BlsdMama Posted June 21, 2016 Share Posted June 21, 2016 In case you are considering Larson Algebra and are wondering what the differences are between the 5th and 6th editions. I am definitely *not* a math person. I make no claims on the quality of the program. I will let others far more knowledgeable than myself make that call. However, I do have both the 5th and 6th editions in my little hands so if anyone has questions, please ask away. I will answer what I can. So, for a friend tonight, I had the opportunity to pull out Larson's 5th edition of Elementary & Intermediate Algebra as well as the 6th edition by Ron Larson, now renamed Algebra Within Reach. Algebra within Reach is dated 2014. I found it through a link here and liked the video section of the site. To note - the teacher on the site is Dana Moseley from Chalk Dust. Access to the site is completely free - both the solutions and the teaching videos. Please keep in mind I've only just begun using Algebra Within Reach so I'm not great at answering specific questions so far. We've only just begun with DD (14) today. ;) However, friend was curious whether or not the online access would coincide with the 5th edition readily. My comparison: Each chapter is identical. Each subject within the chapter is identical. In the front page of the 6th edition it states the changes to the new edition. The "Exercises With Reach" are a revision. "The exercise sets have been carefully and extensively reviewed to make sure they are relevant and cover all topics suggested by our users. Additionally the exercises have been completely restructured. Exercises now appear on the same page and immediately follow a corresponding example." *Okay - I can provide insight to this. So, for example, today we did the first lesson. It has 92 questions in Lesson 1. My child would never normally do this many questions. (Like 5th edition, the answers to all the odds are in the back of the book so a solution manual would not be required if you only assign odds as I know many do.) The newest edition breaks the lesson into smaller chunks. Rather than grouping the teaching and examples for the entire lesson at the beginning (similar to how I remember Saxon) it is divided into parts. The first part of the teaching today is labeled Classifying Real Numbers. This section a short explanation followed by four examples and then questions (for example only) 1-4. There is then a second example, Plotting Real Numbers. This is followed by four examples and the "Exercises within Reach" questions 5-16. After this is another new teaching (Ordering Real Numbers)then three more examples of that new teaching followed by the exercise, questions 17-28. This continues for the entire lesson. When I directly compare 5th edition to 6th edition, I can tell you that in my personal experience, I really wish I had had this book for mathy DS. He doesn't like wordy explanations. He'd rather just have a very short explanation with multiple examples and then get right to work. For the kid that needs *more* there is the website with direct teaching. In my experience, I also believe it is a perk to have the lesson so divided. I would not assign my child a lesson this big for one day. This makes it (slightly) easier to break up into daily chunks. To continue with the page about the revisions: "View and listen to worked out solutions at AlgebraWithinReach.com." He further emphasizes the companion website is a big change. Access is free. Worked out solutions, data sets, diagnostic tests, lesson videos, etc. are all included to accompany the 6th edition text. So, to further explore -I went to the site for Lesson 1.1 and watched the videos. So, yes, the teaching part of the videos totally apply to both books. You would have no problem at all watching 5.1 and correlating it to 5.1 of the 5th edition of the book. The teaching part is relevant to BOTH editions. HOWEVER, the biggest reason I can think of to upgrade from 5th ed. to 6th ed is simply that *if* you encounter a problem that you need additional help on, the additional teaching requires a page number in order to give additional teaching and examples. This area of the site is called "Solutions" and actually works the problem that is in the text so that you can watch it being worked - similar to how Teaching Textbooks works if you miss something and need help. I don't believe EVERY solution is worked but hundreds are - enough that you could watch a similar problem readily. I need to emphasize the problems do NOT match up to the fifth edition therefore, though you would have access to the teaching part of the videos, you will not be able to utilize the Solutions parts of the videos if you are using the 5th edition text. I hope this helps someone! SO I opened up my 5th edition and I opened my 6th edition. Each chapter is identical. Each subject within the chapter is identical. In the front page of the 6th edition it says the changes to the new edition. The "Exercises With Reach" are a revision. "The exercise sets have been carefully and extensively reviewed to make sure they are relevant and cover all topics suggested by our users. Additionally the exercises have been completely restructured. Exercises now appear on the same page and immediately follow a corresponding example." *Okay - I can provide insight to this. So, for example. today we did the first lesson. It has 92 questions to it. Rather than grouping the teaching and examples for the entire lesson at the beginning (similar to how I remember Saxon) it is divided more into parts. The first part of the teaching is followed by examples and then questions (for example only) 1-20. After this is another new teaching and then more examples of that new teaching followed by (example) 21-42. This continues for the entire lesson. The biggest perk to this that I can see is that I would not assign my child a lesson this big for one day. This makes it (slightly) easier to break up into daily chunks. To continue with the page about the revisions: "View and listen to worked out solutions at AlgebraWithinReach.com." He further emphasizes the companion website is a big change. Access is free. Worked out solutions, data sets, diagnostic tests, lesson videos, etc. are all included to accompany the text. So, further -I went to the site for Lesson 1.1 and watched the videos. Okay - so YES the teaching part of the videos totally apply to both books. 5th edition is much more wordy than the 6th edition, probably because the 6th edition is meant to utilize Dana Moseley (from Chalk Dust) as the teacher rather than being solely dependent on the text. The biggest reason I can think of to upgrade from Edition 5 to Edition 6 is simply that *if* you encounter a problem and need additional teaching from the website, the additional teaching requires a page number in order to give additional teaching and examples. The other reason to upgrade is in case you need to see an actual problem worked. Let's say, for example again, that I need to see problem 23 in Ch. 1 Section 1 worked out. There is a video for that. However, the problems do NOT match up to the fifth edition. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlsdMama Posted June 21, 2016 Author Share Posted June 21, 2016 Oh - and I REALLY wish I had known this years ago. I never realized (though I'm sure it sounds dopey to so many) that you needed to study for math just like you would any other class in order to do well, excel, and really master it. It might explain why I've always struggled with higher maths. ;) But I thought this little bright spot from the website was gold: http://www.algebrawithinreach.com/ea6e/wp-content/uploads/study_skills/study_skills_chapter_1.pdf 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3andme Posted June 21, 2016 Share Posted June 21, 2016 Very helpful! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkT Posted June 21, 2016 Share Posted June 21, 2016 excellent comparison Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiana Posted June 22, 2016 Share Posted June 22, 2016 Oh - and I REALLY wish I had known this years ago. I never realized (though I'm sure it sounds dopey to so many) that you needed to study for math just like you would any other class in order to do well, excel, and really master it. It might explain why I've always struggled with higher maths. ;) But I thought this little bright spot from the website was gold: http://www.algebrawithinreach.com/ea6e/wp-content/uploads/study_skills/study_skills_chapter_1.pdf Yes. Yes yes yes. Sometimes I do vocab drills and memory-only quizzes in my classes. I tell my students exactly what will be on them. I didn't realize I had to do this but they are doing so much better on their other tests since I started doing these in the week before tests. And another thing that needs to be explained is that studying math is a lot more like studying a foreign language or music or dance, you simply must practice on a regular basis. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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