This book demonstrates just about every bad teaching and typographic practice I know. Every page is splattered with colored text in a menagerie of fonts. Most pages feature irrelevant or misleading photos, perhaps several. There are dozens of distracting sidebars, many full of errors in fact. Just looking at a typical page, I feel my attention batted about in a pinball trajectory. Holding a thought for the length of a Glencoe page is quite a challenge.

Math skills are cumulative; each new technique is founded on the earlier one. I can't think of a case where this book seems to sustain an idea for more than a few pages. Some students, through chance or a teacher's skill, may manage to glean some mathematical fact from this book. It will do them little good, though. The book's complete lack of continuity gives no reward for that success, measured in skills used later in the course.

Students who can't squeeze understanding from this book - the ones it calls "alternative assessment" students - are very nearly abandoned, as far as any real education goes. Instead of being offered meaningful help, they are invited to draw pictures and write essays about their feelings. Such students are not only left in the dust, they are patronized and insulted in the process.

I have examined earlier editions of this book, back to 1997. The only thing I can say in favor of it is that, in preparing the 2001 edition, some of the worst errors and blatant commercialism were removed. It improved, but its basic flaws remain.

Do yourself and your math student a favor: find a different title. A little web searching will point you to sites that review and recommend better books, as well as more detailed analyses of this one. Or just pick another title at random - this is so bad that almost anything would be an improvement.

(based on the 2001 edition)


Poor Transition into Algebra and High School Math   December 23, 2001
 23 out of 28 found this review helpful

This book is commonly used by grade schools as a transition for students to get acquainted with algebra topics and prepare for high school math courses. Sadly, this book is poorly laid out, skipping back and forth between topics like a ping pong ball, and often pampers the reader to an extent of which is clearly childish. Even grade school students who were polled often find the pictures both useless and distracting. The chapters of this book also waste space, while providing very little mathematical content. If you are reading this book, or thinking about getting this book for a school environment, you should seriously consider that this book in no way prepares students for high school math courses. Why 2 stars then? The overwhelming use of pictures and comics to portray mathematics may provide easier to understand concepts for children with learning disabilities; but is often distracting.


Very Helpful   May 8, 2001
 7 out of 13 found this review helpful

I had to prepare for some college placement exaims and needed a refresher course. This book was a trememdous help to me!