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Great Resources: Bob Books

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Monday, July 28, 2014

  Both my kids are in elementary school, so the days of learning to read are not far behind us - actually in the case of the younger one they are still upon us.  For him reading is an agonizing process of sounding out each letter and then putting the sounds together into recognizable words.  We have finally gotten to the point where he recognizes certain words or letter combinations, and I think he is about to cross over from reading the sounds to reading the actual words - all he needs is more practice.
  And so, Bob Books have been an important part of his reading program these past few months.
  Bob Books are designed to be a stand-alone reading program which introduces young readers to each letter sound.  In the first set of books, the students learn the typical sound a letter makes (so the letter C has the hard K sound [cat] as opposed to the soft S sound [cell]) as well as all five short vowel sounds.  Each set has 10 to 12 little books with short sentences and simple pictures to help beginners read by context - the picture shows what is happening in the text.  Each book adds new letters and sounds.  The boxed sets build on each other introducing students to increasingly more complex sounds and words until students are able to read both short and long vowel words.  Each story is about 12 pages long, though the books get longer as the student progresses.  Both my kids and I like that the books are fairly humorous - it helps keep reading lessons from being tedious.

  The Bob Books (bobbooks.com)website has a lot of information about how to use the program along with supplemental materials.

  That said, I have never used the program on its own.  For both my kids I have used Bob books as supplemental reading material.  For both of my children I have chosen reading programs that are more tied to phonics lessons and workbooks.  I tend to be a "by the book" kind of person and I wasn't confident that I could teach my kids to read using the more organic approach offered by Bob Books.  

So why do I love Bob books?

  Because it is hard to find readers that only use short vowel words.  As big as the "Easy Reader" market is, there are very few books that focus on words for the very youngest readers - those with short vowels, and only a few sight words.  Bob Books are fairly inexpensive and fit the need for short vowel words.  The first set of 12 books uses only short vowels.  The books have been a great supplement to our regular reading program and have the added bonus of allowing kids the sense of accomplishment that comes with reading a whole book by themselves.

  I highly recommend Bob Books to anyone with beginning readers.

Please note: These great resources are not paid endorsements.  We just like to pass along the books and materials that we find helpful in the classroom.

Got a great resource of your own?  Let us know in the comments section.  We are always on the look out for interesting products!

  

Why is Saxon Math no longer considered honors level anymore?

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Wednesday, July 23, 2014

First, an apology for posting this so late in the month.  I had not intended to take off the month of July, but we had a family member in the hospital for the first two weeks of the month, and life is only just getting back to normal.  Blog posts should get back to normal as well over the next few weeks.

And now: The administrator addresses a common question about math books.

Why is Saxon Math no longer considered honors level anymore?

This has been an on-going question/struggle for many families registered with PHEA.

The short answer is because we use the South Carolina state standards to define what is required for a college prep level class. As those standards change what counts as honors does too. The old Saxon math books do not currently even meet the college prep level standard as they do not cover a number of concepts now considered to be part of Algebra 1.

One of our moms sent a link to an article explaining why the writer believed the older Saxon books to be better (http://drshormann.com/2012/02/08/differences-in-3rd-and-4th-edition-saxon-algebra-1/). I finally had a chance to read the article. The writer makes some good points. I do understand the Saxon approach and also that the new books were not written by Saxon and follow more loosely the Saxon method. For the home school family who values a certain type of training (such the classical approach explained by Doug Wilson), they will pick texts that teach to the method they wish to use. I understand the desire to follow a certain educational approach and am glad when parents have researched enough to know what they want to accomplish with their children’s education. In many cases I think picking the older books is a wiser approach as far as completing the education of the child.  I don't think the public schools work well so I don't think blindly following their methods is a good choice for homeschoolers.

The main drawback to using the older Saxon books is that the SAT and ACT choose their test questions based on the common agreement of what the scope and sequence is in Algebra 1 (or Algebra 2, or Geometry.) So as the scope and sequence changes (as it has in the past few years), what is covered on those tests changes with it. The scope and sequence is now different from what is covered in the older books. I believe this is one of the main reasons we have been watching the SAT math scores drop each year. So it is fine if a family wants to use the older book due to the methodology. They should realize, however, that in making that choice they are missing some concepts that will be on those college tests. Most of the families asking about Saxon math being honors are looking at the student’s GPA with a careful eye as they compete for scholarship money.  To earn the scholarships, the student must have high test scores. This creates a conflict for the families – give up the methodology they want, or perhaps end up with a lower GPA and test scores.

One possible answer would be to use several different books for each subject (Algebra 1, Algebra 2, etc.) to make sure they cover everything. They could still use Saxon as the main text book but use at least one other that follows the state standards as far as scope and sequence goes. By doing this, the family would not only have the primary methodology they want, they would also easily qualify the classes as honors since they did more depth and the class was more rigorous by covering two or more books. This is certainly not what the student will want to do; and many moms will not want to do this either, but it is the only way I see that they can meet both goals.
 

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