“My husband is an engineer and other engineers who he’s talked to about Saxon Math who know about it, say it is the absolute best math curriculum for practical use in the real world.”
I don’t know ... the word problems are so predictiable ... when the S.A.T. rolls around ... kids don’t relate to their word problems - that what I don’t like about it. The rest of it is okay. I see a weakness in their word problems.
“What grade level math is your daughter doing? When my kids were in 3rd grade, we started them on Math 54. Yes, there is a lot of repetition and it seems to move slowly at times, but I’ve found that by the time they are done with it, they KNOW the math. My daughter got well over a 700 on the SAT Math section (I don’t remember her exact score). Both my son and daughter, who have taken Physics, have done very well in the Physics as well, in large part because of their proficiency in math.”
She’s in 3rd grade. She does very well. So maybe I’m just being impatient? My daughter pointed out how bored she is with it and that’s when I looked at it more closely.
“And I learned a lot. All that math that they tried to shove down my throat in high school that I didn’t learn finally made so much sense. I found the lessons very well and clearly explained, and that from an adult perspective. I think Saxon is great. My kids did well with it and it helped me tremendously.”
Okay ... I’ll not complain about it.
If your daughter is using the Math 1, 2, or 3, I’ve heard they aren’t really that great, at least not worth them money they cost for what they taught. That could be the problem.
If you can, why don’t you see if you can find some of their Algebra level books to look at. The Algebra 1/2 is fairly easy but past that it gets hard fast.
My kids were also bored with the math they were doing at grade level (I don’t recall the curriculum, just not Saxon) so that’s why we pushed them, but you know, thinking about it, they would have been bored with Saxon if they were working at grade level, too.
The two main reasons we picked Saxon, is that it was inexpensive and so widely available used; and that it went right on through Calculus and Physics. We wanted a curriculum we could stick with for the long term. I was concerned that changing curriculum would result in them missing something if a topic was covered in different years with different curriculum.
I do know that there are some people who just don’t connect with Saxon for whatever reason and it could be that that’s the situation you’re in. But based on our success and the success I’ve seen others have with it, it is really worth checking out more thoroughly. I do know it’s the math curriculum of choice for virtually all the homeschoolers I know.
Good luck with your efforts. It’s tough when the kids are bored. They really lose interest in trying.
I recommend going up grade levels for math if your kid is doing exceptionally well. My parents went up 2 grades for me (I only did it for 3 years), and it worked wonders (Scored 99%+ on EOG/CAT all 12 years of grade school and placed out of 2nd semester calculus for college with a perfect score on the AP exam). None of the textbooks we looked at for same grade were difficult. This was about 15 years ago though so I wouldn’t have a clue as to what type of textbook to use now. I think we used Abeka but I might be wrong.