Math Curriculum Comparison: Teaching Textbooks, BJU Press, And Horizons

If any one subject is responsible for scaring away potential homeschoolers, it would have to be math. One of the most common questions I hear about homeschooling my children is, “How do you teach math?” This inquiry is usually accompanied by looks of abject fear. Seriously, are we all traumatized by our math classes or what? Admittedly, choosing the right math curriculum can be difficult and require some trial and error. Let’s take a look at the three I’ve used most: Teaching Textbooks, BJU Press, and Horizons.

The Math Curriculum Struggle

In my experience, most families end up using several math curriculums over time. What works for one student might be a catastrophe for another. Sometimes, a family starts the school year with one but switches before the year is over. It requires constant reassessment.

Math curriculums also tend to be among the most expensive purchases for every school year. So, making a poor choice can have heavy financial consequences.

How do we choose our math curriculum to lessen the chances of a bad fit or budgetary disaster? Well, ask around, read reviews, and assess each math curriculum based on your family’s personal needs. What works for me might not work for you.

Questions To Consider

How much does this cost?

Is this available through streaming, DVD, or books?

Are there support resources?

Is this a mastery or spiral approach?

Are the student sheets and workbooks reproducible, or will you need to buy them with each new student?

Does this math curriculum require the parent to be heavily involved in lessons?

Is it geared toward advanced students, average students, or struggling students?

That might not be every question you have, but it’s a good place to start.

My Personal Math Curriculum Experiences

I’ve mainly used the three math curriculums below, and I have liked them for different reasons. On the other hand, there are things I have really disliked, too. Because of that, I’m not going to recommend these. Rather, I’m going to share my thoughts on them and encourage you to decide if they fit your family.

Teaching Textbooks

Teaching Textbooks and I have a complicated history. I used it for my two oldest when they were at the lowest grades Teaching Textbooks offers. I hated it. Then, I revisited it last year for my eighth grader, and I absolutely loved it.

The Cost (I’ll only address the grades I used):

Free Trial: Available for any level through lesson 15.

Grades 3-5: $45.95 (12-month enrollment)

Pre-Algebra: $72.95 (12-month enrollment)

Large Family Discount: $216.95 (for 4-8 kids)

Likes:

1. The pricing. This math curriculum is much more financially accessible than many others. Keep in mind that the large family discount is not always the best choice depending on which courses your children are using.

2. The free trial. Fifteen lessons offer plenty of opportunities to get a picture of the curriculum and how it will work for your student.

3. Teaching Textbooks grades the lessons and tests. Those grades are recorded in a gradebook for your record keeping. This feature is amazing for busy parents.

4. The curriculum is customizable. You can control how much help your child receives during the assignments. Students can have hints and second tries, if needed. However, you can remove all those helps to increase the difficulty.

5. I love how the lessons are presented. As students listen to the lesson on the app, the teacher’s narration types up on the screen. Not everyone can learn well by only listening or reading. Combining the visual and auditory approaches allows those kids to have a more successful learning experience. This combination, in my experience, increases attentiveness and retention.

6. Teaching Textbooks has fun extras for kids. They can add graphics to their account to make the app more visually interesting and rewarding for them, if they choose.

7. Immediate correction. If a student misses a question on her assignment, she will see exactly how to solve the problem right after making her mistake.

8. The curriculum uses a spiral approach. Therefore, my children come back again and again to earlier concepts. This helps my kids maintain math skills significantly better than if they learned a skill and then never saw it again.

Dislikes:

1. On October 31, 2024, all disc products will be retired. This doesn’t affect me in any way, but I know there are some families who prefer to use discs rather than the Teaching Textbooks app.

2. This math curriculum relies completely on your child being in front of a screen.

Having yet another subject online can be too much depending on how many others your child has using the same medium.

3. Teaching Textbooks may be too hands-off. My first experience with this math curriculum felt as if I had wasted my children’s time. They weren’t mature enough to take it seriously, and though they passed their assignments and tests, they retained very little. Because they were passing, I incorrectly assumed they didn’t need me involved more. In fact, this curriculum is set up for parents to take a step back. Ultimately, I quit it midway through the school year. (My second attempt was very different.)

4. The curriculum is not as rigorous as many others. This is yet another example of a “negative” aspect that I don’t have too much of a problem with. Ultimately, I think a student will end up with a solid math education, but it’s not designed for students who need a significantly challenging math curriculum.

Conclusion:

I believe this math curriculum is a great choice for a lot of people. I think families on a budget, with a lot of kids, and those in need of someone else to give the direct instruction could benefit from Teaching Textbooks. However, anyone who is hesitant about too much time in front of a screen or who has unmotivated children (regarding math work) might want to pass.

BJU Press: Fundamentals Of Math

Fundamentals of Math is for seventh grade, and I have the least amount of experience with this math curriculum. As it happens, I also have the lowest opinion of this one.

The Cost:

$217.90 (textbook kit)

$349 (16-month online subscription)

$319 (16-month online subscription without books)

$369 (16-month DVD kit rental)

Likes:

1. This math curriculum provides plenty of purchasing options.

2. The teacher guide lays out three different academic plans depending on how rigorous you want or need math to be.

3. If your student needs extra practice, more than enough is available.

4. The lessons in the books are thorough and offer practice problems before beginning the assignment.

5. Although this math curriculum feels like a mastery approach, it does offer a very small review at the of each assignment.

6. The full solutions are in the teacher’s guide. It has been a huge timesaver, and it has helped me explain concepts my kids were having problems with in their assignments.

Dislikes:

1. Fundamentals of Math is pricey. And remember, this is just one subject.

2. There is too much. I have the books, and those came with the tests, quizzes, and practice worksheets. I ignore most of the extra resources because the book work is more than sufficient. But even the book work feels like too much. You can easily leave out whatever you want, but many parents try to use everything they have because it came with the curriculum. That would be a Herculean effort for any student.

3. The practice problems in the lessons don’t have answers, so the student needs a parent to provide the answer. This makes even reading the math lesson less independent than I want it to be.

4. The lessons are often more complicated than they need to be. I usually have to read it and put it in simple, clear terms. It reads like it was written for math fanatics instead of a typical seventh grade math student.

5. This math curriculum is not user-friendly for parents and/or students who are not strong in math.

6. The student book is visually uninteresting. This might be a positive for some, but our family thinks it looks boring. The best way I can explain it is that the book looks like work. And what seventh grader wants to do work???

7. This curriculum is better suited for a classroom, and I suspect that is where it originated.

8. I can’t help but feel like BJU Press is more concerned about making money than making homeschool accessible for students. One big issue is that parents can’t buy the DVDs outright, making future students just as expensive as the first. There’s no savings opportunity here.

Essentially, unless you are prepared to teach your child without the assistance of a math teacher (and many parents are terribly intimidated by math), you’re shelling out nearly $400 for a seventh-grade math curriculum… It gives me the ick.

Conclusion:

I continue to use this curriculum because I invested in the textbook kit (with a discount) at Ken Ham’s Family Homeschool Experience. The curriculum isn’t bad, but it requires more of my involvement than I prefer. It also costs significantly more than it’s worth. I think I paid for the name Bob Jones more than I did for the books if you know what I mean. Another math curriculum could probably do the same job at half the cost to me.

Horizons From Alpha Omega Publications (AOP)

Horizons has been the math curriculum we have used most in my household. We use it for kindergarten through sixth grade. It is available through high school, though.

The Cost:

Each grade’s box set is $120 and includes two student workbooks and the teacher’s guide. After that, you only need to buy workbooks for subsequent children. They currently run $38.75 each.

Likes:

1. The workbooks are colorful and have pictures my children enjoy looking at. Essentially, the pages don’t look so boring that my kids lose interest or feel intimidated.

2. The lessons are long enough but not so long that my kids feel overwhelmed by the workload.

3. The teacher’s guide has worksheets for when a student needs extra practice to master a concept.

4. The work is on grade level. My kids aren’t being pushed beyond their abilities, but they are being challenged.

5. This math curriculum is a spiral approach.

Dislikes:

1. The answer key has no solutions. This is my only real gripe about Horizons math. Eventually, my children reach a level at which they need to see a relatively difficult problem worked out. I can do it, but it would save me a great deal of time to have more than a contextless number in my answer key. I can only assume that a parent who is less confident in her math skills would struggle quite a bit in these instances.

2. This math curriculum feels as if it were written for a classroom, and the publisher put “homeschool” on the box. Even the questions my younger children answer involve traditional school schedule information such as the time recess is typically held. This isn’t a huge deal, but I don’t like when homeschool curriculum just feels like a school’s repurposed materials.

Conclusion:

Overall, I’ve enjoyed this math curriculum. If the math curriculums I use for seventh grade and above ever need to be replaced, I would consider trying out Horizons.

Final Thoughts

Math is a tough subject for a lot of students. Parents, too! Don’t beat yourself up if you discover you need to change it up a few times or try something new with different children. There’s no one-size-fits-all math curriculum. My advice? Be open to try new things when what you have isn’t working, and don’t assume that a big price tag and popular name means a superior product. A math curriculum is only “good” if it works for your child.

What math curriculum do you recommend? Are there any you avoid?

Image courtesy of JESHOOTS.com via Unsplash.