What elementary math program do you use?

Question

For my son, we used Saxon this year. He is advanced and he found it very repetitive and a little tedious. He found that it progressed very slowly and we wound up skipping quite a few lessons because they were reviews of things he had already learned. We were thinking of Horizons for next year. We will be using Sonlight, so I can pretty much choose between Saxon, Horizons, Singapore or Miquon. What do you use? What do you like and dislike about it? Thanks.

Answer 1

Horizons is a good program, but I think Saxon is better.   We switched from Horizons because my daughter didn't find it challenging enough, and it was so repetitive.  We actually jumped a grade level when we switched.  Horizon math only goes to grade 6 I believe.  I don't know about the other two.  But I do know that Saxon is very highly rated.

Answer 2

Honestly, I found Math U See the best choice for mine.  He's also advanced and hated the repetition of Saxon, as well as all the skipping around.  Horizons is accelerated, but has tons of repetition (from what I've seen).

I know MUS isn't offered through Sonlight, but it would be my recommendation.  It's very concept based and can move at whatever pace your son needs - there are 6 pages per lesson to complete, but you can make him do only 1 or 2, or even let him test out of a lesson if he really does get it.

Mine did the entire line of Alpha-Epsilon in a year and a half, completely understood the info in Zeta (tested out), and is now in Algebra (we went with VideoText) because he understood the concepts so well.  I was really impressed with MUS, and it held his attention well.

Sorry to throw the wild card in there, but I hope it helps!

Answer 3

i have used Saxon in the past but I know of some other math programs that are not repetitive enough like the Mathusee program which my brother used. they would go through addition for about 20 lessons then subtraction for about 20 lessons on multiplication then about 20 lessons on division, but it would never go back to the basics, so my brother was able to multiply and Davide but not add and subtract

Answer 4

We love MUS.  It includes enough work if you need it, but clearly encourages you to move forward if the concept is understood.

Answer 5

Horizons is great, but it has a little more repetition on some things than what my son needs.  There are times when there is a whole row of the same kind of problem, and I will tell him, "If you can do the first two and get the right answer, we will skip the rest."  

A lot of curriculum is like this though.  I think they try to include enough practice for the struggling student to grasp the concept, so if your child isn't struggling, don't feel bad about skipping some. Its good to know the practice is there if they ever need it.

I heard that Singapore is wonderful.

If you opt for Miquon, you may want to supplement with a little bit of traditional math... it has zero drill work... and it is done so differently that kids will sometimes make interesting mistakes.

For example I used Miquon with my first child.  Then on her first standardized test she tried to do a subtraction problem that required borrowing.  Instead of borrowing she wrote a negative number in that place.  In a way, the mistake showed that she knew about concepts that most kids her age don't, but she still got all of the questions that were set up in the traditional way wrong, because she hadn't learned the basic algorithms.  Instead she had learned to use rods to find the answers, and the rods were not allowed on the test.  The result was a very low computational score.

However, there was a separate part of the test that focused on mathematical reasoning and concepts, and she scored in the  99th percentile on that part.  

That makes me kind of think that Miquon, mixed with a few regular addition, subtraction, multiplication, and/or division problems each day, might just give a child the best of both worlds.

Right now I am using Horizons, my son is doing well, but we almost never do every problem on the page.  The only time we do is for tests.  Skipping problems hasn't hurt him, he has gotten 95% or higher on every math test this year.

Answer 6

We've also gone through each and every math program  you've mentioned.  We have finally ended up with Math U See.  It is the best switch I've ever made!  My boys love the program.  They are excited about math. It doesn't have to be hard.  Seeing visually what's going on makes a big difference.  I, let me stress that, I have learned so much on this program.  I've known how to do things, I didn't know why, now I do.  Steve Demme is a great teacher.  The dvd's help a great deal, if you ever get stuck.  There's also an online Yahoo Math U See group if you ever have questions.

I HIGHLY recommend this program.  You know, they offer a dvd for free which explains how it all works.  Get it, you'll be amazed!

ADDED: what Lethal Weapon says is not true.  In every chapter there are 3or 4 review pages which include all the things they've previously learned, adding & subtracting included. Maybe his brother skipped these review pages?