How important is it to finish a Saxon book?

[cseitter]

This is our first year homeschooling my 8th grader. He is currently in Saxon 8/7 with pre-algebra and is doing very will. We are on Lesson 35 already and I am trying to push him along. I want him to do Algebra I this year so that we can get geometry in next year.

Anyway, Should we finish every lesson? How far would you go in the book before moving on?

TIA
Cindy

[HollyDay]

I asked a similar question in another thread recently. THe general advise was to finish the book. The "meaty" new teaching is toward the back of the book, so those final lessons are important. I was advised it was better to finish one book and skip the review lessons in the next book rather than stop early in the first book. HTH

[Jann in TX]

Don't rush just because he will not finish Algebra 1 in 8th grade--NO BIG DEAL... Geometry can easily be worked in the summer or alongside Algebra 2.

You don't want to skimp on the FOUNDATION.... also DO NOT SKIP problems OR lessons in Algebra 1... again you want the FOUNDATION to be firm.

[Kinsa]

We did Math8/7 last year and are currently doing Algebra 1. DO NOT skip ahead in 8/7. You will MIGHTILY regret it later on. Take your time going through 8/7, and then speed up at the beginning of Alg1. If you want, you can double-up on lessons in 8/7 - do two lssons per day. Do ALL the "lesson practice" problems from each lesson, and only odd or even of the "mixed practice" problems. We did that and it went okay.

[Chris in VA]

There is some teaching (not just practice) that occurs in the problem set starting in 8/7, I believe, so it's important to do all the problems.

OP, how are you going to get thru 8/7 AND algebra this year? I don't have 8/7 in front of me, but doesn't it have about 130 lessons? At your current rate, you'd be done with 8/7 sometime in late March or April, right? Does your school year end in June, or were you planning on the summer, too? Even then, I'd expect to "round the corner" into the fall to finish Algebra. So, was your plan just to do about a third of 8/7 and THEN do Algebra? Just not sure what your original intention was.

[cseitter]

I was trying to get through it as fast as we could. My son was in PS last year and they did pre-algebra and he should be in Algebra I this year if he was in PS. He made straight As in PS math but when he took the Saxon Practice test he barely placed in 87. So my intention was to hustle him through 87 and then get into Algebra I asap. I wasn't planning on skipping any lessons just yet but wondering if we could.

We do school year round so we will just continue on with 87 and get into Algebra I when we can.

Thanks for all the answers