All Over the Map with Math (DS11). Saxon 76? AOPS pre? JA?

[dori123]

DS claims not to like math, but I can see that he has a mathy brain. He has just never been turned on by the subject.

 

We pulled him out of PS after 5th partly because the PS math curriculum was inconsistent and terrible. He was not doing the work and was getting behind. Not knowing where to start, we began with TT5 to fill in gaps. We chose TT because he loves computers and because his motor skills are slower than his brain -- he gets really bogged down writing things out.

 

He complained about being bored with TT5 but kept getting questions wrong. I think it was because he was bored, but it was so hard to tell. I made him stick to it and tried to get him to care about right answers, regardless of the difficulty, but that didn't work as well as I would have liked.

 

So I would like to take a different approach this year.

 

He has shown an ability to grasp higher-level concepts very quickly and is very good at mental math. (He often "gets" his older (13) sister's math problems without context.) But again, he is undisciplined -- absolutely despises having to answer 25 questions / day and also hates having to write things out -- to the point that he actually prefers doing long division in his head despite my protests. He gets them right as much as he gets them wrong.  

 

For this year (7th), I had planned to put him in the Saxon 7/6 worktext. He tested into this and I also thought it might acclimate him to some discipline. But now I am second-guessing that.

 

I was researching Algebra courses for his older sister and am intrigued by the AOPS Pre-Algebra text for him. Maybe this is a better path? Or would we fall right off the cliff? Seems like it might be a good fit in terms of the way his brain works and it might actually turn him on to math. Again, he tolerates math right now, but doesn't love it (I think because he hasn't been put in front of anything truly exciting.)

 

On the other hand, I worry that he lacks the preparation and discipline that this requires, and biting off this much math might backfire. Looking at the placement test, I think he would test in.

 

I think he needs a combination of higher-level concepts to keep him interested and a "less is more" approach in terms of the number of practice problems. But then again, I would like to see him do more practice problems to create a habit of working things out on the page and hopefully, to eliminate the mistakes in the mental math. 

 

Does anyone have any words of wisdom for me? Maybe Jousting Armadillos instead? Really struggling with this one. 

 

[letsplaymath]

If he gets easily bored with math and hates having to write things out, I don't think Saxon will make him happy. I haven't used Jousting Armadillos, so I don't know whether that would be better, though I have heard a lot of people like it.

 

It's so frustratingly hard to find a math book that fits both the teacher and the student, isn't it?

 

My daughter thought she hated math, but she really enjoyed the AOPS Prealgebra book. It's a very algebraic prealgebra -- lots of thinking involved. I don't think it would have worked for me to just give her the book. But we did it buddy style (like in this blog post) and worked on a white board (lots of room for messy thinking, and mistakes just wipe away). We had a great time -- she especially enjoyed the times when I got a problem wrong and she figured it out.

 

In homeschooling, you have to choose which battles are worth fighting. I think the habit of working neatly is not worth fighting for at this age. I'd rather work on developing the habit of reasoning, by working through a lot of tough, multistep problems in whatever way the kid can figure out. (And they often think of very creative methods, which is fun for me because I learn as much as my student does.) AOPS was wonderful for that. 

 

But then, I have the advantage of homeschooling all through high school, so my kids don't have to show their work to a non-Mom teacher until they've matured quite a bit -- if your kids will be going to a classroom high school, then you may need to fight that battle now.

[Ellie]

I have many friends who love Saxon. And when I say "many," I mean over the course of over 20 years, I have known *many* people who loved Saxon. :-) You can't go wrong with trying it. And if he does well with it, it goes all the way to Pre-calc so you'll never have to think about math again. :-)

 

Just remember that unlike other publishers' math series, every single problem in every single problem set is important. There is no busy work. So require your ds to do them all.

[wapiti]

I was researching Algebra courses for his older sister and am intrigued by the AOPS Pre-Algebra text for him. Maybe this is a better path? Or would we fall right off the cliff? Seems like it might be a good fit in terms of the way his brain works and it might actually turn him on to math. Again, he tolerates math right now, but doesn't love it (I think because he hasn't been put in front of anything truly exciting.)

 

I suggest starting out buddy-style like Letsplaymath describes above.  Get a whiteboard and some dry erase markers.  Go slow, no time pressure whatsoever.  Think out loud about what might be tried.  When he needs more breathing room, you need to go do something for a minute, someone else needs you, you need to visit the bathroom, switch the laundry, etc.

 

The idea is to get him hooked on the thrill of solving the puzzle.  (Ah, memories...  My dd, a little frustrated:  help me! help me!  what do I do?!  Me:  well let's see...  dd:  NO DON'T TELL ME!!!)

 

In homeschooling, you have to choose which battles are worth fighting. I think the habit of working neatly is not worth fighting for at this age. I'd rather work on developing the habit of reasoning, by working through a lot of tough, multistep problems in whatever way the kid can figure out. (And they often think of very creative methods, which is fun for me because I learn as much as my student does.) AOPS was wonderful for that. 

 

But then, I have the advantage of homeschooling all through high school, so my kids don't have to show their work to a non-Mom teacher until they've matured quite a bit -- if your kids will be going to a classroom high school, then you may need to fight that battle now.

 

I agree w/this.  My ds made it about halfway into algebra before accepting, grudgingly, that he had to write some things down.  In AoPS Prealgebra, he did the occasional scratch work in a corner of the white board.  Algebra was a muddle at home but eventually he went back to learning math at school rather than through our afterschooling.  He had As in Geometry and Algebra 2 and I didn't have to pester, yell, or otherwise persuade him to write out the math properly... the teachers made it clear what they wanted and it didn't take more than two seconds for him to catch on.  The sudden transformation was amazing LOL.

[kbutton]

You might look at Dimensions Math by Singapore. It's integrated (pre-algebra/algebra, geometry, stats), and it's challenging. It has a text and a workbook, and while the workbook is important, you don't have to do every problem--we do all of the text and about half of the workbook unless it's an area where we need more practice. They have levels of problems in the workbook (Further Practice, Challenging, and Enrichment). 

 

It doesn't hand-hold the teacher, but there are many worked examples and worked solutions. 

[Julie of KY]

My easily bored, hates to write kid is extremely math gifted with writing disabilities. He did all of AoPS orally. I'd sit alongside him and read the problem and he'd work it in his head. We'd discuss anything he had trouble with or if I couldn't keep up with his brain.

 

While learning to write out math is a necessary skill, some kids need to simply learn math without the hassle of writing. Not sure if you have one of those kids, but I do. 

[dori123]

Great feedback, thank you all. 

 

I think what I'm going to do is this:

 

Get them both and try some of each. I think that's really the only way to tell. (!!)

 

I know we can't go wrong with Saxon, and despite the sheer number of problems, I think we both like / need the structure and predictability of it.

 

But I love the explanations AOPS provides, and I think using that as my teaching resource makes sense. Plus, we can do some of the questions orally during the teaching segment.

 

Hopefully I can use both of them effectively, and if AOPS ignites his imagination, we can go full-bore with that. 

 

Thanks for chiming in. 

 

 

 

[Farrar]

I can't imagine using Saxon with the kid you're describing. I'm not a fan of Saxon to start with, so I guess you have to take it with a grain of salt, but it's all about repetitive practice. He sounds like that's exactly what's killing his potential enjoyment of math.

 

AoPS is excellent, obviously. I'll put in a tentative plug for JA though. It's a lot more pared down than AoPS. And it's a lot shorter. It's also written to the student and is a little quirky. The problems are very thoughtful. I do think it's a program that could potentially work well for the kid you're describing. However, it also requires a good bit of writing - it asks students to write "notes to self" about how the math works and to write out full sentence explanations of how some problems work. That made it difficult for my ds who used it. Just something to think about.

[sbgrace]

JA might be a good fit for the kind of kid you're describing. It's been engaging here, adequately challenging without being frustrating, and succinct in terms of amount of problems/practice per concept.