Which math program to choose?

Have not done MUS but my child has done Saxon 3rd grade and is still doing it. I like it because it goes over the language of math. (Dozen, oblique, congruent, before, after,time,calender). My child had a level test at the end of May and the end of September and had increased 7 points wich is an average increase. Which shows me that the tutoring over the summer in Saxon was definately worth it. I would think MUS would be great for my child as she is a visual person, but I would want to make sure it goes over the language of math.

MUS does deal with math language— in fact in some ways quite cleverly
(explains the “ty” at the end of twenty, thirty, etc. very neat for place value). I think two problems would be that it is not as comprehensive as some programs and you need to add extra drill and practice.

–des

My understanding is that the new edition of MUS out this year has more practice items and more word problems, so I’d only buy the new edition.

Janis

Hi Janis ~ yes, it was me who responded to your post on the MUS board. It’s hard to know what to recommend as I like both programs as well. Saxon looks more like “traditional” math with the hard-covered books (grade 4+) and all, and if you have students, parents, and/or administrators who are concerned about that you might want to choose them. All the students I used Saxon with over the years had some form of language difficulties, usually both receptive and expressive, yet it never seemed to be an issue. With those students I did not explain new concepts using the problems and explanations in the text; I went from the worksheets alone. They present the language in manageable chunks. The student I’m using MUS with now also has receptive and expressive language issues, yet I haven’t found any problems as we’ve gone through Gamma. When terms such as pints, quarts, gallons, etc. were presented I simply brought in the real items. They’re doing factor and product now, and I’m really not pushing learning the terms immediately; I’m thrilled that he can multiply 2-digit x 2-digit!! I also don’t have a problem with stopping either MUS or Saxon and doing my own thing for a day, week, whatever the student needs until he/she gets the concept. I’ve done that off and on with MUS while still viewing the videos and doing the sheets. One thing you might consider is that Saxon has a more “traditional” scope and sequence, in that in one year the student is exposed to all four operations, time, money, measurement, fractions, geometry, and decimals/percents (beginning in 5th), at the level of whatever grade level they are on. Word problems are in every lesson. You probably already know this from the Yahoo site, but MUS takes a student the majority of the way through one topic in one book, so for example Gamma begins with skip counting and multiplying by one, goes through all the facts, begins multi-digit multiplication, and ends with 3-4 digits x 3-4 digits. If you are trying to prepare students for typical state tests, which include everything, you will have to supplement MUS. That hasn’t been a problem for me; I just finished some geometry with my student, pulling that information from older Heath and Houghton-Mifflin texts I have.

Sorry this is so long, but I hope it helps! One last thing: try to find the actual public school manuals for Saxon; depending on the level they are slightly different than the HS version, thought as long as you have the worksheets, the student texts, and answer keys you should be ok. If you have any other questions I’m happy to help!

Merry Christmas!
Jenn

Hi, Jenn,

Thanks again for all your help! I am planning to try some MUS after Christmas. My kids are all behind, so I am thinking that the mastering of one area at a time might work well for them. I’ll be reporting in for sure.

When I was talking about language earlier, I want to clarify that I wasn’t meaning math vocabulary. The book I hated required a child to write out in words how he solved a problem. I just think if the child solves the math equation, he obviously knows how to do it and shouldn’t be required to write about it! That is such a disadvatage for LD kids, but thankfully not a problem with Saxon or MUS.

A very Merry Christmas to you and everyone here as well!

Janis

Janis writes:

The book I hated required a child to write out in words how he solved a problem. I just think if the child solves the math equation, he obviously knows how to do it and shouldn’t be required to write about it!

Actually, Janis, this is unfortunately far from true. A very large number of kids, possibly the majority, do math by sime weird compilation of guessing and memorization and copying and total misconceptions. There is a fascinating article about a boy called “Benny” that I will try to refer you to that explres a very mathematically mixed-up kids ideas in detail. He was getting good grades bwcause he had the “right answers”, but his understanding was bizarre.

For an analogy, consider the kid who has been taught to read by memorize and guess and who has been left to figure out writing on his own. If you just look at the answers on tests, well the correct things are circled most of the time, the right words are filled in the blanks at least half the time, and the writing seems to make some sense — but when you look at what the kid is actually doing and you check into the reading process, you find a whole can of worms, eyes running in circles all over the page and sentences being made up that may or may not have any relation to what is written on the page, words omitted and added until the meaning is completely changed, writing upside down and backwards and substitution of unrelated words, alphabet soup spelling, etc. The child can reach a certain minimal level, maybe Grade 2 or 3, and then stalls, and everyone is yelling at him to try harder and to work on certain advanced skills when in fact he is hardly reading at all and will not get anywhere until he starts from the ground up.

Much the same happens in math. Kids learn recipes and tricks and cheats, but the actual comprehension is absent; in fact the tricks are often getting in the way of comprehension.

I’m not sure of the value of writing out every step painfully, simply time-consuming (although now and then it is worthwhile — do it myself for very advanced work and in tutoring) but you definitely need to do this kind of thing orally, all the time.

Victoria, I cerrtainly agree with your point, but a good teacher should have ample opportunity to see if kids know how to solve problem correctly. For example, after she demonstrates, she can have kids come to the board and work out problems. They can verbalize as they solve. She should know which children haven’t a clue as to what they are doing or she is not doing her job. Writing all that out is my objection. It’s a tremendous time consuming task and a definite disadvantage to LD kids. As a child who was good in math, I would have been bored out of my skull if I had had to write all that out. So I think it serves almost no one well.

Janis

Janis — years ago I had a terrible Grade 6 teacher. For one example, as a disciplinary measure she threatened that we wouldn’t have our (only) art class on Friday; since there were a few active boys in the class, we never once had art all year. She was supposed to teach us to take notes in history, and her approach was to have us write out pages and pages until we had nearly re-written the text, pointless and wasteful — it took me years to break this habit and I still slip back on occasion.
In math we were saved from total disaster by having a very strong curriculum and supervision of its implementation by the school board. Even then I never really got division of fractions which was supposed to be taught that year; luckily again the strong curriculum caught us up on this in Grades 7 and 9. This teacher mostly “taught” by assigning work and insisting on total silence (this was *not* typical even in these old-fashioned schools).
Anyway, the important thing here is what she did with problem-solving. The curriculum outlined very strictly (I am thankful) that we were supposed to do specific problem-solving skills, and our texts were all problem-solving. This teacher was responsible even if not a communicator, and she required us absolutely to follow a certain format in problem-solving work. We had to write out for each problem: Given, Find, Method, Work, and Solution. As a dysgraphic kid with very very slow writing at the time (didn’t speed up until my twenties) and as a reasonably talented math student who could do a lot of the work in my head, I **hated** this whole thing with a passion. I did the minimum I could get away with and complained bitterly.
Well, a funny thing happened. Later on we had formal Euclidean geometry and I fell in love with the structure of math. Then there were advanced algebra courses and all sorts of other challenges. I found that despite myself I had learned an excellent format for dealing with problems! I could look at a problem that floored all my classmates and even my teacher, and I could take it apart and put it back together like a jigsaw puzzle.
Just yesterday I was working with my smart thirteen-year-old dyslexic. Starting this year he was at a Grade 2 level reading and still having trouble with basic math facts. His reading is much better and he is scraping slowly through the regular English and History and liking them (We are reading Cue For Treason taking turns by page, an hour to a chapter, but reading!). Unfortunately he panics and falls back on bad hablts when teachers stress him for speed, but he is progressing amazingly. Now he’s supposed to be doing algebra, the usual “Fred is five years older than Frank. If the sum of their ages is 25, how old is each?” I did the same old same old setup, Given, To Find, Diagram, Outside Info, Equations, Solve, Check. He got it!!!
So, I have mixed feelings about “wasted” time and “efficient” teaching. The continually dropping math scores in American schools are the end results of decades of search for better, faster, more efficient ways — is it working?
Yes, of course a good teacher does an awful lot of this orally. But *now and then* some written versions are worthwhile. Writing things out in detail does make you think and organize.

Victoria, I think the structure of your “Given, Find, Method, Work, and Solution” is great! That’s exactly what LD kids (and many others) need. This is what I object to:

Mary has 5 apples and 10 oranges. Jim has 10 apples and 2 oranges. How many apples do the children have? Explain your answer.

Answer: 5+10=15
I found that Mary has 5 apples and Jim has 10 apples. I did not need to know how many oranges they had. So I added Mary’s apples to Jim’s apples and found the total. They have 15 apples in all.

Writing the text above is what I object to.

I have no problem with:

Given: 5, apples, 10 oranges, 10 apples, 2 oranges
Find: total of apples
Method: add
Work: 5+10=15
Solution: 15 apples

To me, the exercise above helps the child solve the problem but is not a burden to a child with a language-based LD.

Janis