Could the problem be the book?
I collect math books, and have a pretty good pile of contemporary books that are used in schools. Without exception, anything published by mainstream publishers that I have or have looked at is a dog. So, this means, "Glencoe Algebra 1" "Prentice Hall Algebra 1" "Pearson-Prentice Hall Algebra 1." The same is true for the pre-algebra books. You can recognize them because they all have lots of bright friendly colors, and lots of notes in the margins about WHY THIS MATTERS! and LINKS TO STANDARDS!
When I looked carefully at these books, I realized that the subject matter jumps around and is often presented out of logical order. As an example, I'm looking at a copy of a bad algebra book right now. Chapter 3 has sections on:
- Solving basic one-variable equations
- Similar triangles
- Functions in two variables
- Deriving square roots
- Percent error
- Rate*time=distance word problems
It's a jumbled-up incoherent mess of concepts and examples.
If your daughter is stuck with a book like this, the surprising part is that she's got this far without being too confused. BTW, the pre-algebra books are just as bad. They all are, really.
This mess is part of what drove the Common Core math standards (the standards are good, but the implementation is lousy). STEM faculty at universities have seen that students are increasingly unable to solve basic math problems, and they realized that the way the subject is taught in K-12 schools is a big part of the problem.
My best advice is to buy a copy of a very old book and start your DD in that, from page 1. My son is using
this pre-algebra book. I call this book "Pre-algebra for future mathematicians." It's an outstanding work that starts with set theory and moves through properties of numbers, basic number theory, and other skills that underlie algebra (but are not taught today). Some of this book will be easy for an advanced 6th grader (so she could likely move quickly through it), but it provides theory that is sorely lacking today.
Alternatively, there's
the Brown algebra 1 book. Teacher's editions and other extras for that book are easy to get. The Brown geometry and algebra 2 books are also very good. They lack the theory that the first book provides, though.
The route I recommend will take more time, but will get your daughter on track to learning math properly.
I've gone on too long and will stop now!
