Life of Fred—tell it to me straight

[lelebelle]

tl;dr: is Life of Fred math enough on its own for ~4th grade and ~2nd grade alternative learners?

Saxon worked great for my oldest—still does. Then along came my daughter (9.5), who was diagnosed with dysphonetic dyslexia toward the end of 2019, and my son (7.5), who was recently diagnosed with ADHD. Math for both of them has been a struggle with Saxon.

I've been researching for DAYS, and I really love the idea of Life of Fred for them. I feel like it will take the pressure off of math, and my daughter has shown great growth with story-type learning (Pet Math, Times Tales).

However, I'm used to the solid progress I see my oldest get with Saxon. I'm trying not to compare kids, but it's really important to me that my kids end their high school years with a solid understanding of math.

Is Life of Fred enough on its own? 

[EKS]

You said to tell it to you straight, so here is my opinion:

The Fred books that I have experience with are truly awful.  These are the fractions, decimals, and other middle school texts.  Based on that experience, I absolutely would not use Fred (any of it) on its own ever for any reason.

Edited August 21, 2021 by EKS

[wendyroo]

I have very special needs kids. Sometimes math is truly torture here...and yet I would never use Life of Fred.

I once got some of the Life of Fred books out of the library just so the kids could read the stories as a fun supplement if they wanted. But, once we had them in the house, I read some of them and was shocked by the inadequate topic coverage and practice, and disgusted by the sexism and other attitudes in the books. Thankfully, my kids, who love the Beast Academy guides and Murderous Math books and almost all other living math stories, didn't like Life of Fred at all. Problem solved - I returned them all and never considered them again.

For me, they rank as a failure educationally, a failure morally, and a failure entertainmentally (that is clearly not a word, but I'm too tired right now to dredge up a better way to express that idea).

[EKS]

22 minutes ago, wendyroo said:

But, once we had them in the house, I read some of them and was shocked by the inadequate topic coverage and practice, and disgusted by the sexism and other attitudes in the books.

This a million times!

And then there's this: https://stanleyschmidt.com/TV_producer.htm

Edited August 21, 2021 by EKS

[Farrar]

In my experience, the vast majority of kids whose families have supposedly done oh so much math and are at such a high level in Life of Fred... cannot do basic operations. It's truly terrible.

I have known families who used the elementary books as a supplement with some success who think they're fun. And a couple of times, I've met families with a kid who is truly super gifted. Gifted thinkers are often way outside the box. And the kid did a bunch of Life of Fred when they refused to do other math and then boom, suddenly at some age, they dive into like AoPS calculus or something. I've known of similar stories like that twice. I do not think LoF deserves any credit.

Also, the graphic design is OFFENSIVELY bad.

[jboo]

Half-contrary to some of the other folks, I think Life of Fred is a lot of fun, very engaging, and make a good supplement. Some of the explanations are inspired. My kid picked them up and read them for fun, and an exceedingly gifted friend's daughter used -- and really enjoyed -- the program.

But my impression is that they've not got *nearly* enough practice to be the main program for a more average child, and it's too easy for a lazy child (by which I mean, all of them), to just look up the answers. Life of Fred is also pretty wordy, which can be an advantage for some, but if a child is a weak reader, they'll be spending too much time floundering.

If you feel your kids would like it, I would try LoF as something like a story-time math supplement, but would look at an alternate program as your spine. To throw out a few examples:

Study Time Arithmetic, a slow-moving Amish spiral math program for grades 3-8. Usually it is a follow on to the similar Schoolaid Math (grades 1-2). Chapters are themed, the word problems are pretty good, and the math is extremely straightforward and practical in nature.

Rod and Staff Arithmetic, a mastery-based Amish math program. If the child needs a lot of repetition to grasp a concept, R&S will provide that.

Singapore Math US Ed (or one of the others, there are many) - very popular on these boards. Mastery based. Less wordy. Lots of supplemental materials to provide extra (or more advanced) practice.

Beast Academy - great for the extremely talented (95th percentile, say the authors, though less brilliant can make use of it, sometimes as a supplement a grade level behind.) BA is also story-based: the textbook is a comic book. Not enough repetition for slower students, IMHO.

 

 

[Roadrunner]

Run!

[EKS]

56 minutes ago, jboo said:

Life of Fred is also pretty wordy, which can be an advantage for some, but if a child is a weak reader, they'll be spending too much time floundering.

It's wordy, but the words frequently have nothing to do with math instruction. 

That said, I'm not a fan of handing kids a textbook and telling them to go for it.  So, regardless of what is chosen, I'd read it with them and discuss.

[HomeAgain]

We did the entire alphabet series.

Some notes:

-it has a non-standard progression.  And I do mean non-standard.  Kids move into sets and sigma notation by the 4th book or so, and then bounce back to more standard work in the last three books.

-it doesn't teach particularly well.  The decimal approach really got to my kid because it neglected to inform the reader why you can add more zeros to the right (equivalent fractions) and used muddled language that could give a kid the wrong idea.  It is very focused on procedural math.

-the few questions in each chapter (up to 10) often have other material, like one being "Is a pine tree deciduous?"

 

Honestly, for my really mathy kid, it was a fun supplement, but it never would have worked as a stand alone.  It was mostly a fun supplement because it introduced topics he was studying more in depth and could use Fred for application (like, I made him a file of Fred Bucks to play store, and it never occurred to me that it was exponential values of 3, but that was a connection he made to his other work). 

I would suggest something like Math Mammoth or Making Math Meaningful if you want a program that will still keep them progressing, but they can do parts alone.  Possibly Math U See as an option, too.  But Fred is just not good enough.  I have the non-alphabet books on my shelf and ds raged hard with those because of how bad they were, so they are currently unused.

 

[Acorn]

We were able to borrow most of the elementary alphabet series from our library. There is no way they would have sufficed as stand alone math curriculum for my children.

[8filltheheart]

This thread makes me laugh about the change of the wind in terms of favored status and popularity of homeschooling curriculum on these forums. I agree 100% with the other posters that LoF is completely procedural and not enough. 10 or so yrs ago you'd have been eaten alive on these forums  and told you didn't understand the difference between conceptual and procedural if you'd made the exact same comments.

I think the explanations in LoF are pretty awful and definitely rote.

[Dmmetler]

My kid liked LoF, but as a fun suoplement (and mostly a way to laugh at how silly Fred was). We used Fred as a breather between AoPS books. But, my kid also moved to college math classes at age 12, so was encountering the higher level math classes much earlier than most. I don't know that Fred would have appealed nearly so much later on (and I think the set of elementary age kids who are taking upper level high school math AND also very verbally minded is pretty small). And AoPS (and MathCounts) provided enough practice problems and problem solving that it didn't matter how many problems Fred had, or if the kid even did them or not!

 

The Fred Language arts is laughably easy. Like easier than MCT Island level, which is designed for 3rd grade, but supposedly LoF LA is high school. The financial choices book is a great example of how being good at one thing does not give expertise at others, and a great one to use for finding logical fallacies. I wouldn't consider it any part of a financial management or economics credit, though. PA with economics is the same. 

 

[SilverMoon]

Eons ago I really wanted LoF to work for my oldest kid. It flopped. Hard. My experience with him and the younger kids was none of them could learn new concepts well with LoF, but it could be an entertaining review for some of them. 

[scbusf]

I teach college and high school math and I did use LoF a bit with my oldest. I agree with the others on this thread. It appalls me when people are proud that they have exclusively used LoF.

[GoodnightMoogle]

The honesty here is wonderful and so helpful. I would love to see a curriculum snark thread 😂

[EKS]

22 minutes ago, GoodnightMoogle said:

I would love to see a curriculum snark thread 😂

I don't know if this qualifies, but here is an old thread about the fractions book.

[8filltheheart]

The funny ones to read are where they are categorized with Russian math or AoPs.  LOL.....no way.

[Clemsondana]

Like many things, it's to some extent kid-dependent.  LoF is what drug my kid back to thinking math was interesting after getting  burned out on AoPS.  For the algebras, kid said that AoPS made more sense if you saw it in a different context in LoF, too.  I have a friend who had a couple of kids succeed in mathy fields in college and LoF was their main math in the middle or high school years.  Her statement was that it worked because they just needed to see it, without a lot of practice, in order to learn it, but if they had needed more practice they would have needed something else.  My younger is moving from pre-A to algebra material right now and using LoF and Arbor press materials.  Kid is/was doing very similar work in both books as far as learning how to set up equations for word problems.  We never used the elementary books, so I can't speak to how those would have worked, but right now LoF is the only math younger will do without drama, which, with other things going on, has value.  For us, Singapore was the 'best' slementary math by all criteria that mattered to me, but in middle I've used different criteria for each kid and have made different choices accordingly.  

[Dianthus]

We have only gotten from Apple through Goldfish together as an irregular read aloud. My kids think it's funny.  It's purely supplemental. We generally do not do the practice problems unless I ask them to do it in their heads. It's just extra math conversation for us. I would never consider it adequate for a stand alone math program. I am concerned about the Fraction and Decimal books now! I had just handed them to my daughter last year for extra reading without reading myself. I don't remember any sexism or anything inappropriate in what I read. There are minor references to God and Christianity.

ETA: I also supplement with BA guides.

Edited August 23, 2021 by Spirea

[HomeAgain]

6 hours ago, Spirea said:

. I don't remember any sexism or anything inappropriate in what I read. There are minor references to God and Christianity.

ETA: I also supplement with BA guides.

Some of the cartoons are off color a bit, but not in-your-face.  Honestly, though, the worst part for us came in one of the alphabet books.  I was reading to my kid and there was a little story about sending a card to a student who had gotten hit by a car and was in the hospital.  The story ended with "The card came back, with "Patient Expired" written on it."

Ds was about 7 when I read that to him without knowing what came next, and the two of us just looked at each other.  Like, that got dark pretty quickly.  I'm only glad I didn't have an original edition of Dogs because I don't think we would have made it beyond that ending to get to Edgewood.

[Not_a_Number]

8 hours ago, Spirea said:

ETA: I also supplement with BA guides.

Those are really fun. My kids read them on their own time.

Edited August 23, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[Not_a_Number]

On 8/21/2021 at 8:47 AM, 8filltheheart said:

This thread makes me laugh about the change of the wind in terms of favored status and popularity of homeschooling curriculum on these forums. I agree 100% with the other posters that LoF is completely procedural and not enough. 10 or so yrs ago you'd have been eaten alive on these forums  and told you didn't understand the difference between conceptual and procedural if you'd made the exact same comments.

I think the explanations in LoF are pretty awful and definitely rote.

I know you often complain about the changes on this board, 8, but you gotta be happy about this one! 😂

[mathmarm]

11 hours ago, HomeAgain said:

I'm only glad I didn't have an original edition of Dogs because I don't think we would have made it beyond that ending to get to Edgewood.

What was the ending of Dogs in the original edition? What is the ending of Dogs now?

[HomeAgain]

2 minutes ago, mathmarm said:

What was the ending of Dogs in the original edition? What is the ending of Dogs now?

The dogs were sent back to the pound and euthanized.  He changed it so the dogs could find homes instead.

 

[wendyroo]

One thing to be aware of is that in the later LOF books, more of his (rather gruesome) backstory is revealed and perhaps trivialized.

I have never read them, but I looked up on reviews and found:
"If your child is sensitive LOF may not be good for him/her. Fred's parents are dead. His father was an alcoholic and didn't take care of him. His mother died diving into a pool and in a later book, the rate of her fall is actually a math problem. I found that to be rather morbid."

[lelebelle]

On 8/20/2021 at 4:20 PM, lelebelle said:

As I've read each of these responses, my feelings have ranged from:

• Disappointment (I was hoping I'd found "the one" for this year)
• Slight annoyance (I do, in fact, understand the difference between conceptual and procedural math 😛)
• Confusion (https://stanleyschmidt.com/TV_producer.htm)
• Repulsion (the Dogs ending...Fred's tragic past being made into a math problem...the student dying after a car accident...WHAT?)

The good news is, I know what I won't be using this year. Thanks for all your responses!

 

Edited August 24, 2021 by lelebelle
Apparently I don't know how to respond to threads, though.