Saxon Math

As I’m sure you know, lots of homeschoolers swear by Saxon math. Each lesson presents a new concept, then has 8 or 10 problems to practice that skill, followed by about 25 problems of review. This works great for some kids because the continuous review helps to reinforce the material and over time the skills become automatic. Other kids get frustrated because 8-10 problems on a new skill is not enough for them to feel confident doing the problems, and the next day they are moving on to something new.

If your son’s LD makes it harder for him to learn new math skills, or he prefers to stick with one subject at a time, then Saxon may not be the best choice. If his LD is more a matter of having a hard time retaining material even though he understands it, then Saxon should work great.

Jean

I loved the lower grade Saxon where they have a teacher manual and a student workbook. The incremental approach to word problems was particularly helpful. The student texts used in the higher grades, however, could be a bit daunting for an LD child. Fortunately, for fourth grade you don’t need to use them. A fourth grade workbook is available, but last time I looked they were not listed under the parent section of the site but under the school site. I would also spend a little time looking into Singapore Math to see if that looked like a better choice for your child.

Hi. My son’s class (he’s in a ungraded class of 8 kids, ages 9-11, at a school for LD kids) used Saxon math this past year. I really liked it because it wasn’t just drill drill drill. The word problems were very challenging for my son though since he has auditory processing/language problems. So I guess it depends on whether your son can handle some fairly language-dense exercises.