astrid Posted February 4, 2009 Share Posted February 4, 2009 Dd is in sixth grade, and she just started Singapore Math 6A. She's been doing Singapore since we pulled her out of ps in 2nd grade. I teach GED, so I tend to supplement with a lot of GED prep stuff too. Math is not her strongest area, but she's on grade level, perhaps a bit above. Several times over the years, I've thought about moving her to a different math curriculum because although I really like SM, I thought there were times where she just didn't get it, and I wished there was more explanation for some of the concepts, as well as more practice. But we've soldiered on. Now I'm wondering if I should transition her to a different math program, but if so, what? I've been cautioned against Singapore for algebra, but notice that the 6th grade leve contains a lot of pre-algebra. If past experiences hold true and there is not enough explanation for dd, I"m thinking this might set us up for a fall. I worry about her becoming overwhelmed with algebra if the explanations remain as scant as they have been in previous levels. I gave her the Saxon placement test yesterday (mainly because it was the only one I could think of that had a readily available placement test online) and the results said I should start her on level 7/6. Is this a 7th grade leve text? The two numbers confuse me. I don't know much about Saxon, but I know even less about other programs out there. So what are some secular options for us? What do you use and love? I worry about overwhelming her, but don't know what else is out there. And is it a bad idea to change math programs after we've been using the same one for four years? Thanks for any suggestions or advice! astrid Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alana in Canada Posted February 4, 2009 Share Posted February 4, 2009 astrid--post on the highschool board. The Ladiers there will have been through this more likely! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
astrid Posted February 4, 2009 Author Share Posted February 4, 2009 Oooh! Venture over to the high school board?! I've never been there! Sniff....I guess this means my baby's growing up! sob.... Thanks for the hint!:D astrid Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
siloam Posted February 4, 2009 Share Posted February 4, 2009 Astrid, My first though is Lial's text would appeal to your dd. If you want her to review basic math before starting Algebra then you could do Basic College Math first. This is based on my loving math and reading almost all the math thread to gather information about where to go with my children. Lial's stood out for your dd because it is known for it's good explanation of concepts. Lial's actually writes the texts for community colleges, so they are intended for remedial math students vs. being written for mathy people (I know mathy isn't a word ;) ). She also has a video text, which sounds like something you would enjoy making use of. Heather Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matryoshka Posted February 4, 2009 Share Posted February 4, 2009 I can't give you a BTDT recommendation, but we're almost where you are - my kids are going fairly quickly through 5B, so I also feel this sense of a looming cliff and have been thinking about this quite a lot. My current plan is to do one year of Singapore's Discovering Mathematics instead of a traditional pre-algebra or jumping right into algebra. It covers things many pre-algebra books do like negative numbers and coordinate graphing and gets into early algebra, but not too far (no quadratic equations yet). There's also a lot of geometry. It still has that Singapore "look", and explains the bar graphs at first as a transition to equations with variables, so I'm thinking it might be a nice transition. Like NEM, it has books all the way from 7th-10th, but I'm thinking after that I'll transition to a more traditional US sequence (starting with AlgI), for a variety of reasons. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spy Car Posted February 4, 2009 Share Posted February 4, 2009 Astrid, I've seen quite a few people who have decided to use Russian Math 6 as a one year bridge after Singapore. http://www.perpendicularpress.com/math6.html Do a search (including the Accelerated sub-forum) for Russian Math, and you will find quite a few threads on the subject. I haven't used this (only looked at previews) but it looks interesting. Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suzanne in ABQ Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 My dd is in 7th grade, and just a month ago finished PM6B. I started her immediately with Video Text Algebra, and she loves it! Math has become her favorite subject. Video Text is mastery based. The video lessons are short and concise. They give tons of practice problems and a quiz after each lesson that must be mastered before continuing to the next lesson. They recommend only doing the odd problems the first day, then the quiz the next day. If more practice is needed, then you do the even problems, and another quiz (different from the first). If more practice is needed, they have more practice problems available online at their website. The first module is pre-algebra, and covers the "gaps" that weren't covered in Primary Math. The next three modules cover Algebra I, then the last two modules cover Algebra II. You can check it out at http://www.videotext.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeeDeeMarie0 Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 We finished Singapore 6B and went right into TT Algebra 1. I did have my son do some of the probability and negative number units from TT Math 7, but he seems to be doing okay this year with Algebra 1. I have always liked the Singapore math because it seems more challenging than some others, so I keep going back and looking at NEM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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