My son recently started using accelerated math as well. I'm not a fan of the AR program, but I do think they did a much better job with the math program. It's not perfect, by any stretch. And you have to work through the fundamental stuff before getting to the advanced stuff (which bored DS to tears). But once you wade through the BS, it's not a bad program. As a former math teacher, I have minor issues with the way they present some of the material. I think the way it is taught may make it more difficult to use that knowledge when they get into higher math classes. But as I said, they are MINOR concerns. I spent a little bit of time discussing it with my son, but it wasn't enough to make me go to the school and throw a tantrum (again).
Basically, they have objectives to master before they can move on to the next set. It starts out with fundamentals, such as counting and recognizing numbers. Then it slowly builds up. As soon as you master one level, you can move on to the next one - so you can move as quickly or as slowly as you like. I also like that it fills in any gaps in the child's math background. For example, my son could do three digit addition and subtraction with regrouping, and was in the process of learning multiplication - but what I didn't realize is that if you asked him to write the number forty-eight, he would write 408. It never occurred to me to go over that with him, but he figured it out within a couple of days on this program.
As I said, it's not perfect. But it's a heck of a lot better than sitting there with the rest of the class counting dots during their math time.
