Saxon Math

I had forgotten how the books worked.  I had used them myself.  My older daughters had used them in public school.  Somehow, I had forgotten just how well they worked, how incrementally everything was taught, how detailed and well-written the explanations.

I’m talking about the Saxon math.

I owned two of the books.  My first homeschooled child cried with Saxon.  We didn’t stick with it.  Looking back, I think it was because she hated writing out the problems.  Eventually we switched to CLE math until Algebra, when we switched to Teaching Textbooks.  Both of those programs have a spiral approach, just like Saxon. 

But...  my youngest was overwhelmed with CLE.  There were so many problems in each lesson and it moved so quickly she wasn’t understanding the concepts well.  So, I tried EVERYTHING else...  or so it felt.  Singapore, Life Of Fred, Accelerated Christian Education math, Easy Peasy Math,  Khan Academy, Math Lessons for a Living Education...  and they kept her slowly progressing, but she despised so much of it.  She liked the games in Easy Peasy, the stories in Life of Fred, but she wasn’t holding on to the material.

My younger girls both struggled with math while young, so I knew not to stress and to just keep plugging away.  Eventually it would click.

We were on the first day of school this year when I was going through a book shelf.  I pulled off one of the Saxon math books and handed it to my daughter. 

“Tell me what you think of this.”  I requested as I handed her the math book and went back to what I had been doing.  She looked at it for a few minutes while I dug our some material for a friend.  

“Can I try this?”  She asked. 

I was surprised.  “Sure.” I responded, expecting her to try it and despise it.  

Three weeks later, she hasn’t complained once.  She tells me she likes the fact that it has such good explanations.  She says she feels she understands the lessons.  I had to back her up to the previous book because she had missed some important lessons with a different curriculum, but her change in attitude and performance is incredible.  She usually only misses one or two, or gets a perfect score.

She does her Saxon in the morning.  In the afternoon she reads a math story book such as Life of Fred or Childcraft’s Mathemagic, working any problems she needs to work.  But, at this point, that is mostly for review and a different approach for my story-loving daughter. 

I had forgotten how well Saxon teaches thinking skills.  Today she was breaking down a problem that required multiple steps, and she lit up when she understood how to do it without a struggle or feeling uncertain if she was doing the work correctly. 

I’m sure, as the work becomes more challenging, my girl may miss the games and extensive stories.  (We will finish the Life of Fred books we have.) It is more important to me that she gain understanding and confidence, and then keep moving foreword.  She may never be in a mathematical field, but she will know that she can learn whatever she needs to if she keeps persevering.