We Can Do by Moshe Kai with guest Robert Levy discussing Saxon Math.

[Mandabplus3]

Ok two more questions.
Will some clever person list the order to travel through the books in?
I am thinking it's K, 1, 2,3 ( is there a 4?) for the early years that we are not particularly recommending.
Then 5/4. 6/5. 7/6.  8/7? After that it's a bit ambiguous ? Algebra 1/2 algebra 2....??? Does the physics tie in with the math taught or is it a seperate curriculum? I figured I had the next three years covered so I wasn't too worried but at the pace we are now traveling I need to start hunting for more books. Especially if I want the older editions.
Next question. Robert why do you think they stuffed up the newer editions? What's different? How different? At some point I am sure I won't have a choice and will have to use one of the new ones,  once the hens teeth fall out!  Also if possible to know what edition did they change at?

[nee1]

Thank you again, Robert. I’m learning a LOT from you.

You made a very insightful remark about misplacement of priorities. You said:

``Homework aside, I even see Saxon parents trading off things like dancing and figure skating against learning math.  That is the right of the parents, but, in my opinion, they’re taking some risk.  Not knowing how to dance will not cripple a kid’s future (as I can attest to), but not knowing reading and math will.  It makes me cringe.  I was teaching reading to some 4 year old friends of David.  But they couldn’t make it over much, because of other things, like violin (believe it or not) and gymnastics.  They never had a chance to match David…and only because of that (they were actually smarter than him).’’

You are not the first person to tell me this. Dr Miles Jones of Jones Geniuses said the exact same thing during one of his early learning seminars. He strongly recommended that parents focus on the major, which are the 3R's (that is Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic). According to him, every other thing is an add-on (or a hobby).  I'd since made major modifications to my priorities as regards my kid's education ever since he said this. And you've confirmed his words with your experience. Thank you.

It's interesting to know that David was able to get ahead because you focused on the major stuff, i.e., math and reading. And in an earlier post, you did mention Amy Chua (Tiger Mom)'s piano and violin priorities as been a bit out of place.  You said:

``I agree with you on Tiger Mom, in general.  You can see from above that Ms. Chau and I agreed that the kids are the last ones that should be setting the agenda.  But it wasn't like life was pure hell for David, he had a lot of fun, even sleepovers with friends, did get to play with his toys a lot - but did not have much television - that was where I took his time from.

I think her (Amy's) fixation with music is overkill, and I had to deal with the exact same thing, as my (Asian) wife also insisted that David learn Piano and Violin.  He did, pretty well, but screamed about it...and I, at most, reluctantly supported my wife (to keep the marriage together), but never thought it was worth a dime.  And it wasn't - no one that I've ever interviewed with has cared about whether I can play music (and I can't)...and David had reading and math down-cold well before playing those things - so that rationalization didn't work either.’’

I agree. I’ve gone for several interviews in my life and no one asked me if I could play the piano or not. That is a hobby, not the , except one is aiming to become a professional musician. While one may be able to get about in the world without knowing how to dance, sing, play piano, do sports, or speak multiple languages, one cannot get about (or go places) without a very solid grasp of math, reading, and writing. Except the child will want to make a career of these other things, I currently focus my limited time and energy on what will help the child through life - which is math, reading, and writing. Yes, those other things are important, but I treat them as add-ons, not the main stuff.  Since Dr Jones shared those insights, I’d refocused my energies completely. Thank you for chiming in with your experience. 

Could you elaborate more on this? You are always saying the most insightful things, giving me lots of food for thought. Thank you so, so much for joining us on this forum. You’ve impacted more minds than you think.

[Robert Levy]

Mandabplus3,

"I wont  ignore you, or get mad at your advice. I like to keep an open mind. For this kid at this time I have no concerns but I am not stupid or naive and I know at some point in the future the lure of Facebook will win out. College is a few years off but puberty isn't nearly far enough away! I will take the warning and remember the wise words of Robert”
Thank you very much.  Believe it or not, I was worried most of the day how you would take it.  I hit you very, very, hard, but you can see it was from the heart, based on what I went through.  Even David wasn’t very happy to have that portion of his life put out in public.  You’ve been warned, and you’re not showing any signing of dismissing it – so you will do great with your kids.

“For the record she is getting her 2 lessons a day done no problem. Some days she does more. It is eating into her reading time. But to be honest she can't get much better at that anyway.”
Exactly, and I know the feeling.  Not long ago, based on this thread, I asked myself and David what I could have done differently, in the context of sight words, to even get him further ahead.  We both came up totally blank.  His reading was approaching a decade ahead of his age level – there was nothing left that could have made it better.  So I agree, you’re done with reading and she, like David, will take it from there – and she will find her own time – don’t worry about it – your job is done here.  It’s also awesome that you’re getting the two lessons per day.  As I’ve said, be sure to do every, single problem, and make sure she’s finally able to do every one, before advancing to the next section.

“The reading time is just for story exposure and we still find some time each day to read the classics together, just a bit less time than previously. I am happy with this trade off as I think math is more important to her, both now and long term.”
And it’s not a tradeoff.  I’m convinced that the later a kid learns math, the slower it comes.  So it’s a no-brainer, you do the math, just like you say.  She’ll have more than enough time to pick up the classics or anything else she wants to read.  And she will lots and lots and lots of time to do so, with math effectively out of the way.

“We ( her and I) arnt prepared to drop the gymnastics as she is good enough to go all the way. Gymnastics is what makes her heart sing. So the math just has to fitin around it. She is too bright to just be a gymnastics coach for life so the math is to open other doors and opportunities.”
Exactly.  And if she can keep up two Saxon sections a day with gymnastics, then you’re all set.  David didn’t just do math, he did Karate, baseball, being with friends (including sleepovers), violin and piano (of which he hated – he got that from me, LOL).  As long as she’s not booked solid in her afternoons and weekends, she’ll be fine for math.

“It's been really great reading through and getting all the details of how and why you did it Robert. I shall probably refer back here for years to come! Thanks"
Thank you also.  I really appreciate your class, considering what I had written.  You will have a very happy parenthood, at least we have.  Our kid is crazy about us, both because of his early learning and because we gave him clear rules all the way through - he knows enough kids (and adults) that weren't that lucky.

[Robert Levy]

To MummyRoo,

“This is so true! My brother is 11 and just started high school. His middle school was very good - they got top marks on all the government check-ups and they had a high percentage of kids doing really well. BUT my mum complained most weeks about one or more pieces of homework where he had to essentially learn the material at home to review in class time! Now, we live in a good area and most of the parents are bothered about their children's education (though the majority seem content to pay for after-school tutors and Kumon rather than sit down with the kids themselves). I am sure that is the sole reason that "teaching" in this way is of any use.”
That’s basically it, and sad to say, it’s political.  It is their dream to equalize things, among genders, races, and whatever.  Once you accept that, things make sense.  Why teach multiplication tables if some kids (of certain races) will have trouble learning it?  Easier instead just to give all the kids calculators – nothing can equalize things more than having every kid using the same calculator.  Just keep that in mind, and you’re fine.  I looked at David’s schooling for two things:  (1) Day care – to give my wife a break;  (2) To fill in the gaps in stuff like science and history.  School worked fine there.  But I was not about to ever trust them with teaching him reading or maths.

“I am teaching my son to read, but I am not really worried about it. He is interested and even with little help should be reading long before he's due for school.”
Keep that up, and don’t let off.  It only took David 6 weeks to learn to read (at age 3.5) – and then I worked with him for another 6 months or so to get him near adult level.  Once you’re there, you’re done.  So just get it out of the way and you won’t have to think about it anymore.

“There is very little that will encourage a weak mathematician to become a strong one. The schools won't help - they teach twenty different ways to add up, not one of them being in any way efficient! That is something that really worries me. I tutor a little boy who is not great at maths. It would be immensely helpful if his parents would work with him to learn his times tables, but I guess that is what they want me for. What really bothers me is that he gets really nervous if I try to show him the (more efficient) way that I work out the sums. He spends most of the lesson trying to explain how he has been taught (and it is usually a different way each week), because he doesn't understand how to add in columns and won't try since he'll never need it at school!”
I’m sorry to hear all that – I sure hope the parents with younger kids are reading this.  He basically needs to be deprogrammed now and that is not easy, nor 100% effective.  That’s why I was dead-set to not only keep my kid up, but to get him 2 years ahead.  That was my initial goal in maths, and it was based on him being far enough ahead that no matter what the schools tried to teach him, he already knew the right way, and would be proficient at it.  Obviously, David got much further ahead than that, but the concept was still there – I taught him everything (through pre-Calc) and did it before anyone could screw with his brain.

“Whether I send my son to school or not, he will be learning maths from me.”
I love it!!  Music to my ears.

“I expect he will be many years ahead of his peers, who will spend the first term of school learning to add the numbers 1-5. I am determined that he will enjoy maths. I have been at a point were doing maths was painful.”
I don’t know how well I’ve come across before, but David absolutely hated doing maths.  But the point is that it didn’t matter to me.  Maths was simply too important.  It’s not even close to being debatable – so as  a parent you have to state to yourself (and it’s not easy):  “I DON’T CARE IF YOU HATE MATHS, YOU ARE GOING TO DO IT, BECAUSE IT IS THAT IMPORTANT !!!!”  Once you have that mindset, which you seem to, then everything else will fall into place.  And, by the way, one of his BS degrees is in Maths.  He does love it now.

“I was told by my maths teachers that I was useless and a failure. Three years out of school, I took a psychological test that told me I was actually very mathematically-minded and I re-learned my past enjoyment of maths. I am now capable to pre-university level and actually find complex algebra problems fun (much the same way others enjoy a crossword). I never want my son to go through that.”
Join the club.  I went through exactly the same.  You should never permit your son’s success in life (which is more determined by reading and maths than everything else combined) to be in the hands of people that you barely know, who likely hated maths (at least in the States), and who could really care less where your kid is in 20 years.  You are his parent, you are the only person that cares (along with some others, especially relatives – but you get my point).

[Robert Levy]

To Mandabplus3,

“Will some clever person list the order to travel through the books in?”
I’ll only re-iterate what my knowledge base in Saxon is:  The first hardcover is 54, then 65, then 76, then 87.  From there it’s Algebra 1/2 (simply the greatest textbook ever written, by the way), then Algebra 1, Algebra 2, Advanced Mathematics, and finally Calculus.   We never did Calculus, but by finishing the book before it (we did that cover to cover, every section, every problem, and it is a thick book), David was more than ready for Calculus at the college level.

“Next question. Robert why do you think they stuffed up the newer editions? What's different? How different? At some point I am sure I won't have a choice and will have to use one of the new ones,  once the hens teeth fall out!  Also if possible to know what edition did they change at?”
To answer this, you have to understand the history of Saxon.  The company was started by a retired Air Force pilot, who wrote worksheets.  He then upgraded them into books and then his series of books.  He sold millions of them – but they were still very small in the word of text books.  The results were absolutely remarkable – kids using Saxon (properly) were way, way, ahead of their peers.  It wasn’t even close.  So didn’t the education establishment embrace Saxon – not at all (no pictures of Nelson Mendela, for starters).  They fought tooth and nail to keep them from taking hold.  John Saxon, the founder, fought them right back, using test scores to make his points.  Homeschoolers used Saxon in droves, they knew a good thing and had no political forces involved in their curriculum selection.  But in the end, Mr. Saxon died.  The company went to his kids.  The kids sold it to a big textbook company, which then took it upon themselves to re-position the brand to “remedial” students.  They did a few things that worry people, such as getting rid of hardcover books and going to “consumable” books – and, I think, significantly changing content, at least in some cases.  They’ve been doing this for about a decade and they are still doing it.  So are they worse now?  I can’t say because I haven’t seen the new additions (and I have to be careful what I say).  But I will say, for certain, that there was absolutely no room for improvement with the original version – they were perfect.
So my recommendation is to get what was called the “Home School Kit”, which consisted of the hardcover books, the solutions manual, and a test book with solutions (which we never used).

[Robert Levy]

To Nee1,

“You are not the first person to tell me this. Dr Miles Jones of Jones Geniuses said the exact same thing during one of his early learning seminars. He strongly recommended that parents focus on the major, which are the 3R's (that is Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic). According to him, every other thing is an add-on (or a hobby).  I'd since made major modifications to my priorities as regards my kid's education ever since he said this. And you've confirmed his words with your experience. Thank you.”

You’re welcome, and it’s sure nice to see someone other than a second-rate engineer (actually first-rate, but I don’t like to brag) saying the same thing.


“It's interesting to know that David was able to get ahead because you focused on the major stuff, i.e., math and reading. And in an earlier post, you did mention Amy Chua (Tiger Mom)'s piano and violin priorities as been a bit out of place….I agree. I’ve gone for several interviews in my life and no one asked me if I could play the piano or not.  Yes, those other things are important, but I treat them as add-ons, not the main stuff.  Since Dr Jones shared those insights, I’d refocused my energies completely. Thank you for chiming in with your experience.”

Yep, I think I mentioned it before when I discussed the probability game.  Yes, there’s Yo-Yo’s Mother, who can make a living playing the Cello, but there are, maybe, a few thousand orchestra musicians that can make a living at it (maybe less).  But there are probably tens of millions of people that have sacrificed much of their education because of their love (or, in many cases, their parents’ love) of music.  They have very little to show.  My best friend growing up, the electrical contractor, played Cello (really) in junior high.  He never did all that well in school…and spending time on that certainly didn’t help him one bit.
On the other hand, if your kid can have reading and math out of the way, then hobbies like violin can be done without the cost.  Just something to think about.
 

“Could you elaborate more on this? You are always saying the most insightful things, giving me lots of food for thought. Thank you so, so much for joining us on this forum. You’ve impacted more minds than you think.”
Not sure what you’re referring to, unless what I’ve discussed above.
But thank you for the kind words – it still blows my mind to have actually found parents that want the same for their kids – rather than just thinking of David as some freak of nature.

[MummyRoo]

Thanks again for your insight Robert.

I just want to clarify (as I didn't explain very well) - when I said that I never want my son to think of maths as painful, I meant in the sense that he feels he is stupid and incapable. I fully expect there to be battles against 'boring maths' but I hope that will be because he has 'more important' (to him) things to do, or simply doesn't want to revise topics he considers himself to have mastered.

"Painful" because he doesn't want to take time away from play, I can handle. Painful because he thinks he is stupid and doesn't believe himself capable, I refuse to accept. And if I am in control of his maths curriculum, I will have the knowledge to nip any self-pity sessions in the bud because I will know exactly what he can do and beat in to him (figuratively!) that he is not incapable, he just needs to work at that topic a bit more.

And on the topic of school busywork - my brother came over to borrow my computer for his homework last night. He spent 3 HOURS making a powerpoint presentation (for English class) as prompts for a speech about his holiday!!! Preparing prompts on paper would have taken 5-10 minutes and given the same result.

I never really thought about the content of school homework, but now that I have started noticing it there seems little of any benefit, and little that can't be done without a computer! No wonder children no longer know how to spell (or even write!) - they rarely have the need to put pen to paper, and spelling mistakes are often auto-corrected so they don't even know if they typed it right in the first place!

[Robert Levy]

"I just want to clarify (as I didn't explain very well) - when I said that I never want my son to think of maths as painful, I meant in the sense that he feels he is stupid and incapable. I fully expect there to be battles against 'boring maths' but I hope that will be because he has 'more important' (to him) things to do, or simply doesn't want to revise topics he considers himself to have mastered."

Ok, you pass (LOL).  That makes perfect sense to me.  But you do miss an important benefit when you actually control his curriculum and thus his learning.  And that is he will never feel stupid or incapable, because he will have mastered all of the per-requisites...and the work he will be doing will just be a tiny notch above what he already knows down cold.  That's the idea of Saxon - things will be different - you're still in the institutionalized mode of education, where knowing 75% of the prior material is good enough.


""Painful" because he doesn't want to take time away from play, I can handle. Painful because he thinks he is stupid and doesn't believe himself capable, I refuse to accept."

Yes on the first, don't worry about the second, based on my first comment.


"And if I am in control of his maths curriculum, I will have the knowledge to nip any self-pity sessions in the bud because I will know exactly what he can do and beat in to him (figuratively!) that he is not incapable, he just needs to work at that topic a bit more."

Don't worry, it won't be nearly as bad as you fear.  He'll do just fine.


"And on the topic of school busywork - my brother came over to borrow my computer for his homework last night. He spent 3 HOURS making a powerpoint presentation (for English class) as prompts for a speech about his holiday!!! Preparing prompts on paper would have taken 5-10 minutes and given the same result."

PLEASE!!! Do not get me started here!!!  I saw the same thing and it was a pain in the neck.  When I write a long report for work.  I just start typing.  Then, only after I have a boatload of words written down, I go back and clean it up and format it.  Yes, you nailed it - the computer becomes a crutch, not a tool, not by a long-shot.  I saw the same with David - he would have an assignment and spend 30 minutes trying to get the margins rights on his paper.  That's why I did all that I could to keep him off of that stuff (including calculators, since many of them are as bad as computers).  There is absolutely no need for computers, and virtually no need for calculators.  In fact, if our technology-driven kids were half as educated as American kids two generations ago, we would not be the laughing stock of the Western World when it comes to education.  Computers have done absolutely nothing to help kids learn - about the only benefit they have is to act as a babysitter for teachers that don't want to teach.


"I never really thought about the content of school homework, but now that I have started noticing it there seems little of any benefit, and little that can't be done without a computer! No wonder children no longer know how to spell (or even write!) - they rarely have the need to put pen to paper, and spelling mistakes are often auto-corrected so they don't even know if they typed it right in the first place!""

Yep - one of the biggest deceptions in the educational world (and believe me, that world is loaded with deceptions) is that computers can teach kids better than pencil and paper.  Well David learned math on pencil and paper, no computer, no calculator, at all.  At one point he was 8 years ahead of his age (that was when I slowed him down, significantly).  Exactly what more should I have expected from a computer?   That's my point - they're useless, for teaching kids.  They are good for analysis, once you understand the stuff.  On Space Station we can predict temperatures of outdoor boxes very accurately using computer models - but someone wrote that software, someone that understood engineering, and without computers.

[Mandabplus3]

So I just marked the rest of her lessons, she has completed 13 lessons this week.   
She made a couple of mistakes. Three stupid ones so I made her redo them. She was skipping the date questions because we don't write dates the American way. So I made her do those questions writing them the Aussie way ( day month year). She very cleverly changed all the American currency to the Australian equivalent and completed all the currency questions.  ( including nickels!)
I have told her I want every question right. Oh she even explained why one that I had circled as wrong was actually right. Turns out mummy didn't read the question properly!   
To my surprise she learnt negative numbers this week. I didn't know she didn't know them until she told me she learnt all about those in the "number line thing" I made her read  it was in the book so she had to read it!
So she has independently learnt a new math skill and got all the associated questions about it right. I am very happy about this! Also annoyed she hasn't already learnt this stuff at school but hey we arnt relying on them to teach her for a reason!
One thing I noticed is that it takes me a good chunck of time to mark all her work if she continues at this pace, I reckon i will be working the old grey matter to get my calculation speeds up so I can keep up with her! I don't want her to get too far ahead of my marking.
Finally her self confidence is improving. I suggested that perhaps she needed some harder work at school. ( her national testing scores came back suggesting just this  ) and she said " yeah especially in math" music to my ears!
Thanks for the list in order Robert, now I know what to shop for. This is going to be quite a challenge for me being in Australia! 

[nee1]

To MummyRoo,

“There is very little that will encourage a weak mathematician to become a strong one. The schools won't help - they teach twenty different ways to add up, not one of them being in any way efficient! That is something that really worries me. I tutor a little boy who is not great at maths. It would be immensely helpful if his parents would work with him to learn his times tables, but I guess that is what they want me for. What really bothers me is that he gets really nervous if I try to show him the (more efficient) way that I work out the sums. He spends most of the lesson trying to explain how he has been taught (and it is usually a different way each week), because he doesn't understand how to add in columns and won't try since he'll never need it at school!”

I’m sorry to hear all that – I sure hope the parents with younger kids are reading this.  He basically needs to be deprogrammed now and that is not easy, nor 100% effective.  That’s why I was dead-set to not only keep my kid up, but to get him 2 years ahead.  That was my initial goal in maths, and it was based on him being far enough ahead that no matter what the schools tried to teach him, he already knew the right way, and would be proficient at it.  Obviously, David got much further ahead than that, but the concept was still there – I taught him everything (through pre-Calc) and did it before anyone could screw with his brain.

“Whether I send my son to school or not, he will be learning maths from me.”
I love it!!  Music to my ears.

“I expect he will be many years ahead of his peers, who will spend the first term of school learning to add the numbers 1-5. I am determined that he will enjoy maths. I have been at a point were doing maths was painful.”

Thank you, thank you, and thank you to everyone for their insights on this thread.

Thank you MummyRoo for sharing that story about that little boy you tutor, and thank you to Robert for the very insightful response. A friend shared the story once, that he tried to teach his daughter maths the traditional way, and she whined: 'Daddy, that is not how we are taught in school'. So he gave up trying to teach her with the fear that he might mess her by teaching her the traditional way. 

Based on MummyRoo's story and Robert’s response to that story, I realised my friend should not have given up. He should have known that the 'new way’ would be the thing that would rather mess her up in future. If a child spends so much time learning 20 different ways of doing addition, when will he/she then learn how to do advanced math, and then go to developing math theorems? You can’t develop solid and publishable math theorems without a solid knowledge of math facts (most of it memorised); you just can’t.

The very inefficient methods of these ‘new math' curricula bother me greatly, take for instance this video of 'Everyday Math' book which I posted earlier on this thread.  (Huge thanks to Robert for originally posting this video alongside his Amazon.com review of the book).

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/Tr1qee-bTZI&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/Tr1qee-bTZI&rel=1</a>


I have decided, based on the insights I've read on this thread, to keep my child a minimum of 2 years ahead in the core subjects (math and reading) with  very strong emphasis on math, just like Robert did. And that is not to brag or score points, but to ensure no one messes him up in these core subjects should he go to school. Thanks a lot, Robert. I've learnt A LOT from you. Thank you, thank you, and thank you.

[Robert Levy]

Hi Mandabplus3,

"So I just marked the rest of her lessons, she has completed 13 lessons this week."

Outstanding.  You can do that math.  You'll complete a Saxon book in 11 weeks at that pace, and that's if you do every section.  You may remember that I skipped between 20 and 40 sections in the earlier books as they were simply review from the prior book (to make up for summer break), but towards the end of the series, I had David do all problems.  Do the math again and you can easily see how David got through 4 Saxon Books in one year.  He did that only once, as the work does get harder as you progress, but 2 books a year is doable...maybe to the very end.  Remember, that 11 weeks is a full grade level.  I don't make this stuff up, it's doable for virtually any kid that has normal intelligence and a good home.


"She made a couple of mistakes. Three stupid ones so I made her redo them."
LOL.  It was very rare when David got through a single section without a mistake.  Sometimes he did so bad in a section that I made him do every problem over, from scratch.  I also made him check each problem after he finished a set in nearly all cases.  Remember, he hated doing them, and the quality of the work showed.  But our house was not a democracy, so David had to do what he was told.


"She was skipping the date questions because we don't write dates the American way. So I made her do those questions writing them the Aussie way ( day month year)."

Nice...not too many differences between us, and certainly not enough to back away from Saxon.


"To my surprise she learnt negative numbers this week. I didn't know she didn't know them until she told me she learnt all about those in the "number line thing" I made her read it was in the book so she had to read it!
So she has independently learnt a new math skill and got all the associated questions about it right."

Jeeze, I don't remember David ever doing that.  Awesome.


"I am very happy about this! Also annoyed she hasn't already learnt this stuff at school but hey we arnt relying on them to teach her for a reason!"

You waste you energy being annoyed.  Remember what I said earlier, when things are done by otherwise intelligent people, that make no sense, then there is a political agenda.  So don't get angry, you are simply on the other side of that agenda and you must accept it.  We've had almost 4 years of a president 100% opposite from me - but he got power (fairly) and therefore I accept it.  I don't get mad at what he does, simply because I know and understand who he is and I expect it.  But I do chuckle at others that are shocked and mad at what he's doing - what's there to be shocked and mad at - he's just doing what his past has shown him to do and what he promised when he campaigned.  So I accept it and do my best to adapt.  He doesn't get to make me angry.  Likewise in your case (and just about everyone else's), the teachers are either too dumb to know what works so they do what they're told, or, if they are smart enough, they have their political agenda which is also used to control the dumber teachers.  So just look at school as day care now, at least for math.


"One thing I noticed is that it takes me a good chunck of time to mark all her work if she continues at this pace, I reckon i will be working the old grey matter to get my calculation speeds up so I can keep up with her! I don't want her to get too far ahead of my marking."

That's why I recommend having the Home School kits, if you can get them down there.  They have the solutions manuals.  Even at 76, I was needed the manuals - and I am pretty decent at math, still.


"Finally her self confidence is improving. I suggested that perhaps she needed some harder work at school. ( her national testing scores came back suggesting just this  big grin ) and she said " yeah especially in math" music to my ears!"

I like that part.  I didn't get that pleasure with David, but all is fine now.  For school, do your best, and take what you get.  It's not going to affect her either way.  As to self-confidence, that improves as they get the basics figured out.  I figure 80% of the trouble that kids have with new material is that they have to use skills from the past that they either never learned or had forgotten.  One the huge benefits of Saxon is that their problems are designed to keep those skills intact, until they're needed again.


"Thanks for the list in order Robert, now I know what to shop for. This is going to be quite a challenge for me being in Australia!  confused"

Best of luck there.  I guard my set with my life.  They never leave my home - except when we hurricane evacuate - then they are always with me.

[Robert Levy]

Hi Nee1,

"A friend shared the story once, that he tried to teach his daughter maths the traditional way, and she whined: 'Daddy, that is not how we are taught in school'. So he gave up trying to teach her with the fear that he might mess her by teaching her the traditional way.  Based on MummyRoo's story and Robert’s response to that story, I realised my friend should not have given up. He should have known that the 'new way’ would be the thing that would rather mess her up in future."

Exactly.  The reason your friend gave up is because he (or she) trusted "The System" to do what's best.  But who should you really trust?  Math, through Calculus, was developed over thousands of years, with Calculus itself being invented (or discovered) about 350 years ago.  In other words, everything your kid learns through Calculus has been around for at least 350 years, and the early stuff for thousands of years.  So, we've had thousands of years (or at least many hundreds of years) to figure out the best way to do addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, and we've come up with the traditional way - the way our parents learned.  There were many great minds in those thousands of years - and I would almost bet that they tried out the Lattice Method (as you link to), as they had plenty of time to do math and no calculators to distract them.  They almost certainly concluded that there is really no merit to that method at all, and only a bunch of politically-driven education nutcases in Chicago would ever force kids to learn that (and that would only be after the Birth of Christ, the New World, and Chicago even existed).  So, in other words, I trust the work of the first 4990 years a lot more than I trust the work of these fanatics of past 10 years, and so does Saxon.  [that was fun to write]


"If a child spends so much time learning 20 different ways of doing addition, when will he/she then learn how to do advanced math, and then go to developing math theorems? You can’t develop solid and publishable math theorems without a solid knowledge of math facts (most of it memorised); you just can’t.  The very inefficient methods of these ‘new math' curricula bother me greatly, take for instance this video of 'Everyday Math' book which I posted earlier on this thread.  (Huge thanks to Robert for originally posting this video alongside his Amazon.com review of the book)."

Yep, and again, it all starts with a political agenda.  Then their strategy makes sense.  People have trouble dealing with that, for they ask how could our huge school system not be operating in the best interests of the kids.  So once again, I would point people to Bill Honig in California.  That's probably the best-documented case of the damage they are capable of.  I lost many friends over the years because they thought I was the nutcase - but I didn't write a curriculum that threw out 4990 years of recorded history for some fad of the past 10 years and then force on to kids - with no evidence that it can match what was was even being taught prior (and it can't hold a candle to it).


"I have decided, based on the insights I've read on this thread, to keep my child a minimum of 2 years ahead in the core subjects (math and reading) with  very strong emphasis on math, just like Robert did. And that is not to brag or score points, but to ensure no one messes him up in these core subjects should he go to school. Thanks a lot, Robert. I've learnt A LOT from you. Thank you, thank you, and thank you."

You're welcome, welcome, welcome.  As I've said before, I had no intention of David shooting past others the way he did, it just happened because of Saxon.  My only goal was that 2 years, and just as you said, so "The System" could not contaminate his brain with their garbage - I got there first and got the connections made.  If he had stayed just 2 years ahead and with his peers, I suspect math class would have been fun - like doing puzzles - but he would always know the right answer and never get caught behind when he went to another school, or college, or if they decided (once again) to go to something new.

[Mandabplus3]

Just my 2 cents...
As a teacher and a parent with accelerated kids, bearing in mind this may only be relevant in Australia, 2 years ahead isn't enough. I thought it was. My kids are two years ahead in math now. Neither of them is far enough ahead to be given differentiated instruction in math. Yes in English they do, but they also have to do the grade level grammar ect first.
For math I recommend 3 years ahead OR 2 years ahead with awesome mental calculation speeds or an impressive math party tricks bag! the advanced kids who get differentiated work around here are years ahead and still get just one or two grade levels ahead for their " advanced" textbook. I think so lazy teachers don't have to teach them anything and they can work independently through a text book.   
My experience shows this is less important in higher grades where it is easy for schools to send kids to a different class. It is obviously irrelevant if you are homeschooling also.
 However the biggest factor as to whether or not your kid gets extention work is whether or not the teacher likes you and believes you. Yes school is just for babysitting and exposure to those extra bits ( cross country, athletics, friends, some science?). Anything else you get out of it is a bonus. You all know my oldest had a whole year off last year. A year of staring out the window because her teacher was a snot! ( this is the year she should have learnt about negative numbers BTW!!!) she went from dux to below average in one year!  I will only ever experience this once, I will never again let any teacher be the sole educator of my kids. They are too impotent to me.
 It's interesting to note that a number of my friends are starting to realize that my kids are not smart because they are smart. They are finally starting to realize that to top the class requires a whole load of effort at home. All of them think it is only achievable in my house because I am a teacher. Sadly i know correcting them is pointless, none of them are willing to put in the effort to get the results. Of the two that I thought might, I suggested one get a tutor ( which is working beautifully!) and the other is doing a second curriculum entirely in Japanese. These two families will do well over the years. But mine will do better 

[nee1]

Thanks a lot, Mandabplus3, for that insight.   I've learnt a lot from what you just explained. From what you said, I’ll up my goal to keeping him a minimum of 3-4 years ahead in math and reading. That will change very rapidly to keeping him 5 years ahead, and even up to 8 years ahead, just like Robert accomplished with his son. So 3-4 years ahead will now be my current minimum, and then we will quickly scale it up depending on how he performs. Thank you so much for that insight.

And thank you so much for updating us with how your daughter is doing with Saxon. 2 lessons every day is great, and as Robert mentioned,  in 11 weeks, you can get the entire book finished, then move on to Saxon 65, and so on. Please keep us updated with how it’s all going, I’m learning a lot from your updates. And thank you to Robert for explaining how David completed the 4 Saxon books in just over a year. I'll be using that game plan too, so thanks a lot for sharing.

I am learning so much from this thread, and I’ve made serious modifications to my plans. And my expectations for school have changed immensely. If my child will be schooled, I will consider it simply as a day care center (as Robert advised); my child's real education will be at home under my tutelage.

Thanks so much, Mandabplus3. And thank you, Robert. I'm very grateful for the insights you both have shared.

[Robert Levy]

"As a teacher and a parent with accelerated kids, bearing in mind this may only be relevant in Australia, 2 years ahead isn't enough. I thought it was. My kids are two years ahead in math now. Neither of them is far enough ahead to be given differentiated instruction in math. Yes in English they do, but they also have to do the grade level grammar ect first."

Thanks Mandabplus3.  First, even though I might be looked at as superhuman or something here (a first for me as a parent), the two year number was a guess that I had, at the outset, and never got to check on it.  It seemed like the minimum amount one would need to stay far enough ahead to be good at material before it was 'taught' to them by "The System".  But there's an implied assumption there that the presentation of the material by The System is basically the same as  by Saxon (i.e., the way its been done for hundreds of years).  From what I can tell with Everyday Math, for example, they jump around, a lot - so it's certainly possible to need to be even further ahead, just in case they hit Trig proofs in 2nd grade, for example.  Also, you're still looking at school as a place where you kids should learn math - kinda old fashioned in my book (LOL), but since you are (which is fine, I just never considered that a possibility and didn't account for it), then things may change and you need to get them to the level necessary, as you state.  And my thought, also, with the 2 years was for parents that don't necessarily want their kid light years ahead of the pack, and thus with kids much older, for any of a number of reasons.  So yes, don't stop at two years, but it still may work well as a minimum (except, maybe, with Everyday Math or stuff like that).


"For math I recommend 3 years ahead OR 2 years ahead with awesome mental calculation speeds or an impressive math party tricks bag! the advanced kids who get differentiated work around here are years ahead and still get just one or two grade levels ahead for their " advanced" textbook. I think so lazy teachers don't have to teach them anything and they can work independently through a text book."

That certainly makes sense to me.  What's shocking is that program even exists there, because they're long-gone here (from what I can tell), where 'equity' is the buzz-word.  But yes, getting 3 years or more ahead is not tough (if you start young enough), and if they actually still have a way to be learning math in school, that's great.  I just can't bring myself to seeing how that could still be done here - but we still have something like 10,000 school districts, and I'm not a researcher, so maybe there is some similar stuff here.


"However the biggest factor as to whether or not your kid gets extention work is whether or not the teacher likes you and believes you."

Key point for every parent (and kid too).  You must do what you can to be liked.  Had my wife been a jerk and acted like she was owed something, then David would have been in a bind, because Pam (at the community college) would have simply told her tough-luck at that age.  Instead Pam went to the State Board of Education and asked whether there were any laws or rules against accepting a kid that young (he was much younger than anyone else they ever dealt with).  They said nope, he just needs the 500/500 SAT scores required for anyone under 18 years and he can enroll.  She also interviewed David and he charmed her (and he got the needed scores).  But I remember reading a couple of years ago about a ~12 year old at UCLA (I think) that wanted to spend a semester in South Africa as part of her liberal arts education.  Not required, but commonly done.  The school told her to take a hike and that it wasn't safe (probably not safe, these days, for adults either).  Rather than say something like "thank you, I appreciate your diligence and looking out for my kid" they filed a lawsuit, hence the news article.  That's going to make that school think a lot harder about admitting young kids again...and maybe that was their strategy?


"You all know my oldest had a whole year off last year. A year of staring out the window because her teacher was a snot! ( this is the year she should have learnt about negative numbers BTW!!!) she went from dux to below average in one year!  I will only ever experience this once, I will never again let any teacher be the sole educator of my kids. They are too impotent to me."

Ok, you're with me, cool.  Sorry about that experience.  It is very, very, difficult to have a bad teacher and realize it, even later in life.  One is, of course, inclined to think that the teacher knows what he's doing.  It is also very difficult to realize and accept as a parent that your kid is not being taught properly - because what do you know?  Do you know "early learning pedologies", or whatever the hell they call that, as well as an 'expert' in that area?  Of course not - so SHUT UP, you parent, you're clueless.  So now you're forced to play catch-up, but you have time and you will not have a problem.  David had a teacher in 3rd grade, I think, that loved looking at birds and always took the kids out there to watch, and watch, and watch - and then gave lessons on birds in class.  David knew every species native to Southeast Texas.  He would rattle off names and descriptions like he was a biologist.  The other kids lost a year of reading and math - David had nothing at all to worry about, so we just joke about.


"It's interesting to note that a number of my friends are starting to realize that my kids are not smart because they are smart. They are finally starting to realize that to top the class requires a whole load of effort at home."

Yea, I'm convinced that most parents think that if they had David as their kid, that David would have done just as well - but since they're stuck with their own kids, they might as well lay back and let The System take care of them.  That's why they never ask me questions (except for the Russian lady using Saxon).  They are ABSOLUTELY CLUELESS as to how David would have turned out if we just threw him into that meat grinder and given him calculators, Facebook, video games, etc.  Like I say, I barely made it through, and The System wasn't even half as bad as now.  They also don't realize that their kid may well be another Einstein, but even average kids with parents like myself who take education into our own hands will clean their clock, every time.  There are probably a whole lot of other kids that could have done better than David, given the same parenting...but were never given a chance.  (I know it sounds like I'm bragging, but I'm trying to make a point here)


"All of them think it is only achievable in my house because I am a teacher."

Exactly!  They figure out an excuse.  (sorry about this bragging again, but I need to make another point)  Without going into details...I am known very, very, widely on Space Station as the absolutely expert when it comes to electrical power architecture and how to keep equipment powered in contingencies.  I'm probably considered a genius in my own right - and I don't deny some of the stuff I've come up with over the years is pretty clever.  So people who know me and hear of David just think it "rubbed off" on him.  They have no idea how close, many, many, times I came to not being there.  I was not in the honor society.  I made the honor roll once in high school (you needed to hold at least a B in every class)...not to mention my near-death experiences - you get the point.


"Sadly i know correcting them is pointless, none of them are willing to put in the effort to get the results. Of the two that I thought might, I suggested one get a tutor ( which is working beautifully!) and the other is doing a second curriculum entirely in Japanese. These two families will do well over the years. But mine will do better."

A lot of it, I suspect, is fear.  I just have a tough time thinking that 99% of today's parents are that lazy.  To me, it's just that they think that either they will not accomplish anything (after all, how can they do better than the experts that designed The System), or that they could even make things worse - you know, wrong pedologies and what not.  It takes a lot of self-confidence to tell The System that they are full of it and cut one's own path.  It was only my early-life experiences (i.e., learning arithmetic and reading by sheer luck), and my political instincts (understanding that there are evil people out there that don't want my kid, or kids that look like him, to succeed) that allowed me to do what was necessary. 

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