UmMusa Posted January 19, 2017 Share Posted January 19, 2017 My 6th grader was breezing through Saxon 7/6, so I followed advice and had her try Alcumus on the AOPS website. She has been spending about an hour a day working through those problems, and now that I have a physical book to use she's telling me she'd rather use the online Alcumus instead of the book. My question is.. are they the same material? Can I let her use the free online Alcumus or should I have her work through the book? Any experienced AoPS people here please give me some advice. I'm not sure of the best way to use this program. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EndOfOrdinary Posted January 19, 2017 Share Posted January 19, 2017 Alumus is like Khan Academy. It does not do the teaching. You can look at hints, see steps, figure things out, but it does not contain the proof based math, the written explainations, the discovery method. As long as there is SOME curriculum, no biggie. It does not have to be AoPS. If she just needs a break to plow through some Alcumus for a while, the is reasonable too. There is nothing wrong with lots of practice problems and really spending time crunching numbers for a bit. Reading a math book is a skill. It is a different kind of writing and a different way of expression. Completely removing all curriculum might be a bit of a steep learning curve in a formally graded or college situation later. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcadia Posted January 19, 2017 Share Posted January 19, 2017 I made my boys use the book even if they did well on Alcumus. However, my kids have a light load for all their other academic subjects so the AoPS prealgebra book was useful for letting them get used to a wordy textbook. After the wordy prealgebra book, they have an easier time not falling asleep on their thick and wordy science textbooks. I didn't tally Alcumus to the textbooks but I believed if you set the topics to be restricted to the prealgebra book, it would tally in scope. Alcumus is random in topics I think. Also Alcumus grades the answer but not the working so I find it more useful for me to know how my kids are doing by grading their work. You could of course print the Alcumus question and let her work on it then grade her working yourself before she keys the answer into the Alcumus system. It really depends on what your aim and expectations for this child is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julie of KY Posted January 19, 2017 Share Posted January 19, 2017 I wouldn't skip the book. If the chapters are "easy" then you can skip to the review problems at the end. There is a lot of content that can not be covered by Alcumus with a simple answer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UmMusa Posted January 19, 2017 Author Share Posted January 19, 2017 Perfect, thank you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Targhee Posted January 23, 2017 Share Posted January 23, 2017 An option might be the digital preA book. It has the problems right on the computer (with solutions after you try them), integrates the videos, and covers same teaching material as text. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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