Mathematics: Structure and Method (Course 1)

I homeschool my three children and found this book to be excellent. It was easy to understand. It isn't full of the pretty pictures and gimmacks that some math books have but the content was very thorough. It covered challenging concepts (I was learning some new things myself) but the concepts were clearly explained. It gave lots of problems to practice and apply the concepts. It also clearly showed the important concepts and formulas introduced in the lesson. Some of the ways I had been taught as a student were made simpler (ways to find the least common multiple and greatest common factor for example). I would highly recommend this math text book.

A bit about me...I am a big supporter of Singapore Math, which I have used to supplement the horrific math curriculum we have encountered in 4 public schools in our county (namely Math Investigations, Math Connections, and Everyday Math). After switching to homeschooling last year, we used Dolciani's text as part of K12's online homeschool program. We are very happy with it. It is FAR superior to anything my kids have had in a brick-and-mortar school (even in the gifted and talented programs they were in). Each lesson begins with a concise, easy-to-understand approach with great examples. However, the problems for the students increase in difficulty, and sometimes become excessively hard compared to the practice problems. I had to wonder how parents were handling this if they did not excel in math themselves??? Fortunately, the teachers' guide that K12 provides, helps overcome this problem. Other things we loved about this text are the real-life connections that are given before each unit that tell kids the applications and careers that utilize the information they are about to learn, from engineering to architecture, to carpentry, and banking! This gives kids a sense of purpose for their efforts. In conclusion, for math-oriented families that want their kids to gain a deep understanding of math concepts, this text is up their with Singapore Math. Thank you, Mary Dolciani!