I teach middle school math, and am in the process of deciding on a math program. Is Saxon is good program to use????? I have their catalog and I see that they have a teacher’s resource kid for adaptations and textbooks. I was wondering if the textbooks need to be purchased too, or can I just work through the Teacher’s resource kit. Thanks for helping me…
Saxon works for some kids who need a lot of repetition and benefit from its spiral approach. However, many children do not thrive on it. It is often criticized by teachers for focusing too much on the mechanics of math — computation — and not enough on concept development. Children who are visual or kinesthetic learners, and children who have a global learning style, hate Saxon and do much better with a program such as Singapore Math, which has a better balance between concept development and development of computation skills.
Saxon is a good program to have on hand for children who don’t thrive on other programs, but I wouldn’t put all my math “eggs” into that one basket.
If no one here responds, you might want to try over on the homeschooling boards at http://www.vegsource.com — especially the “Math and Reading” bulletin board. There are a lot of parents there who are very familiar with Saxon.
Mary