# Teaching textbooks-anyone use this curriculum?



## bajiay (Apr 8, 2008)

A friend of mine is wanting me to use the Teaching Textbooks curriculum for math this next school year. Have any of you used it before?


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## jamala (May 4, 2007)

We are using the geometry and love it. Most of my homeschooling friends use it and love it also. Very easy to follow and easy to understand. The only downfall that I see is the number of DVD's to switch back and forth. My kids tend to be rough on DVD's.


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## Mrs. Jo (Jun 5, 2007)

Well, there has been some interesting discussions about teaching textbooks in our homeschooling circle lately. The gist of the matter is that they are a de-excelerated math course, which means that the kids are going really slowly and might end up not covering as much material as they do in singapore, abeka or saxon, to name a few. 

This has made me hesitate since math right now is going well for the kids and I don't want them to get behind. 

The videos are pretty nice however. 

I'm thinking a little bit about math u see right now since would benefit from thoroughly learning multiplication, but I don't know if she will like that approach as much. 

I think the well trained mind forum has some pretty thourough discussions about TT. ~ Mrs Jo


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## Tilly (Oct 16, 2007)

We used it this year. Will continue as the kids really like to do math with it. Most families in our group have switched to it.

Tilly


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## bajiay (Apr 8, 2008)

So the point of using this would be for my daughter to try to learn without so much help. She has learning issues to some degree and my friend thought it might help to take some of the load off of me. From what you all are saying, it sounds like it would be ok. I just hate to spend the money and her not be able to do it is all.


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## cindy-e (Feb 14, 2008)

Kids who use Teaching Textbooks tend to have lower Math scores on the SAT. People who have used TT have had to go back and re-do an entire year of math because they realize when switching curriculum, their kids are not ready for the next level after doing TT. You are going to have people disagree with this and say their kids did fine on the SAT, so that happens too, but the other is more the norm. 
To help your child to work independently, you minght want to check out Kahn academy http://www.khanacademy.org/#browse. It has videos on every math topic for high school, and it's free. It has exercises too, but I'm not sure how that works. When we need it, we have the kids look at their math book (or ALEKS online for the ones who are using that), and if they don't understand a concept, they look up the video on Kahn. That keeps them working independently and they didn't have to change curriculum to do it. 

FWIW,
Cindyc.


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## bajiay (Apr 8, 2008)

Thanks cindy-e! Great idea. Will check that out.


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## Ohio dreamer (Apr 6, 2006)

Mrs. Jo said:


> I'm thinking a little bit about math u see right now since would benefit from thoroughly learning multiplication, but I don't know if she will like that approach as much.


According to my friend that has her masters in math and her DH is a university science professor....MUS is VERY light at the Jr High and High school levels. My friend was using it to teach in a church co-op, she had her hands on 3 different High school levels over the 2 yrs they hired her to teach. If it hadn't dissolved this spring (for lack of teachers) she said there was no way she was going to have her kids do that co-op in high school if they kept using the MUS. She uses Abeka with her kids. That said, I love MUS for K-2nd, but not beyond.


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## Cashs Cowgirl (Jan 26, 2006)

I found TT to be behind a bit when comparing to grade level requirements here. I had the level 7 and liked the concept. I loaned it to my friend that needed her daughter to catch up. In the interim of waiting for it to be returne, my dd surpassed the info in #7 within her Saxon book and that was that. We also found the DIVE Cd's (and Saxon Teacher) CD's to use with Saxon. We like it better that way and it's all cheaper than TT (I have two students using the curriculum-one is on 8/7 and one is on 7/6.)


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## bajiay (Apr 8, 2008)

Thanks for the info! I can see now that my friend is wanting to use this mainly so that she does not spend so much time with each child. She is hoping the TT will teach them and she won't have to. She has way too many children than she can handle. (Please don't go off on me about children being a blessing and such. I know that. She is just mentally losing her mind. I am very serious. She can't keep up with all of them.)

After seeing the program, I am sticking with what I have already been using for math. (Abeka & Saxon)
thanks!


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## Cashs Cowgirl (Jan 26, 2006)

In her case then yes it would do well for her and her family. Each program has it's own set unit of study and most of them cover everything you need if you stick with it. The problem comes when people jump around too much between programs. With math, one really needs to stay with one program for the most part. We used Singapore up till 5B, was going to switch to TT 7, but switched to Saxon instead. I'm glad I did.


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