Category: Education

Know your role. My wife and I echo that sentiment made famous by The Rock many times a week. When we use it means that our strengths and weaknesses need to be realistically acknowledged and utilized, or not, accordingly.  For us, it’s not used as a pejorative, but when The Rock said it it was usually meant as a precursor to someone getting the rock bottom. I know my role when it comes to math homework. I can assist with social studies homework. I can assist with English homework. When it gets past seventh-grade math homework, my quality is suspect and I need to flag up for help. If you’ve been to a big box warehouse store you have seen The Big Fat High School Algebra 1 Workbook, and we can 100% attest to the fact that this book saved our bacon the other week.

Our 13-year-old came home and needed help with his math homework. He was babbling something about not understanding slope and slope-intercept form and all I could do was think of some lame skiing joke that might’ve been remotely humorous to those inclined. Actually, I did substitute last year for an advanced eighth-grade math class that covered that subject, but my ability to parrot that information was flushed down the memory hole. With the immediacy of his quiz and the fact that I knew The Big Fat High School Algebra 1 Workbook was in the other room, I got it for him to research it himself.

The great thing about 13-year-olds is that they can research and obtain their own answers. We explained to him that my math abilities were suspect and that every process and answer he was seeing was correct. He could try out the way he thought to solve each equation, and then confirm or correct his approach. In true math caveman style I could’ve Googled how to do it, watched said video and then had him sit with me once I knew the process. I could’ve done that, yes. However, that would’ve taken too long, watered down his desire to do his homework in a timely manner and possibly produced answers that I couldn’t explain.

What’s great about The Big Fat High School Algebra 1 Workbook is that it’s approachable, takes baby steps, and sets the students up for success. As the content was vaguely familiar to me I could understand it once I took my time and analyzed how they were completing the equations. The written descriptions have keywords that are bolded with simple, direct definitions. There are ten units, with each chapter given one given a different colored page border in order to distinguish the areas and provide subconscious goals for them to achieve.

For the non-math inclined, you will be able to understand the book. The text is written in simple English that is not presented in a way that’s designed to trick you. It cuts right to the point and has anything that could be remotely tricky like domain, exponent or radicand in bigger, different-colored font, as well as, an arrow  pointing to the numbers in questions. In theory, you could start from zero knowledge and figure out how to assist their kids with homework using The Big Fat High School Algebra 1 Workbook. The book can operate as a teaching tool like that, but it’s going to be best utilized as a review aide for upper middle school or high school students.

Each unit has several chapters that break down the large topic to more palatable sections. The end of each chapter has several questions to test student’s math comprehension. Most importantly, there are answers with step-by-step instructions on how each problem was solved. This is more of a solution process, instead of an answer key because it shows students how each step in the problem should look in order to get the correct answer. There are more than 400 exercises and word problems in the book to help students master Algebra 1. The great thing about math is that anyone can do it, it just takes practice. Some students will understand the process with minimal explanation, and some will require multiple explanations, but anyone can learn it.

Our youngest is one who needs to encounter the steps many different times and with many different equations in order for him to understand it. The Big Fat Workbook series will be his comforting jam as he continues up the middle school ranks. Like a good salesperson it tells people what they’ll learn, shows them what they’ll learn, has them practice some problems and then moves on to the next issue. Another great aspect of The Big Fat High School Algebra 1 Workbook is that its retail price is only $16.99. It’ll be cheaper at big box stores and when you factor in that it provides hours of algebra practice and could possibly avoid the need for a math tutor it makes the book an invaluable resource.

The Big Fat High School Algebra 1 Workbook is written by Robert Vigneri, reviewed by Richar Blankman and available on Workman Publishing Co., Inc, a subsidiary of Hachette Book Group.

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