[ High School and Self-Education Board ]
Posted by Sharon in MD on 14:09 Nov 20
In Reply to: a young 7th & an average 9th (nt). posted by Stacie
I started my ds in Algebra I in 8th grade. I felt that he was conceptually ready to do Algebra in 7th, but I did not think that his calculation skills were on par with his cognitive. So, we delayed a year and got his speed and agility up to where we thought they should be.
Then we used Jacobs for Al I. I compared it side by side with Foersters and perferred Jacobs because I thought it was a bit more kid friendly with its cartoons and such. In terms of material, I felt that they were extremely similar, all the way down to the examples being almost identical in many cases. I've heard that Foerster was a student of Jacobs at some point, but don't know if that is just rumor or not. ANyway, we were very happy with Jacobs and followed AL I with his Geometry, which I'm sure you've seen mentioned here before.
Then, we switched over the Foerster for Al II/ Trig which is a HUGE book. We only did the Al II portion of it because Foerster himself recommended to me that the trig part was pretty out of date in terms of teaching students who intend to go on in math what they need to know about graphing calculators. It took us a regular school year to do the AL II portion because we also took a little diversion and played around with Thinkwell's College Algebra too.
Next in the sequence would be to Foerster's Pre-Calculus with Trigonometry (his book of couse) followed by his Calculus book, both published by Key Press. I really like his materials and find the Teachers Ed in Al II and the Instuctors Guides for the key press material to be invaluable.
HTH,
Please feel free to ask more.
Sharon