Singapore students are scoring the highest in the world in math and science. The web page for these texts in the US is http://www.singaporemath.com

Singapore Math seems to solve the "conceptual/drill...Saxon jumping around problem". Here's an example from a problem in the first half of the fifth grade book:

<< Mr Li paid $36 for 3 singlets and 2 T-shirts. A T-shirt cost 3 times as much as a singlet. How much did Mr Li pay for the 2 T-shirts? >>

Apparently the children are taught to "think mathematically" and are able to solve these types of problems in 5th grade without using algebra....these types of problems lead up to a better understanding of algebra.

Multiplication Asian style The children learn facts families in sets ....for example they chant as follows

2 2 4 2 3 6 2 4 8 2 5 10

They don't say "times" or "equal" although that is explained to them. They are taught the reciprical nature of multiplication and division after they can chant this from memory they write out the sets as-

2x2=4 2x3=6 and so on 4/2=2 3x2=6...... 6/2=3 6/3=2

and finally provide answers for equations....then they go on to memorize the next set which would be

2 6 12 2 7 14 2 8 16 2 9 18

If anyone is thinking about going with this program I would suggest making the move before going in to New Elementary Math. It would be easier to acclimate to this way of thinking while still in Primary Math I believe.

There are answers at the back the book but no other aid. To be honest I think I would have trouble teaching this material. I did "ok" in math but not great and I don't remember more then basic algebra. If you tend to think mathematically and enjoyed algebra, trig. you could probably use this without too much effort.

The Singapore texts actually do have almost as much drill as other books I've used (Miquon, Horizon) but not as much as Abeka. For example in 3rd A Singapore gives about 8-10 examples of adding 5 digit numbers then the workbook has at least that many that the child does on their own. The difference is that Horizon has the child doing a few of those problems every day for a week or two while at the same time they introduce new things. Singapore moves on after 2 lessons that cover that...but the child should have mastered that skill before they can move on to the next lesson. In Asia the kids spend a lot of time working on drills at home.

In Saxon you learn to add fractions then you repeat the same level of adding fractions for 6 or 8 lessons in the doing 3 or 4 problems in each practice section. During the intervening lessons you jump from learning short division to dividing with remainders to using metric scale etc before you finally get back to fractions again.

With Singapore you learn to add fractions and spend maybe 3 lessons learning how to do that (slight difficulty increase with each lesson) then you move on to using the skill of adding fractions with word problems (real life) for a few lessons. By this time the child has probably done more fraction addition problems overall then they would do in Saxon. The skill is learned and won't be touched again until the review chapters. If the child has trouble, the teacher/parent shouldn't move on. I did this a few times with my son and regret it. The review chapters occur often enough that the child shouldn't forget.