All thoughts and opinions are my own; I was not required to post a positive review.
We started using Teaching Textbooks as our math curriculum for my oldest two in 2019. Sister was really struggling in math, to the point of tears, and we knew something had to change. She is a hard worker, and had made so much progress in language arts despite her learning disabilities. We couldn’t let a poorly fitting math curriculum to discourage her. While looking for an online math curriculum, we found a free trial of Teaching Textbooks and and discovered that for us, it was a good fit for her. It turned out to be a great fit for Mister and his desire to do Algebra, so our oldest two kiddos started using Teaching Textbooks 3.0.
Teaching Textbooks
When we first switched to Teaching Textbooks, Sister started in Math 5. She made it about 23 lessons into Math 5 and started struggling and the tears reappeared. I realized that although she’d tested into Math 5, she just wasn’t ready for it yet. With the difference in the scope and sequence from her previous curriculum combined with her learning differences, I felt it would be best to place her into Math 4. I have to say, the customer service help at Teaching Textbooks was amazing and facilitated the switch without any problems.
She went on to complete Math 4 with an overall course average of 91%. I knew we’d made the right decision. When the time came for her to start Math 5, I was confident in her ability to do it. More importantly, she was confident, too.
Teaching Textbooks 4.0
In the fall of 2020, we started getting the little popups on our browser warning us that Flash was going away. It made me a little nervous, because our math relied on it. Fortunately, our math has been upgraded to Teaching Textbooks 4.0.
Since Sister had become comfortable with the Teaching Textbooks 3.0 platform, I was just a little bit nervous about the launch of Teaching Textbooks 4.0. I needn’t have worried. It is still the same great interactive math program that teaches math in a fun way that she can understand.
What is the Same
- Each lesson is visually engaging.
- Lectures can be watched as many times as needed.
- Every lesson has practice problems.
- Each problem offers hints for the student (parents can turn off hints)
- Every problem has an audio-visual solution
- You also still have access to the ebook, which you can print if you want.
- The program grades everything for you.
- Teaching Textbooks fosters independence and self pacing.
- Teaching Textbooks covers grades 3 through Pre-Calculus.
What’s Different
Older versions of Teaching Textbooks relied on textbooks, CD Rom’s, and of course, the 3.0 was Adobe Flash based. Teaching Textbooks 4.0 is app based. But, since it’s a web app, it doesn’t require a ton of disk space on your computer. It can also be used on desktops, laptops, tablets, and phones. It is compatible with Mac and Windows.
As a web based app, the program downloads a few lessons at a time to your device. This means that a lesson can be completed — even with connectivity issues. And trust me, we experience some connectivity issues with our internet. That’s another story. Anyway, lessons can also be completed offline on days when your internet decides not to work at all. This means there will be no more shouts of of, “Mom, I can’t do my math because the internet is down!” Whoop!
The variety of wallpaper, stickers, and animated buddies in the new TT 4.0 is really nice. There is something for each of my three kiddos. Sister particularly likes the Orca wallpaper.
Parent Homepage
With the release of TT 4.0 also came the new parent homepage. From the parent homepage, I can limit how many lessons they can complete at once, whether or not they get hints and second chances. I can pause our program if we’re going on vacation. The parent homepage is also home to the Gradebook. This allows me to check all three kids progress from one page. Yes, I said all three kids, because our youngest is now using Math 3.
The Gradebook
A huge draw for homeschool parents is the fact that Teaching Textbooks auto grades everything. The gradebook is pretty amazing. I love that I don’t have to grade anything, but I also love that I can edit the gradebook. I can delete an entire lesson if I want to, but typically, I just want to delete incorrect answers so they can redo the problems.
To do so, you log into the gradebook and select View in the “Grade on Each Problem” column.
Fortunately, if you accidently hit the D (which stands for delete) next to the lesson number, it will pop a warning that it will delete all of the grades for that lesson.
If you want to delete the entire lesson, go ahead, but I generally just hit cancel and then click the view button to view each of the problems. From there, I can select the “E” (for edit) on each problem.
In most cases, I select the delete button, to delete the answer for that problem. From time to time, it’s simply a transcription error, in which case, I can change her answer to correct.
While Teaching Textbooks is a spiral math curriculum, we do also teach to mastery, so I require a score of at least 85% to move on to the next lesson. When a lesson score is below 85%, I delete the wrong answers and have them try again.
As with any major program updates on any platform, there have been a few minor bumps along the road, but those have been fixed and we’re really pleased to be using Teaching Textbooks 4.0.
Homeschool math IS made simple with Teaching Textbooks 4.0 – the only math program that teaches, grades, works on every platform, and offline!
