Download Teaching Textbooks

[Rosalia Kemme]

Myhusband discovered Teaching Textbooks at a homeschool convention many years ago. Frustrated with teaching math I saw it as a way out. Before Teaching Textbooks I had used Bob Jones, Abeka, Horizons, Miquon, Rod and Staff, Life of Fred (see Life of Fred review here), and Chalkdust, Saxon.

But I had a problem. I was homeschooling four or five kids at the time and I needed to find a subject they could do on their own, Teaching Textbooks might be the answer to my math problem.

Minimal Teacher Involvement: I think this is a positive because you can follow along with your child, but it is not necessary. In the four years I used this program I probably spent less than four hours helping my kids with math. Since I was looking for a hands-off approach to math this definitely worked.

Teaching Textbook Lessons are Easy to Understand: The lessons are easy to understand, especially at the younger levels. The teacher speaks slowly and the graphics are interesting but not overwhelming.

Favorite for Kids: My kids and many others lovedTeaching Textbooks. My younger boys asked to do math every day because they enjoy it. After years of crying through math lessons was nice to have a program my kids actually like.

Update: Teaching Textbooks now has several buying options. You can still purchase Teaching Textbooks 2.0 which includes workbooks and CDs. However you can also purchase an online subscription which is about $6 a month per student.

Fewer Review Problems: If you are familiar with Saxon (or Abeka to some extent) you know those programs incorporate a mind numbing amount of review problems. ? Teaching Textbooks offers significantly less in the way of review.

This is problematic for a child who needs concepts reviewed thoroughly and drilled consistently. All my kids who used Teaching Textbooks in the younger grades still struggle with their math facts. My children who used Saxon (which we learned to love in later years) have a solid math foundation.

Low Test Scores: This is my biggest problem with Teaching Textbooks. My daughter starting with Algebra 1, after using several different curriculum from K-8. She scored high on all her Teaching Textbooks tests and had an A average for math over the past four years.

When she took the ACT and the College Placement Test and scored poorly on the math sections of both tests. Now, part of the low score was because she did not prep for the test. This is my fault, she only had two weeks notice. But she aced the language sections of both tests, receiving a perfect on one of them. This tells me she knew how to take a standardized test.

Standardized tests are timed, therefore children should solve problems quickly to score well on the tests. In order to complete all the problems during the allotted time, math facts must be memorized. For our family, Saxon had a better mix of review, timed tests, and general problems than any other curriculum we used.

I do not think Teaching Textbooks is a bad math curriculum. Because of the testing issue, I did not use it after middle school. Up to Pre-Algebra I think the lessons are adequate, but beginning in Algebra 1, this curriculum was not the best choice for our family. If you have your heart set on Teaching Textbooks, I would recommend test prep before taking any standardized test.

We are using TT4 with our daughter. She has been diagnosed with dyslexia, dyscalculia, and dysgraphia. She absolutely LOVES using TT and I no longer have to fight to get her do her math every day. I will definitely continue purchasing the TT program for her!!

Thank you for posting your thorough response. I am trying to figure out what will work best for my daughter next year for Algebra 1 and am leaning toward TT for her. Love hearing from someone whose daughter made it! looking forward to college bound if we can get the math right. ( : Sue

As much as I HATE the idea of teaching to the test, if you are talking about college and scholarships it becomes important. It bothers me that I spend 8-10 years teaching them to think outside the box when it comes to their education and then all of a sudden in 9th-10th grade it becomes all about the grades and test scores. If they are looking to attend anything other than a community college right out of high school these tests become important. ?

I used it for my oldest for Pre-Alg, Alg I, and half of Geometry. It did not do enough of the new concept for him to learn it well. It would teach a new concept and then you MIGHT have 4 or 5 problems of the new kind before moving to review. Sometimes fewer.

Great review, I was thinking of switching over to TT3 for my son next year. I think since we have a long way to go until high school that this would be the right decision for us. Thank you for the review!

I love MUS. My kids are young and it fits well with them. I also used it when I tutored older elementary children. I think MUS does an excellent job of teaching fractions. I am not as familiar with MUS middle and high school program but I think their elementary program is rock solid.

I must agree with you, Jami. I LOVE the way MUS teaches fractions. My kids have used Math U see for 4 years now, but I just switched from Math U See Albebra to TT Algebra halfway through this last year. This seemed to be a Godsend to me, but after reading this review, I have myself wondering if I made the right choice after all.

Now, I am teaching Algebra I and Algebra II in a two-day per week (3 hours/week) co-op and have been looking for a thorough curriculum which has the benefit of video instruction and immediate feedback at a reasonable price. As mentioned in the review, Teaching Textbooks has a rather hefty price tag.

We made the decision to stick with TT all the way through. I struggled all winter trying to figure out what to do. I have a 7th grader doing Pre-Algebra. When we started, he was in 5th grade and we placed just there. Another one right and I think we would have been in 6th. I started here and we just did the tests until we hit material he needed to review. That first year he was able to do both 5th and 6th grade and is now a year ahead. My plan is to have him take time in his schedule to prep for the ACT as a part of his schooling. Working ahead allows us to do that.

We plan to stick all the way through. I took off the pressure of trying to find the right thing. This is working and they are learning. And, they like it. No battles, more free time to work one-on-one on other subjects, and did I mention NO BATTLES? LOL

Yes, I agree with junior college. My sons enroll at age 16 as dual enrolled high school students. It is free in Florida except for books. The oldest graduated from high school with 26 college credits. (30 is a full year). Now he is taking a year off to mature and live his dream in Colorado. Dual enrollment is a wonderful option to earn high and college credit at the same time.

I appreciate this review. My daughter is now on TT6 after finishing TT5. I have read different opinions about TT for high school. I love what you said about teaching them to think outside the box and then because of pressures about college admission/scholarships, we have to modify our methods. Sad.

My 4th grader is doing TT5 now following Singapore 4. She is good at math but lacks confidence and our decision this time was an effort to take Mom out of the equation (pun intended) and provide her with a year of review to solidify and practice all those facts and concepts thru 4th grade.

Glad I came across this post. I was thinking of switching to TT Geometry from the BJU Distance Learning math which my daughter hated. But, I wondered about these issues mentioned here. I have also used MUS, Abeka, and Saxon with some of our other children. Our daughter who used all Saxon math has done the best by far in the higher math levels and ACT test scores for that matter. She even went on to tutor math in college while on academic scholarship. I do plan to switch from using the Saxon Teacher cds to the DIVE cds in the upcoming year with our middle grade students because of a conversation with a rep during our recent homeschool convention.

I just stumbled on this and wanted to share my two cents.

I took the ACT 3 times in the past two years. The first time my reading score was 36, english was 31 or 33, science was 26 or 27. Those scores were pretty good but my math was only 23. My composite score was 30. I retook the test with only one goal- to raise my math score. My math score never changed.

Thank you for this review. We used ABeka math and also tried Saxon math with my daughter. Saxon was boring to her and ABeka was a battle. She tested ok in math but some areas were below average. We are trying TT5 this year. I am praying it works for us.

Adding my 2 cents for anyone searching around in the future. We started using TT for pre-Alg, then continued through Alg.1, Geom, and Alg11. My daughter took the ACT for the first time when she was only part way through Geom as she was looking at at early college admit program. She scored about 80th percentile on the ACT (at 99th percentiles for English/Reading which is her strong point). She took it a year later (after more TT completed) and her scores raised a bit. I think she would have scored higher if she would have finished the test (!) but we had never prepped for the timed nature of it. She is currently enrolled in a well regarded private college, having started a year early (what would have been her Senior year in HS). Half way through the semester and she has not gotten less than 100 percent on any of the college math. And this with just having finished through Alg. 11 with TT. I highly recommend the program. Math was never her strong point and it has been a good match for us. I also have my younger kids down to 3rd grade in various stages of it and all are doing excellently with it, with percentiles on standardized tests around 90 percent. None are super math whizzes, but get As with this program and do retain it. Blessings.

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