Customer Reviews

Math 54: An Incremental Development

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I have noticed a general theme here. The people who enjoy Saxon Math products seem to be highly educated themselves and tend to value a traditional mathematics education as the foundation for success in life, especially if they rely heavily upon mathematics in their professional lives. The people who don't like it seem to have arguments like, "it's boring" or "it's not fair." You can't put on a clown suit every day and make everything fun all the time. Like or not, there is much repetition and memorization of facts in order to do well in math. The only way to succeed in high school or college math is to get the facts down really well at the elementary level. It's that simple. Saxon Math is great at taking each concept, introducing it in depth, and then compounding on it throughout the book so it isn't forgotten. I assure you, there's no distortion of facts. This is not "fuzzy math!" I work with my daughter every day on the assignments. I don't give her the book to work alone; therefore, I am able to work quickly through it with her and skip problem sets that she has mastered well. For the person who thought five minutes is not enough time to do 100 problems, well, you are right. In the beginning, it is quite challenging for a child to do even 40 in five minutes. The beauty of it is that by doing it day after day, the repetition and memorization will make it easier. My daughter could only do 42 division problems in five minutes two months ago, but today she got 98 correct. It was a victory! These worksheets are meant to challenge the child, not to defeat them. Children who get frustrated by them just need to keep working through it. The frustration comes because they don't have their facts memorized yet! So teach them, and keep teaching them. If you make excuses for your child and say "it's too hard" or "it's not fair" then you are making them believe they cannot accomplish the task, and that's not fair! To keep things interesting or fun, play math games, do math crossword puzzles, play Suduko, paint your geometric shapes, bake something fun when learning measurements, do fun math programs on the computer, or count jelly beans and eat them! You can always supplement a good solid course like Saxon Math with these things and have a well-rounded program that teaches all of the fundamentals.

This book can be used to teach introductory mathematics to elementary level students, whether in a formal classroom or in a home school setting. The print is large and clear, there are many diagrams and most concepts are explained in more than one way.
There are 120 lessons, starting with the basics of addition and going through all of the basic arithmetic operations and their many uses. Whole numbers, decimal numbers and fractions are covered, including word problems. Each lesson starts with a short one or two page section of new material, which is then following by a two-part problem section. The first part is a set of problems over the section and the second is a collection of problems using concepts covered to that point. The order of presentation is sound, nothing is introduced before all the appropriate preliminaries have been examined.
If you are looking for a textbook for elementary school mathematics or are searching for additional challenges for your child, then this book will serve your purposes.

Excellent math program for homeschooling students. I have used various other titles and found the Saxon math program to be the best for all 3 of my children. The best part is the step by step approach to learning. Each day, a new topic is introduced as well as a review of all the previous topics. Students retain more and do better on achievement tests. For example, when studying fractions, you learn a little at a time and always review from before. You don't just do fractions for a chapter and never see them again until your annual achievement test.

Saxon Math can hardly be called experimental. I've been using it with my children for over eleven years, and it wasn't new then. All four of my grown children used Saxon. One is now an Artificial Intelligence Engineer (working as a computational linguist), one is a computer science major graduating in a few weeks, and another is a microbiologist. The fourth owns his own business as an electrician. I owe much of this success to Saxon-I am no math genius, so don't be afraid to teach your own children with this program. It works!

I'm an engineer with 2 college degrees and a professional engineering license, so I knew what my kid needed to learn. When I went through my education, we learned the great names in math, like Pythagoras, Newton, and Euler, who had made great discoveries contributing to the field. I noted that my kid's name was not among them, so I decided that it was probably best to leave the discoveries to those people, while my kid simply took advantage of the discoveries and had the material taught to him. I knew that it wouldn't be a lot of "fun", but I wasn't particularly interested in trying to make math fun - I have enough common sense to know that kids are learning little, if anything, if they are having a lot of fun.
Other than Singapore Math, Saxon is the only method left in the United States that still uses the "Direct Instruction" method (memorizing times tables, etc.), as opposed to the "Discovery" method (where kids can spend 2 weeks coming up with different ways to solve 8 times 7). Direct Instruction is the traditional way to learn math, and I still haven't seen any data show why we, as a country, abandoned it (other than having our math scores drop to the bottom of the world).
While our child is not a genius, he was able to complete this book, plus the next 3 books prior to Algebra 1/2 in just over a year (and well before the material covered in school). That pretty much assured him never having to worry about his math education. I will always be indebted to John Saxon for his genius in writing these books.

We did this series starting with Math 3. It is SOOOOO good, nothing compares. My son, who is deaf, had an easy time learning math with this.

I am new to saxon as well as to homeschooling . I recently bought this book. I only give it four stars because I have not yet proven it with my children. The book appears to be very well done. The reviewer who complained about the use of words like "some and some more",and "larger,smaller ,and difference", did not look very closely at the book. Those terms are used in conjunction with word problems, which is completetely acceptable. Who ever did words problems where they expliciltly tell you add this or subtract that. So the book is actually teaching the concept that when you see word problems with phrases like,"some more" it's going to be an addition problem. The reason Americas youth are doing so poorly is not because of books like this, it's because not enough of them are using books like this.

Our children used Saxon from 54 to 87, then moved on to advanced math, calculus and physics and they have excelled with this method. Although my background doesn't include an emphasis in math, my husband's education and professional life is steeped in mathematics. He's enthusiastic about Saxon because it creates a strong foundation in the subject.

Admittedly, solving 30+ problems a lesson can be a challenge, however, this process increases one's speed and accuracy over time and as my daughter said, it helped her "to make peace with math." Math is like learning how to play a musical instrument; it takes practice and self-discipline, but it's well worth the effort. Understanding math, like being proficient at reading and writing, is one of those practical skills that make life so much easier.

Using this incremental method of learning made homeschooling through high school a breeze and our college-age children sailed through their college math courses as well. In hindsight, it would be easy to choose it again

We used this book for our homeschool 4th grade math. It was very easy to use and to teach. Ready made test and answer books that accompany the book make teaching math a snap. Lessons progress at a manageable rate. Lots of skills review. Concentrates heavily on basic mathematic skills such as multiplication and division.

The "incremental development" book is VERY similar to the standard Math 54. I prefer the standard book with colors and the additional ways to ask for the answers, as the standardized tests. I bought the SAXON math fact books (use a digit timer to increase the speed) and the picture "Multiplication in a Flash" teaching manual (with student workbook), ISBN 978-096517697-2, with pictures to reinforce the math facts, as my daughter counts her math solutions, and we are working on increasing speed. We play bingo with math facts and verbally quiz in the car (even with the eyes rolling, we continue to drill).... I asked the teacher to give her timed tests daily also. She has improved from F to B+, mostly due to the additional practices.... Each homework worksheet, if the problems are wrong, they are reworked at home, and a pre-quiz at home (hand written from problem areas on the worksheets - changing the numbers, just a little). We play games, cooking in the kitchen, tv commercial breaks (flash cards), car rides (verbal quizes), etc. Reminders of HER GOAL to be a doctor, and the required math and science to reach her goal. Good Foundations make success in the children's later years and Saxon are great foundation books...