Review Detail

We love Horizons!! Ive used this with three of my kids. It scaffolds skills so stealthily my kids never noticed how hard the math was getting, and they just kept plugging through the lessons. Their arithmetic skills are rock solid, and they can easily apply concepts learned elsewhere.

The skills for large concepts are taught to mastery individually before they're put together. For example my little one was an expert and breaking a ten apart and putting it in the ones/units place before it was ever asked of her in a subtraction problem. When the two skills collided she flew through regrouping in subtraction effortlessly.

For kids that enjoy math (and probably many that don't), the small sets of several different concepts in one lesson keeps it more interesting. Each lesson usually has one puzzle type activity where the correct answers will color a picture or spell the answer to a silly joke. You can tell these books were written by someone who enjoys math. :)

My only concern with Horizons is the story problems aren't terribly challenging, but the problem sets do gently guide them into more complicated situations. However, my Horizons kids do not struggle with real life application and tricky word problems elsewhere. Obviously whatever Horizons is doing is working!

We used Horizons at or above grade level, and my older Horizons users have gone onto math competitions and math books written for/by math competitors (Art of Problem Solving), and they continue to thrive. Horizons laid an excellent foundation for them.