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Does anyone have feedback on the Teaching Textbooks curriculum? DD11 is weakest and least confident in math and prefers organized and step by step instruction. She's still working ahead of grade level (while shoring up some skill gaps from bad past instruction) and will be taking Algebra I.

I've written here about her issues with Life of Fred. The Everyday Math and Bridges Math her old public school used would just drive her to distraction. She often does better with harder problems than simple ones. She has very low tolerance for manipulatives and visual type math learning and also hates the kind of "explain your answer" "explain three ways of doing this" "explain why this is wrong" problems (did it seem like common core aligned curriculum made this more common or it is me?).

It's frustrating because there's no reason she shouldn't be as confident and skilled in math as any other subject. Then again, her old public school homework sometimes made no sense to ME (and I topped out in college Calc II). So I suspect she's been the victim of some poor curriculum (and I know she's been the victim of poor teaching) in public school.

I hope the new curriculum will help (and the instructor is excellent as well). But I'd like forewarning of anything to watch out for. She also goes to Mathnasium where they are working on those gaps and tends to love it.

This whole style of "Write a novel, paint a mural, and produce an opera to explain to your dog how you feel about adding two and two" is very damaging to math education. (Okay, that's maybe a slight exaggeration) I'm not sure why common core would be blamed for that. It goes back well before that. My guess is that some of these already existing bad curriclums (e.g. Everyday Math), just slapped "common core compliant" onto their old products, without changing much.

True. None of my kids have ever had to produce an opera for a dog. As for the rest of those requirements....

If I understand correctly, writing the opera to explain to your dog may be the new "differentiation in task demands" for gifted pupils. While others merely show their work to add 2 + 2, to provide sufficient "challenge" gifted pupils may be graded upon their operatic expertise in explaining the concept to canines... not be instructed at a higher level in math or allowed to proceed to multiplication, fractions, decimals, pre-algebra, etc.

I think this is our district's idea of providing "enrichment" for kids who are already advanced. Instead of explaining one way to add 3+2, they can explain three ways. Then the teacher can pat themself on the back and say that they are offering each student a challenge. At one of the schools I visited, that's what I was told they would do with DS, since "acceleration is harmful" and I said thank you very much and walked right out, never to talk to them again. But it seems to be a common sentiment. That being said, I do think the "fuzzy math" curriculums like teaching this way. They probably think they are teaching to the whole brain or some other nonsense. DS hates all of this explaining as well and I think it's going to hold him back. I asked him today what is 3/4 of 12 and he told me 9, but if I made him explain it would probably be nonsensical (I've never taught him how to do the computations so he couldn't have been doing it that way).

I don't have any feedback on that particular curriculum, never heard of it.

From what I have heard it is generally considered to be a weakish curriculum challenge wise and behind other programmes. I think they have placement tests on their website. It isn't a programme that would generally be suggested for a student gifted in maths but that may not matter if your daughter need to regain confidence. I don't know whether she would have to do it 3 ways or write an opera for the dog.

I don't know that this is exactly a "ringing endorsement" but we switched to TT from Saxon (yet another program not favored by the intelligentsia) and have been happy. My older DYS got DYS level math achievement scores recently, too (higher than her PRI would predict) so it can't be a total disaster. Saxon was a bit crushing with the amount of repetition and the kids were saying they hated math. So we switched to TT and everyone has been happier. The chief strength (I believe) is it is a fairly low maintenance approach. It keeps the grades and kids progress along with minimal need for input from the adult. Some would find that undesirable. But it works for us. Basically, I'm a bit limited in what I can do for math right now because I work more than full time and delegate their homeschooling to someone that is very wired for humanities, not math.

Thanks for the feedback (and the levity). This is a class with an instructor (and an excellent one) so from what people are saying, I have the feeling that it will work for her. It did look pretty step by step online, which is good for DD right now. We don't need a rigorous curriculum so much as a sane one.

As for common core, I don't think it can be blamed for much of anything (I've read the standards and can't make much of them -- I never took educationese in college). Clearly our local district was into picking "dog opera" curriculum before and seemed to simply add more of the same for common core.