From a grown up homeschooler’s perspective: my mom used Saxon with us growing up, and as I am not naturally math minded, Saxon was not a good match for me. I remember it as dry, seemingly endless, and lacking in ability to really explain math. In addition, the author insists on the necessity of completing each and every problem for each and every lesson in order to successfully use the curriculum. And that’s a stinkin’ lot, in my opinion. For those reasons and more, we chose to use Math U See with our children, and here are some bullet points on why I recommend it: (we began with the math primer when our first daughter was 5, and are now in gamma)
*MUS caters to several learning modalities. It is not confined to the “book learner” or the “hands on learner” etc, but makes a point to enlist different methods; no matter how you learn, in my experiene, you’re bound to make a connection with MUS
*If I’m unable to adequately convey a principle or process or concept, the videos are there to present it differently. In addition, the teacher’s manual gives many ideas (games, stories, pictures, etc.) for helping your student grasp a concept.
*If I feel that my student needs extra practice, I can go to the web-site, choose what lesson we’ve been struggling with, and print out extra work sheets.
*I feel that the flow of the lessons makes sense, and that concepts are not lost, as each lesson will include review of previously mastered material.
*I can, with the exception of the workbooks, use the material for several children. (I love that…)
*I have found the curriculum to be less expensive than many others, and am happy to buy it new at convention each year, knowing that I will only have to get new student work texts when my next student reaches that level. (I hardly buy anything new…)
*I am happy to support Steve Demme and his company-he is a truly wonderful man, with a real heart for what he’s doing. We had him at our state convention oh, 3 years ago I think, and my husband and I attended each of his workshops (none on math BTW LOL) He’s just a really neat man…
*You can take your child from primer (recognizing numbers, etc.) all the way through Calculus and Stewardship Math without having to change curriculum (it seems that many curriculum only cover either lower or upper grades).
Hope that helps a bit, although it already looks like you have had many great responses. When it comes down to it though, remember that you know your child best, and that you need to use what you and your student are comfortable with, regardless of my obvious disdain for the product in question
(sounds snarky, huh? LOL I was just the math-dunce child of a pilot father with a bachelors in electrical engineering and a masters in aeronautical science. He was math minded, and I wasn’t. To him, Saxon made perfect sense. To me, it might as well have been written in cuneiform…)
Blessings,
LillyLou