Math is one of those subjects that seems to get a lot of attention. In my experience, parents are concerned for one of three reasons:

• Math is a struggle for my child. I just don’t know how to find the right homeschool math curriculum that will help him or her understand.
• My child is very strong in Math–how quickly to I move him or her to an advanced homeschool math program?

In response to the ever-changing needs of today’s tech-savvy high school students, Bridgeway Academy announces the addition of a complete online high school program to their broad spectrum of educational offerings.
“The digital era has had a tremendous effect on the way students process information,” said Jessica Parnell, Principal of Bridgeway Academy. “At Bridgeway Academy, we recognize that the traditional learning methods that worked 20 years ago may not work for every student. This new online program offers a rigorous learning experience that caters to the unique needs of today’s high school students.”

Diagramming, identifying sentence patterns, finding parts of speech . . . every student’s favorite element of grammar, right?  How many times have you heard your child ask, “Why do I have to learn this?” As a writing teacher, I loved that question because it was always the perfect lead in to a unit on the value of sentence patterns in writing.

Someone asked me today what the difference was between Saxon Math and Singapore Math.

The difference is fairly simple.  Saxon’s instruction is cyclical.  It provides instruction, gives clear examples, then gives plenty of practice.  It will then cycle back to review the concepts again later in the course (often with practice).  Saxon does include some critical thinking skills, but its primary goal is to help students learn the skills involved in math. Therefore, you will find a lot of repetition in Saxon Math.

I usually recommend Singapore for students who have strong math skills. Singapore approaches math with the goal of developing mental math skills.  It begins by teaching a concept, providing some practice, then taking the concept further with mental math activities.  With Singapore, you will see a lot of  word problems as well as graphs for analysis, etc.  

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