I sat down with him during the first quarter and went line-by-line through the tests. His errors were generally careless. He knew the material & how to solve a particular problem... he just made sloppy and/or careless errors (same thing?) at every turn. He hadn't come to proofs yet, so no clue there.
It was near the end of the first quarter that I first raised my concerns with the teacher and was told that DS is doing fine; accuracy will come with maturity; he's understanding everything just fine -- DON'T WORRY! And I did pretty good about not worrying until now as we are in the middle of the 3rd quarter and I'm not seeing any improvement.
The geometry text is nearly devoid of unnecessary splashy graphics. Don't remember the text, but I recall admiring how clean the text appeared. (His Algebra, in contrast, was filled with all the colorful claptrap you mentioned.)
I had no idea until recently that his homework was not graded for accuracy. The few times I saw <100% on a homework assignment & reviewed the errors, it looked as though the teacher was going through the problems. Now, however, I understand that the teacher is looking for all the required steps, with little regard to the final answer. I'm guessing my son locked onto this early on. He rarely gets less than 100% on homework, which, to me , means that he was able to make it look like he knew what he was doing. Or something to that effect.
