Loaded......Lets discuss Math-

[Lux Et Veritas Academy]

I am thinking of making a switch from Saxon to Singapore-

 

Have their been any of you who would like to share your experience in doing this?

 

At what age, did you make the switch?

 

Why did you decide to make the switch?

 

Have you seen any benefits from doing so?

 

Would you consider the lesson time to be shorter?

 

I am working with a 7th grader and a 4th grader- Potentially looking to switch the 10 year old next year.

[Beth in Central TX]

I switched from Saxon to R&S Math in 2005. At the time, my middle son was in 3rd grade. He did very well with Saxon grade-wise; didn't miss too many problems, did well on the tests, etc.

 

The May before his 3rd grade year, he took the Stanford Achievement Test. He did well on everything except math. He actually panicked during the test because it was moving too fast for him. At first, I thought it might have been test anxiety since it was the first time he took a standarized test. When I got the results though, I could tell it wasn't just a testing issue because he did so well in the language arts portion. Saxon is big on review, but it wasn't drilling him enough in the current concept so that by the time it came around again, he wasn't exactly sure how to do the problem. He could do the most problems, but he wasn't very confident.

 

I decided to move to R&S because I was so pleased with their grammar program. Sure enough, R&S provided the foundation that my son needed to succeed in math. He took the Stanford Test again in 3rd grade, and his math scores improved dramatically.

 

When I made the change, I went ahead and moved my oldest son from Saxon to R&S too. He has natural math ability and does well with any program. That way I didn't have to purchase two different math programs.

 

I think the R&S math lessons are longer than the Saxon lessons, but for us, that makes the program more successful in our homeschool. My middle son does not have the natural math ability like his older brother, but he does say that math is one of his favorite subjects, and he thinks he's good at math. He is good at math, but he has to work harder at it. If we stayed with Saxon, I think frustration would have set in, and his attitude toward math would not be positive.

 

If you have good reason to make a change, do it. I've struggled with the "grass is greener" syndrome; especially regarding the Galore Park materials lately. However, I've stuck with the old adage, "if it isn't broken don't fix it". Therefore, I go over major changes with my husband to make sure that my priority is my boys' education and not the newest or most popular curriculum out there.

 

HTH!

[Lisa in SC]

Dd had used Saxon through 3rd grade. Then, I began to notice that she no longer seemed to be grasping the concepts. It was more as if she had begun to take note of "patterns" in Saxon's approach. She wasn't really enjoying Saxon, and I didn't feel that she was using problem-solving skills so much as she was decoding, particularly with story problems. So, we switched to Singapore.

 

This was one of the best decisions I've made for this particular child. She struggled a bit at the beginning, but quickly adjusted, and her problem-solving skills improved exponentially. I did use most of the supplementary materials for extra practice because this child is not naturally mathematically-inclined. :) Fast forward several years: she is now in public school and finished college-prep algebra with an A, and is being recommended for Honors math classes in future years. The only reason she didn't take Honors this year was because the school wouldn't allow it since I didn't do testing last year.

 

For her, it was absolutely the right decision. Our 2nd dd has always used Singapore. She, too, is in ps this year and flying through the material in her GT math class. I credit her skills to Singapore as well.

 

OTOH, I will only be using Singapore as a supplement with ds1 because he needs a different approach due to a different learning style. I know that many, many people use and love Saxon, but it wasn't the best choice for us. Oh, and regarding lesson time...for us, lessons were generally shorter with Singapore than with Saxon. The only exception to that would be when we were working with Topical Problem Sums. Some of the problems required more thought and therefore took longer. Of course, if you're not planning to use those workbooks, that wouldn't apply.

 

I don't know if this ramble was of any help whatsoever, but I wish you well in your math search. :)

 

Lisa

[mcconnellboys]

I used them together for my younger son in first through third grades. While Saxon is certainy comprehensive, all that drill gets to be snoringly boring after a while and I just couldn't take it anymore....

 

I so much prefer the style and lesson length, etc. of Singapore. If I feel we need to add in extra, they have extra practice workbooks available for mixed problems or just for word problems. I love, love, love the way that Singapore teaches one to think mathematically.

 

When my older son was in a math games class at coop, his teacher would sometimes give them algebra problems to do. He couldn't set up the problem in algebraic fashion yet, as he hadn't yet learned that, but he could understand what was wanted and WORK the problem, correctly, every time, using Singapore's wonderful rod method. She could never quite figure out how he did that, LOL.....

 

 

Regena

[Daisy]

So I'm the only one who read, "loaded...let's discuss math" and thought, "She's loaded and wants to talk about math??" Sorry, I don't use either curriculum. :p

[mom2abcd]

I switched ds from Saxon 2 to Singapore 2A or something. It didn't give enough practice time for math facts and I had to stop it and supplement. When we went back he hated it. We've been using BJU and he loves it! I'm impressed with the short and colorful lessons and with the way they present concepts.

 

With dd we left Saxon after 54. She was so bored with it and hated all the copying of problems, etc. She tested out of 65 and some of 76 (giving tests). We putzed around one year using Spectrum 7, but this year we've been using Teaching Textbooks Pre-Algebra. She loves it! I'm SO happy that she doesn't fuss about math. We'll find the money somewhere to buy Algebra for next year. (She's 12 so I don't worry too much about it being thorough enough which some people worry about.)

[Lux Et Veritas Academy]

Lets rephrase- Loaded question , not pocket book-- tee hee!

[Mom2GirlsTX]

Dd had used Saxon through 3rd grade. Then, I began to notice that she no longer seemed to be grasping the concepts. So we switched to Singapore.

 

This was one of the best decisions I've made for this particular child. She struggled a bit at the beginning, but quickly adjusted, and her problem-solving skills improved exponentially.

Lisa

 

We have been doing Singapore about 2 years now, we switched after doing Saxon 1 & 2. My dd literally hated math at the end and she is very smart but had trouble with grasping the concepts. We started Singapore, but did go back to 1A Singapore, working fairly quickly through it and 1 B then slower through 2A hit a normal pace at 2B. She LOVES LOVES math now. She is temporarily in public school 4th grade and has been for 9 weeks....she is sooooooooooooooooooooo far ahead of her class, even the GT kids. Her last report card was 99 in Math.

 

We really like Singapore here alot. DD yesterday commented that her teacher at school was trying to explain long division to the class and no one was "getting it" the way she explained it. Teacher asked her if she knew how and she was like "yes, we were doing that a year ago.."

Her teacher told me that she is amazed at the way my dd can work the word problems in her head, she said she gave them a page of word problems and all dd did was write the answer down, and so she asked her how she did it, and dd told her that these were so much easier than the Singapore word problems she could just figure them out in her head.

 

I'm only telling this story to let you know that in my own kids case, Singapore made a math phobic child love math and also helped her so much with her logic skills in word problems. It is a good, solid program. HTH :)

[Zelda]

Hey, it might not be what you meant but I prefer to discuss math under those exact parameters...it makes math make a lot more sense to me.

 

Which probably explains why I keep hopping back and forth between Saxon and Singapore. My kids prefer Singapore but I like Saxon. However, I have started skipping many of the lessons in Saxon. We still do the drill sheets but we might do 3 or 4 of them a day in between introducing new concepts from either Saxon or Singapore. Right now we are on a Singapore break to get caught up in Saxon. Its serving as a review/reinforcement period.

 

Maybe next year I will be more organized in my approach. This is our first year and there's quite a learning curve to this homeschool business. But, I think the ultimate program would be a combination of Singapore and Saxon in a comprehensive structure. That's my goal for next year.

 

My concern, of course, is that the whole thing is a huge mess. I will be watching this thread closely.

[mcconnellboys]

LOL!

 

Regena

[whitestavern]

We recently did the switch. My daughter was working through Saxon 2 this year and just got to the point where she HATED doing math. It was making her hate any part of school. It would take forever. She got it all; wasn't having trouble, but just hated it. And I only ever had her do one side of the practice sheets because she was getting everything right. I like the program, so was hesitant to switch, but felt I had to do something. I looked at Horizons and Singapore and actually bought both so she could see them as well. Don't know what she based her decision on, but she chose Singapore and we went with it. She know LOVES math...will ask to do that in bed at night instead of read. She will teach "math" to her dolls using the books. For this level, I think it gives plenty of practice. If a child was having difficulty, then perhaps you would need to supplement. But Singapore has lots of additional practice books. She basically teaches herself, using the textbook. Once in a while we'll discuss it so I can really confirm that she gets what she's doing. I'm not sure how far we'll go with it, but we are both enjoying it very much right now. I don't use the teacher's guides, but at some point when things get harder, I probably will.

[Storm Bay]

We did this when my eldest was done Saxon 65 and my second was in Saxon 1. For my second one it was a great choice. We do also use MUS, but you can, of course, so SM alone. We did the MUS for the visual component for my second. I'm doing the same combination for ds, but from the start.

 

2. For my eldest, it seemed great at first, but she ended up not liking SM, went to Saxon 76 and tested each lesson, did what she didn't know and then went to Algebra because the SM 6 had given her all the pre-Algebra she needed. However, I will say that SM 6 was too much of a jump after Saxon 65in some areas for dd, particularly because of the different teaching style. Were I to do it again, I would go from Saxon 65 to SM 5.

 

I prefer SM to Saxon both for my two younger ones and because I like it better. I think that my eldest might have liked it, too, had she started it at a different level. However, my eldest prefers to learn math from a book, so I'm not 100 percent sure about that.