» Algebra 1/2: An Incremental Development, Second Edition

Algebra 1/2: An Incremental Development, Second Edition Reviews

Customer Rating:
Summary: best math textbook I've ever had
Comment: My 7th grade pre-algebra class used this book (1989-90). I never saw a better math textbook.

I cannot understand the critical reviews here. I was the top student in any math class I took between middle school and college. I won my state's math competition my senior year of high school. So it's not like gifted kids in general hate the book.

And, hey, the issue is not whether the student likes it. It's whether she learns math. And she will learn it if she uses this book.

As a teacher, I believe strongly in constant review. This works. I will home school my own children, and these are the textbooks I will use.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Teach by rote not the way to go
Comment: Being from Norway and having seen how the European test scores for math exceed the U.S.
In Europe and Japan they do not teach the spiral method. They teach concepts and explain to students as to the "why's" and "how's" this came to be, not only theoretically but historically speaking as well.
Saxon teaches repetitive and by rote technique. Having taught at the college level for 15 years, I have had to tutor Saxon students more than any other product student. I must tell you that here at University of Maryland, college level math is not just repetition. As with all major universities and Ivy League colleges as well as MIT, college level calculus, geomotry and algebra is taught with an emphasis as to why this works, how to compute and THEN practice. Saxon does not delve enough in to the 'whys' and 'hows' nor the history of how this came to be.
Math is a bit more involved than mowing the lawn. My 8 yr old can mow the lawn but that doesn't mean that he can learn algebra by repetition. And also, if one does not do Saxon math, it does not mean that they should be tossed out with the bath water. Einstein didn't learn by Saxon; he learned the "why's" and "how's" before he was actually able to come up with the Theory of Relativity. If you come here to the U of MD you will see the students (from Freshman and up) learn more indepth methods in math and NOT by mere repetition. I tutor at a couple small colleges in the area and the professors there are experiencing difficulty with Saxon incoming students. Here in our area, Saxon is taught in a lot of Christian schools, and while their liberal arts and humanities are probably excellent, the math scores are not up to par with the more traditional method students from other schools and homeschoolers. Also, SAT scores are showing that Saxon students are on the lower end of the spectrum in math scores that I have refereed.
The scores don't add up, no matter how much repetition is involved. I have also yet to see a tenured Professor being the product of a Saxon education.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Teach to TEST OR Teach to LEARN
Comment: My mother is a Ph.D. in mathematics and taught Jr. and Sr. High math for several years before moving up to teach college math. She has been pretty vocal that the only math text that will result in imparting a poor understanding of mathematical concepts--a false sense of mastery while using it, but poor retention after--is Saxon. She says that every time she has a home schooled student who is really struggling at the college level and they say "But I did so well in math before!" and they are traumatized at the level of tutoring help they need to make it in college, they all have in common the fact that they learned math using Saxon texts in high school.

After she impressed this on me, I was really leery about choosing jr. & sr. high school curriculum a couple years ago and asked her to go to me with convention to help me pick something out. She said, "You are good at math and a good teacher. Just pick something you like that is NOT SAXON!" I'm not exaggerating. It's the spiral learning method that they use. It doesn't give enough thorough practice of all the variations of a particular concept before moving on and too heavily relies on review throughout. That seems to impedes long-term retention. She thinks the fact that it is so dull and methodical is also ridiculous in this day and age of fabulous graphics and the trend to make math more interesting and multi-modal for the average student who doesn't love math.

I find it interesting that on their website, of the 6 research studies of their curriculum, only one includes high school; the other five utilized k-8 or 6-8 curriculum. Maybe all that dry rote learning makes a student test better. But the sad part is when it comes to taking that learning and building on it, they don't really understand the concepts behind it and can't apply future learning to what they simply practiced over and over but don't really know. Kind of like cramming for a test by going over everything you've learned right beforehand and blocking everything else out until you take the test and then POOF! everything you repeated over and over in your head beforehand just seems "gone" once you go back to normal habits of thinking/doing and you stop all that repetition.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Saxon Excellent Math Books
Comment: I used the Saxon Math books for my two sons.
Saxon 3 through Advanced Math. As a gifted learner, my son sometimes worked only odd or even problems. He was able to retain the information he learned. Now he is a Math Major in college.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: A chaotic way to (not) learn math
Comment: Algebra 1/2 is deeply flawed in its approach to learning. I don't recommend it for anyone. While it claims to take an "incremental" approach, it doesn't introduce and build on new concepts in an orderly fashion, as you might expect, given the title. Instead, it takes a "shotgun" approach, with the student getting hit with new BB-sized factoids almost at random.

For example, from Lessons 70 - 75, the student is introduced to:
(70) Rules for Addition of Signed Numbers
(71) Powers of Fractions / Roots of Fractions
(72) Graphing Inequalities
(73) Right Circular Cylinders
(74) Inserting Parentheses / Order of Addition
(75) Implied Ratios

Do you see any method to this madness?

Another problem with this book is that it is extremely dry and boring. There is really no attempt to engage the student's interest, to help him understand why algebra is so important, or to show him how it can even be exciting.

Instead, we get lessons that read like this, literally:

"Lesson 75 Implied Ratios
Remember that a ratio is a comparison of two numbers. Ratios are often written in the form of fractions. Remember also that a proportion is a statement that two ratios are equal. These are equal ratios: 3/4 = 9/12. The equation is called a proportion. Many ratio word problems do not actually use the word ratio. When we read the problem, we must recognize that the problem is a ratio problem. We must also be able to pick out the implied ratio."

That's the entire lesson. Two short examples follow that briefly elaborate on the concept, but there is very little teaching going on here, just a bare recitation of the rules of ratios.

To cap it off, the student must now do 30 problems, only 2 of which concern implied ratios. The student can't possibly master the concept of ratios before he is introduced in the very next lesson to "Multiplication with Scientific Notation." Talk about a non sequitur!

Incremental learning doesn't have to be this way, and in my opinion, it shouldn't.

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