Algebra. Thanks ladies! This is my mom instinct but I just needed confirmation from math savvy folks:-)))

Thank u so much for taking the time to respond.

Have a blessed day!

Barb

[Carol in Cal.]

Of all the skills curricula I am familiar with, Saxon is the one that packs the most meaty subject matter into the last few lessons.

I would never end a Saxon book without finishing it, although I would give a student the opportunity to skip some of the early review lessons in the next book.  The review lessons, from my direct observation, do not teach the material nearly as well as the ending of the book lessons the prior year, so cannot substitute well for those.

[Teachin'Mine]

Math 87 *is* "pre-algebra." (I'm assuming you mean Algebra 1/2). Don't be confused by the titles. :-)

 

Yes, I know 8/7 is pre-algebra, but I assumed that the OP meant Algebra 1/2 and I was differentiating between the two, although not very clearly.   :tongue_smilie:

 

Barb, glad to hear you'll keep on with the text.  

[TracyR]

Yes, that is incomplete. Especially since the first 25 to 30 lessons of Saxon are review and the rest is new material. If anything you can at least breeze through the first 25 lessons , or not do them at all and start from there instead. I really don't recommend skipping though. Your best bet is to maybe pick even and odds and see how she does.  But yeah, most of the new material starts after that and then again in the next level it quickly goes through that new material you learned back in the other level and so forth. Hope that makes sense.

[SuperCrissy]

From what you posted, I'm not sure that I would sign my kids up for that particular class. We've been all the way through Calculus with Saxon. Like the other posters, I would not recommend skipping the end of any of the Saxon books. Also, I can't think of a Saxon book that had more than 140 lessons so even with tests, that's only about 160 days. The usual number of days in a school year is 180. That means a student who spends 20 extra days reviewing any difficult topics can still finish an entire Saxon book in one year.

 

The first 40ish lessons are review. Since our kids like math, at the beginning of each year before doing any lessons we allowed them to take the first test. If they missed two or fewer, we let them skip the previous lessons and take the second test, and so on until they reached material that was new or wasn't completely mastered the previous year. They loved being able to skip lessons that way!

[MiMi 4under3]

Yikes! The best stuff is at the end of Saxon books.  If time is an issue, one should skip the first 20-30 lessons, BUT NOT THE LAST 20-30!   :crying:  :ohmy: