Teaching Textbooks: A Review

Now that we are one chapter in, I feel like I can give an honest review of how Teaching Textbooks is working for our family.

I think I can safely sum it up by saying: "What took us so long to find this curriculum?"

What I love about it:

It takes all the emotion, all the frustration, all the "mom learns one way, child learns a different way, and thus we butt heads constantly" out of the equation. No more tears. No more anger. No more hurts or heartaches when my teaching style does not match my child's learning style. Amazing.

Also, it frees up my time for working with my youngest. The Adventurer is a very hands-on child, whether school is in the equation or not. Getting school done with the big boys has often been a struggle. Don't get me wrong -- we've always accomplished the 3 Rs, but we've not often had time for any of the "above and beyond" stuff. Things like art or music have simply not been done, because my available time has been used on the things that must be done. No longer. Now, because someone else is teaching math for me, I have time to supervise those art projects and extra curriculars that make school fun for the boys.

But, I'm not the only one who likes it.  What the boys love:

The Artist, doing Teaching Textbooks 4, loves that he doesn't have to use his book if he doesn't want to. He is able, so far, to do everything by watching the lecture, working the problems right there on the computer (interactive CD-Rom), get immediate feedback (it tells him, right away, if he got his answer right or wrong), and there is even a little "buddy" to give him hints if he needs them. He loves not having to write his answers down, as handwriting is a physical struggle for him, whereas keyboarding is not. He also loves bonus questions, and the chance to improve his score.  He enjoys math so much now that he frequently works ahead, doing two lessons in a day instead of just one.

The Writer, on the other hand, likes that he only has to watch the lecture if he needs to, if the summary/written transcript of the lecture isn't enough. And that he can do all the work in his book, and then just enter the answers later. And that the grade on the lesson is not final until he's attempted each problem twice, meaning if he misses a problem, he can re-work it for the correct answer and his grade self-corrects when he does that.

What we all love -- math that we can look forward to, instead of dread.