This post is in collaboration with Teaching Textbooks.  All opinions are my own.

You have been there before.  It is February, you are in the slog of the winter season.  Your kids aren’t sitting down to do their work the way that you want them to.  You know that your math curriculum is not working anymore.  Something needs to change, but what can you do?  You committed to this math curriculum at the beginning of the year, can you really change now?  The answer is yes!  When your math curriculum is no longer working, you need to make the decision to move on.  If you continue to barely get through, you will do a disservice to your kids.  They will not retain the information for further learning.

Teaching Textbooks offers a wonderful opportunity for your kids to learn math.  And it takes a lot of the pressure off of mom as a teacher.  Why?  Because it is online based.  Because of this, you are able to step back a bit from the teacher role and become more of a facilitator.  Your child has the opportunity to go through the lessons and problems online through Teaching Textbooks, and that one little change will make a big impact on your overall homeschool.

Teaching Textbooks: Placement Tests

The key to switching a math curriculum mid-year is to choose the right level in another program.  Teaching Textbooks allows you to take placement tests in order to put your child in the best program.  This could go a couple of different ways.  You may find that your child struggled with overall math concepts this year.  If that is the case, you will want to repeat the concepts so that your child has a strong understanding of math.  You don’t want to jump ahead because you think that your child should move to the next grade.  That will not set your child up for success in math.

If you want to repeat the year, you do not need to go through every single math problem.  You will be able to start at the beginning. However, your student doesn’t need to do every single problem.  That is the benefit of Teaching Textbooks.  They will automatically grade your child on what is completed in each lesson.  It is not based on the total amount of problems in the lesson.  This will also help to build confidence in your child for what they are learning in math.  Once they have that confidence back, you will be able to move into harder math concepts and learning goes much more smoothly.

If you find that your child understood the math concepts this year, but the program itself is not working.  For example, it is taking too much time to physically teach your current math curriculum, or the student just does not like math and you want to move onto something everyone enjoys.  What you find when you take the placement test is that your student is able to move onto the next level.  Teaching Textbooks does do a bit of review at the beginning of the next level, and that may be enough for your student to forge ahead on a new path with their math curriculum.

What is Teaching Textbooks

Teaching Textbooks is a spiral based math curriculum.  What that means is that you continue to revisit concepts throughout the year, and even into different grades.  It does not concentrate concepts into consolidated lessons to move on and no longer revisit.  This can be a big help when switching math curriculum mid-year because you are able to revisit concepts that your student may have struggled with.  This is why it is so important to use the placement tests instead of choosing the level based on their “grade” or going up a grade.

Teaching Textbooks 3.0 is a complete online subscription math curriculum.  You are able to see all the lessons online as the parent.  You can also print out the lessons if your child needs some pencil and paper help when completing problems.  Each lesson has a short video that teaches the concept that you will be covering in the lesson, as well as some practice problems.  The parent is able to go in and give the student “second chance” options so that if they get a problem incorrect, they can have another chance to correct it before going on.  Teaching Textbooks also grades everything automatically, which is a huge help to you as the parent, not having to go through and check answers, just to then revisit problems that are not correct at a later time.

I have done a full and comprehensive review of Teaching Textbooks here and also have a video review which you can see below.

The Bottom Line

If your student is having a rough year with math, it is a good idea to stop.  Take a break and reevaluate what your options are.  I know that it sounds almost impossible to change math curriculum in the middle of the year.  You have committed to a program, you have made it through half of the curriculum, and you don’t want your child to fall behind.  However, continuing to push through without change will be more detrimental in the long run.

Teaching Textbooks allows you to have a FREE TRIAL up to lesson 15 of each level that they offer.  Seriously, take them up on this amazing offer.  This can be a great way to try something new.  You will see if the program will work for your student.  And you will be able to restore some confidence in their ability to do the math.  If your child is so down because they just can’t get math right, this will be a way to encourage them and help restore that confidence.

You want your child to succeed, and Teaching Textbooks offers a great way for your child to succeed with their math.  When the confidence builds up again, you will feel better and your child will feel better.  This will spread to other areas of your homeschool as well.  Knowing that you can rest easy because you have moved to a math curriculum that works for everyone frees up that mind space, the stress that you have weighing on you.  It lightens the load on everything else.

Teaching Textbooks Review

If you want more information about how Teaching Textbooks works – please see my review.  This review goes step by step through the entire Teaching Textbooks curriculum.  All the benefits, and features that are offered as well as how we use it in our family.  I have to say that switching to Teaching Textbooks took so much stress away from my family with regards to math.  And I am a math person!  I love math!  Give your kids the opportunity to shine with this math curriculum.

If you have any questions about Teaching Textbooks, please CONTACT me!  I would love to help you make the change in math curriculum.