OK, I'm doing a bit of early research on what to do following Horizons 6. My oldest will start Hor 6 sometime next school year and then should be on to Pre-Alg. given Horizons scope & sequence and her math knowledge. She does not seem to like Teaching Textbooks. I had thought she might want to jump ship from Horizons after this year but she doesn't. We're not fans of Saxon and although I was successful in Algebra thru AP Calculus in high school.......I completely memorized the info and dumped the knowledge :lol: so we'll be learning it together when the time comes. I just got done thoroughly looking at VideoText.........yikes, its pricey BUT it includes Pre-Alg thru Alg 2 and I can re-use it or sell it (without folks getting new codes like TT)...so I'm keeping that in mind. I searched old threads but didn't see any recent info from folks and since we have lots of new folks, figured I ask for new or updated opinions. I'm estimating that she would be ready for Pre-Alg sometime during mid-7th grade. According to the website, this won't be a problem for a kid who does well in math. Although DD does well in math, it is NOT her favorite subject. I know Dr. Wiles of Apologia really supports VT but don't tell her that, she doesn't like science either so that might turn her off :roll: Anyone have good/bad experience with VT (other than the depletion of the bank acct)??? Thanks.
I saw that she had an old post and didn't like it for her son (at the time at least). If she doesn't reply, I'll PM her later. Off to dinner for Mother's Day....not fighting the restaurant crowds tomorrow after church :lol: Thanks
Actually, we got VT for our oldest, and he went all the way through the Algebra program. He did fine. It seemed significantly harder for him near the end of Algebra 2. Well, they don't divide it up into Pre, Alg1 and Alg2. I didn't know it was pre alg as well. I thought it was just Alg1 and Alg2. At any rate, he went through it and didn't really have TOO many problems until the last couple tapes. That didn't work for ds14, so we went with TT Algebra. He's doing fine with TT. If I could get him to slow down he'd do even better! I do think it's a good program! It's drier than TT. But it's good, I'd say, for the more analytical type people. I think my second likes TT better because it's lighter and throws in some humor. He's a funny guy, so he likes that kind of thing better. So, I guess it's another thing that depends on the child! Any more questions? Let me know, I will be happy to at least try to answer them!
We used it this year - modules a, b, and, c of their algebra series. I found there were not enough problems and no real review. If it is a mastery approach, they should have more problems with which to measure your mastery. If it is not a mastery approach, they need review. He would do fine on the daily work, okay on the end of unit tests and bomb the cumulative tests. We had switched from Saxon which of course has lots of review and is more an incremental/spiral approach. We are going back to Saxon next year. -Cheryl dd-14(school of the arts) homeschooling ds-12 and ds-11
Thanks Deena! I'm probably going to drag her to the convention next year if we haven't decided. I did order the VT demo on CD...hopefully it'll get here in a week or two. I'm not opposed to TT either but the online samples didn't appeal to her at all but that was 6th grade we were looking at....not the more advanced. Mod A of VT is the Pre-Alg stuff needed for the rest of the program. Thanks again.
The website says its mastery....which concerns me. We use Horizons which is VERY spiral. I used Saxon myself (which was spiral) and never felt like I mastered anything....so I don't know which will work best for DD for Algebra. Good thing I'm starting the quest early :lol:
Yeah, that's another reason I felt it wouldn't work for my 2nd ds. He needs the review. ds1 didn't need that so much, but it was probably why he had more problems near the end. None of my kids liked Saxon either, which surprised me, since I'd heard how great it was! But, thankfully, there are many programs out there to try, and that fit different learning styles!
Mastery and Practice Just a bit of clarification for you concerning "mastery" for VideoText. The idea of mastery is to completely understand a specific concept before the child moves on. You can figure that out in just a few problems. If you are concerned that they still don't understand the concept, have them explain it to you. That is HUGE in verifying their understanding. The lessons are also very short, so only one small concept is covered at a time. For example, getting rid of parentheses in an equation. The reason that there is not more practice problems given is because each lesson builds upon the one before. Therefore, once a student understands that days concept, the rest of the problem is essentially review. So, in reality, there is tons of review. Even so, if you are desperately wanting more review, their website does have a link with more review problems for the lessons. If your child is constantly missing the problems then their is a problem with understanding the concept, not that they need 100 more problems to do. Most likely, with tons more problems, they will start missing more and more because of careless mistakes or they could possibly just be reinforcing a misunderstood concept. There are also benefits to the solutions manuals in that if your child is having difficulty with a particular problem on the tests, the problems indicate which lesson that problem was from and therefore you can go back to that lesson and figure out what went wrong in their thinking or understanding. Having two forms of the tests allow you to go back and make sure there is full understanding and then give the test again. Of course, every child is different, but I think this program is the best that I've seen so far.
Thanks for your input. I'm leaning towards VT or Teaching Textbooks. DD has axed MUS from the running. She's still got about a year or so before we'll need either one but it's always nice to have others opinions. Rhonda
