Saxon 5/4

[dbaeimers]

So we are about 5 lessons into Saxon and I can see that this is probably not going to be a good fit for us long term, but I have already bought the DIVE kit and I do not think DH would go for buying something else at this point.  So, trying to make this work for the rest of the year, how long is it supposed to take?  My daughter is great at independent work and can sit for a long time, but it is taking over 2 hours just to do math.  I have seen people say that it is ok to skip and do every other problem and other people say that it is important to do every single question.  Coming from a different curriculum, the format is quite a bit different so she is getting high 70's low 80's on the math pages and 99-100% on the math fact sheets.  She has always been my best student, but is quickly getting discouraged.  Any advice?  Thanks 

[Ellie]

So we are about 5 lessons into Saxon and I can see that this is probably not going to be a good fit for us long term, but I have already bought the DIVE kit and I do not think DH would go for buying something else at this point.  So, trying to make this work for the rest of the year, how long is it supposed to take?  My daughter is great at independent work and can sit for a long time, but it is taking over 2 hours just to do math.  I have seen people say that it is ok to skip and do every other problem and other people say that it is important to do every single question.  Coming from a different curriculum, the format is quite a bit different so she is getting high 70's low 80's on the math pages and 99-100% on the math fact sheets.  She has always been my best student, but is quickly getting discouraged.  Any advice?  Thanks 

 

Definitely do NOT allow her to skip any problems.

 

I'd let the math-fact sheets go. Clearly she knows her math facts.

 

Did you have her take the placement test before you purchased it?

[bethben]

Can you skip the Dive lessons? Could you teach the lessons - that would probably go a lot faster.  Do not skip problems - Saxon works the best ONLY when you do all the problems.  

 

Beth

[kiana]

I would absolutely not skip problems, especially if she is not getting 100%. I would go ahead and skip the math fact sheets if she is acing those.

 

Is she making careless errors (e.g. writing 2 and then reading it as 5 in the next line) or conceptual errors? Sometimes kids who are capable math students make more careless errors when they are overwhelmed by the amount of work they need to do.

 

I would consider splitting the lesson in half and either doing them at separate times of the day or taking two days per lesson. You may end up needing to work into the summer if you take 2 days per lesson, but I think that 2 hours on a given day is too much for math if the kid is not begging for more.

[Erica in OR]

Agree about the placement test. The beginning of each Saxon is heavy on review. I'd be concerned that she's not catching the concepts that early into the book. My son did the first 10-15 Saxon 54 lessons at the end of this past year (3rd grade) after he finished Saxon 3. For the first couple lessons we even did some orally as he eased into the idea of writing his lessons on separate paper; most were not heavily involved problems.

 

The DIVE lessons on our CD were not terribly long. Have you sat with her to go through a whole lesson, all problem solving included, from start to finish? Where do you see the time drain for her?

 

Erica in OR

[stupidusername]

don't skip any problems. she is probably not placed appropriately.

 

[dbaeimers]

Thanks for all of the replys.  Most of the mistakes seem to be simple errors.  For example, putting 24 instead of 23.  In order to get that close, she had to know how to do the problem but made a computational error somewhere.  I think as she gets used to copying her work onto a separate sheet of paper those errors will be less. 

[Ellie]

Thanks for all of the replys.  Most of the mistakes seem to be simple errors.  For example, putting 24 instead of 23.  In order to get that close, she had to know how to do the problem but made a computational error somewhere.  I think as she gets used to copying her work onto a separate sheet of paper those errors will be less. 

 

You're probably right. :-)

 

I would also suggest that you don't let her work for longer than an hour at a time. I'd let her work for, say, 45 minutes, and then let her finish that lesson the next day. Yes. It might take her two days to finish a lesson, but (1) she's just 9, so this is not a big deal, and (2) she might find herself able to finish within that time allotment. Weird but true. :-)

[Hunter]

I used to put a pile of skittles on the table and race my son for the right answer, one problem at a time. Winner got a skittle. He learned to work quickly and accurately, and realized he was capable of far more than he thought he was.

[dbaeimers]

She is not normally my child that takes a long time.  Last year she was done with all her main subjects in less time than math has taken this year.  

[kiana]

She is not normally my child that takes a long time.  Last year she was done with all her main subjects in less time than math has taken this year.  

 

Out of curiosity, what did she do last year for math?

[RegularMom]

With my girls, if a math lesson is taking more than an hour, I tell them to take a break and finish the rest of it later, for "homework". But the first 20 or so lessons of Saxon are a slow, gentle review, so we don't usually see the need to take breaks until much later in the book. Two hours to finish these early lessons does seem to indicate that she might need to drop a level. I'd be curious what a placement test would say. 

[dbaeimers]

Out of curiosity, what did she do last year for math?

 

We used Abeka last year.

 

Today went a lot better.  I think it took about half the time.  She still had mistakes, but none of it was due to lack of understanding, mostly simple mistakes.  

[dbaeimers]

We seemed to have gotten over the hump.  Today she finished in about an hour and got a 91% on the main work and a 100% on the math facts.  Thanks for all the help.  I was very ready to give up on it.

[Classically Minded]

We had this problem when we first started Saxon 5/4 - it took 2 hours!  My dd10 had done all the Saxon levels up to this point, so it wasn't a matter of not being ready.  She just had to learn to do more work in less time and that took a few months.  She now does each lesson in 1 hour or less.  I found that if I reward her if she finishes by a certain time - she can even get it done in 40 minutes.  It takes a lot of focus and staying on task in my opinion.

 

Everyone else is right - don't skip any problems, it works if you do it the way it is laid out.  I have no experience with Dive, we use the Saxon Teacher CDs.

[dbaeimers]

Thanks 

[bethben]

When my ds#2 would have seasons of making a lot of mistakes on his problem set, I would sit next to him and make sure he was doing each step correctly.  There is nothing more discouraging than to do a bunch of problems, get a bunch wrong due to silly mistakes and then have to do the whole problem over.  

 

Beth

[AK_Mom4]

DD13 started Saxon with 6/5.  At first things were taking far too long, even though she understood the materials.  One way we found to speed things up was to let her work the problem on the white board.  This cut WAY down on careless errors - the numbers were right there in big print on the board "staring her in the face"..  After a while, she got so she could write the problems in the notebook without difficulties, but it definitely took practice.