I have a friend whose child used the "Key to" booklets and then took AoPS, and it worked for them. I really get the sense that AoPS is rather a different animal than most of the math that's out there. But most of that impression comes from this forum, so if I'm wrong, I'd love to be corrected...
I should add to my previous post that one of the reasons we're homeschooling *IS* to slow DS8 down a bit. I am choosing to try to go deeper and broader (with things he wouldn't get in our schools, like foreign language studies) rather than just faster through the standard curriculum.
Perhaps this is not a choice everyone would make, and that's fine. All kids are different, and the only one I'm choosing for is my child. But I am not in a hurry to have my child go off to college. I'm not sure his bottleneck would allow him to succeed if he went really early. And, of course, I'm not sure *I'm* comfortable with sending my young child off to college.
So I am doing what I can to keep him challenged and yet still keep him reasonably close to his age peers for the core courses. As I said, it is a delicate balance that I don't always hit. But I don't think that multi-grade-skipping would work for my particular child with his particular speed challenge if he were in a bricks-and-mortar school. Since he may someday return to a traditional school, I'm doing what I can to slow him down and still challenge him. Two rounds of algebra--one basic, one advanced--seems like it might fit that rubric.
