subject: Basic Principles Involved In Saxon Math [print this page] John Saxon developed the Saxon Math Home Learning System in the 1970s. Since then, Saxon math has become very popular with home schooling students and teachers. Today, more than thirty years of experience has gone into fine tuning Saxon math. There are a few basic principles around which Saxon math has been developed. These principles are; incremental teaching, collective evaluation, practice and review.
The incremental teaching method means that the student will learn a new principle of math everyday. For example, the student will learn a new principle of algebra or geometry and will then practice it till it is well understood. This approach was criticized initially by the parents, teachers and students, as they felt that it was too fast paced, and all students cannot grasp a new concept everyday and you could not expect them to master it by the end of the session. However, this has now been corrected, and students are not pushed as hard as they used to be.
The evaluation process involves checking what the student has learnt in a session and also if he or she has fully grasped the new concept and understood its usage. For practice, there are workbooks with questions that the students have to practice in order to ensure that they are clear about the lesson that they have been taught. Reviewing what is taught and what has been understood forms the basic principle of a good teaching system, and this is what Saxon math strives to achieve.
Every child does not have the same learning power, and when a program like Saxon math is offered, it is expected that the course will cater for the students who are not very fond of learning math and take time to develop these learning skills. Because Saxon math is not limited to one country or region and is being used worldwide, the team at Saxon math has modified the program to make it easier and interesting for the children to learn and for the teachers to teach.
Every parent is not skilled at teaching math and therefore, the Saxon math program has taken this also into account. Saxon math uses the incremental learning approach, but it makes it interesting for the children to learn and understand why they need to learn a certain principle of math. By making it interesting and easy to understand and then practicing what they have learnt till it is ingrained in the minds of the students is what the basic principle of Saxon math rests upon. That is the reason for its popularity and its adoption by a number of schools and parents. School teachers have also found using Saxon math to teach math to the students as a sound and constructive approach.
Another unique approach of Saxon math is that the terminology used is quite simple to understand for both the teachers and students. There is no burden or worry of having to learn new algorithms or terminology to teach math. Saxon math has been very well researched and is constantly reviewed, and that is one of the main reasons for its global popularity.
