Competition

Our mission is to help kids learn and enjoy math and we think we do it better than anyone! That's why we are willing - happy, even! - to tell you everything we know about the competition because we believe once you know what we do you'll appreciate our product even more.

There are several companies out there who are working hard to create and market math products to homeschoolers. Here are the ones we know:

Company Description

Math-U-See There are significant advantages with ShillerMath over Math-U-See (also known as MUS):

1) ShillerMath includes a 25-song audio CD that integrates with the activities. MUS has only drill songs and they are optional.
2) ShillerMath lessons are scripted; there is no lesson preparation or knowledge of Montessori (or math!) required. MUS requires the parent to do a significant amount of lesson preparation and to watch DVDs.
3) ShillerMath lessons are multi-sensorial: visual (writing, 4-color activities), auditory (using the voice, listening to the CD, tactile (20 lbs of manipulatives!), and kinesthetic (gross motor movements that really make the brain work). MUS is visual and tactile only and the tactile component is narrow compared with ShillerMath.
4) ShillerMath Kit I activity books were edited by the Princeton Center for Teacher Education, a world-renowned American Montessori Society certified teacher training institute. Unlike Montessori and ShillerMath, Math-U-See does not color-coded to number cards, and MUS does not utilize the three period lesson, a cornerstone of the Montessori approach.
5) ShillerMath provides free downloads of consumable activities and toll-free phone support. With MUS parents need to buy additional books for each child; not so with ShillerMath.
6) ShillerMath provides diagnostic testing and prescriptive answer guides. That is, when the student gets a question wrong, the answer guide specifies exactly which activities will fill the hole. This makes placement of students into ShillerMath a fast and rewarding process. MUS has no such feature.

Abeka This quote is from the Abeka site: Curriculum/ Lesson Plans help you make the best use of your valuable teaching time by giving complete day-by-day lesson plans for the entire year. These plans are correlated with the textbooks (purchased separately) and are designed to be of help to you in organizing your teaching.

The ShillerMath approach varies from Abeka's in that homeschooled children have the advantage of being able to learn at their own pace and have the opportunity to take whatever time they need to learn new concepts as opposed to adhering to an externally imposed time schedule.

One way this difference is exhibited by the extensive use of drills in Abeka. ShillerMath is structured to allow educators to prescribe the exact amount of drills for each student as new concepts are learned.

Abeka is a horizontal curriculum covering several subjects, which makes it a convenient one-size-fits-all solution for homeschoolers; math is one of the subjects covered. Many parents who have Abeka also use ShillerMath to ensure their children have a solid math foundation.

Saxon This quote is directly from www.saxonmath.com: Saxon Math is the only major math program on the market today that systematically distributes instruction and practice and assessment throughout the academic year as opposed to concentrating, or massing, the instruction, practice and assessment of related concepts into a short period of time -- usually within a unit or chapter. Saxon Math's unique approach to math instruction ensures that students not only gain but also retain essential math skills.

Saxon is definitely one of the most popular math curricula on the market. ShillerMath actually shares three key features with Saxon:

1) Incremental spiral approach. We each revisit the same topic over time and avoid the silo approach used by some other companies. A key difference between Saxon and ShillerMath is that ShillerMath covers a topic from all four learning styles (visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic); Saxon only uses visual and some tactile.

2) Scripted activities. Both Saxon and ShillerMath script the activities. There are two key differences: A) Saxon still requires lesson preparation on the part of the educator; and B) Saxon scripts the entire lesson so the educator can teach math while ShillerMath scripts the lesson structure so the student can learn math: A key philosophical difference in approach.

3) Regular testing. Both Saxon and ShillerMath have periodic review tests. ShillerMath's answer keys show the exact activities to do when a question is missed, which allows a student to be placed exactly where he or she needs to be in the curriculum having identified and filled all holes up to that point in 30 minutes or less.

OK, so what's different?!

First, Saxon is based on, well, Saxon, and the particular authors hired by Saxon. ShillerMath is based in large part on the Montessori method, which has been used by tens of millions of children over the last 100 years.

Second, Saxon books are black and white and the students are writing in every activity. ShillerMath uses four color printing and gets students out of the workbook using their bodies, their voices, their ears, and their hands to learn math. Of course there is writing with ShillerMath in a developmentally appropriate way.

Third, Saxon teaches math and drills it. With ShillerMath, children learn math and practice it, resulting in an ownership of math that will help them excel in tough subjects like biology, physics, chemistry, and calculus.

Finally, Saxon books are consumable and need to be purchased for each child in the family. ShillerMath kits are multi-year family kits; once a family has ShillerMath there's nothing else to buy for that age range ever!

Alas Saxon is available for K-12; ShillerMath is only available (at the current time) for ages 4-11, although the ShillerMath junior high and senior high curricula are in development.

RightStart Mathematics RightStart Mathematics is an abacus-based program and card game that tries to have the child memorize basic facts.

RightStart uses the abacus as its primary teaching tool for arithmetic, which requires the child to maintain interest in using the abacus. Many educators have told us that most children do not maintain interest in one manipulative for four years; when that interest wanes so does the child's interest in the curriculum as a whole.

ShillerMath is different from RightStart in four major ways: 1) ShillerMath includes activities based on a wide variety of manipulatives; 2) ShillerMath has activities based on movement and song (RightStart makes sheet music available for three songs but otherwise does not include a music component or kinesthetic component); 3) ShillerMath Kit I lessons are truly Montessori and are based on the actual curriculum used in Montessori schools; RightStart lessons are not; 4) RightStart requires substantial lesson preparation; ShillerMath requires none.

Both ShillerMath and RightStart include an educator's guide and student worksheets; only ShillerMath includes tracking sheets. RightStart covers grades K-4; ShillerMath covers grades K-7.

With ShillerMath you get about twice as many manipulatives as RightStart, an audio CD with 25 math songs (RightStart has only three songs), and free downloads (you have to buy RightStart again for each child in your family).

Company	Description
Math-U-See	There are significant advantages with ShillerMath over Math-U-See (also known as MUS): 1) ShillerMath includes a 25-song audio CD that integrates with the activities. MUS has only drill songs and they are optional. 2) ShillerMath lessons are scripted; there is no lesson preparation or knowledge of Montessori (or math!) required. MUS requires the parent to do a significant amount of lesson preparation and to watch DVDs. 3) ShillerMath lessons are multi-sensorial: visual (writing, 4-color activities), auditory (using the voice, listening to the CD, tactile (20 lbs of manipulatives!), and kinesthetic (gross motor movements that really make the brain work). MUS is visual and tactile only and the tactile component is narrow compared with ShillerMath. 4) ShillerMath Kit I activity books were edited by the Princeton Center for Teacher Education, a world-renowned American Montessori Society certified teacher training institute. Unlike Montessori and ShillerMath, Math-U-See does not color-coded to number cards, and MUS does not utilize the three period lesson, a cornerstone of the Montessori approach. 5) ShillerMath provides free downloads of consumable activities and toll-free phone support. With MUS parents need to buy additional books for each child; not so with ShillerMath. 6) ShillerMath provides diagnostic testing and prescriptive answer guides. That is, when the student gets a question wrong, the answer guide specifies exactly which activities will fill the hole. This makes placement of students into ShillerMath a fast and rewarding process. MUS has no such feature.
Abeka	This quote is from the Abeka site: Curriculum/ Lesson Plans help you make the best use of your valuable teaching time by giving complete day-by-day lesson plans for the entire year. These plans are correlated with the textbooks (purchased separately) and are designed to be of help to you in organizing your teaching. The ShillerMath approach varies from Abeka's in that homeschooled children have the advantage of being able to learn at their own pace and have the opportunity to take whatever time they need to learn new concepts as opposed to adhering to an externally imposed time schedule. One way this difference is exhibited by the extensive use of drills in Abeka. ShillerMath is structured to allow educators to prescribe the exact amount of drills for each student as new concepts are learned. Abeka is a horizontal curriculum covering several subjects, which makes it a convenient one-size-fits-all solution for homeschoolers; math is one of the subjects covered. Many parents who have Abeka also use ShillerMath to ensure their children have a solid math foundation.
Saxon	This quote is directly from www.saxonmath.com: Saxon Math is the only major math program on the market today that systematically distributes instruction and practice and assessment throughout the academic year as opposed to concentrating, or massing, the instruction, practice and assessment of related concepts into a short period of time -- usually within a unit or chapter. Saxon Math's unique approach to math instruction ensures that students not only gain but also retain essential math skills. Saxon is definitely one of the most popular math curricula on the market. ShillerMath actually shares three key features with Saxon: 1) Incremental spiral approach. We each revisit the same topic over time and avoid the silo approach used by some other companies. A key difference between Saxon and ShillerMath is that ShillerMath covers a topic from all four learning styles (visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic); Saxon only uses visual and some tactile. 2) Scripted activities. Both Saxon and ShillerMath script the activities. There are two key differences: A) Saxon still requires lesson preparation on the part of the educator; and B) Saxon scripts the entire lesson so the educator can teach math while ShillerMath scripts the lesson structure so the student can learn math: A key philosophical difference in approach. 3) Regular testing. Both Saxon and ShillerMath have periodic review tests. ShillerMath's answer keys show the exact activities to do when a question is missed, which allows a student to be placed exactly where he or she needs to be in the curriculum having identified and filled all holes up to that point in 30 minutes or less. OK, so what's different?! First, Saxon is based on, well, Saxon, and the particular authors hired by Saxon. ShillerMath is based in large part on the Montessori method, which has been used by tens of millions of children over the last 100 years. Second, Saxon books are black and white and the students are writing in every activity. ShillerMath uses four color printing and gets students out of the workbook using their bodies, their voices, their ears, and their hands to learn math. Of course there is writing with ShillerMath in a developmentally appropriate way. Third, Saxon teaches math and drills it. With ShillerMath, children learn math and practice it, resulting in an ownership of math that will help them excel in tough subjects like biology, physics, chemistry, and calculus. Finally, Saxon books are consumable and need to be purchased for each child in the family. ShillerMath kits are multi-year family kits; once a family has ShillerMath there's nothing else to buy for that age range ever! Alas Saxon is available for K-12; ShillerMath is only available (at the current time) for ages 4-11, although the ShillerMath junior high and senior high curricula are in development.
RightStart Mathematics	RightStart Mathematics is an abacus-based program and card game that tries to have the child memorize basic facts. RightStart uses the abacus as its primary teaching tool for arithmetic, which requires the child to maintain interest in using the abacus. Many educators have told us that most children do not maintain interest in one manipulative for four years; when that interest wanes so does the child's interest in the curriculum as a whole. ShillerMath is different from RightStart in four major ways: 1) ShillerMath includes activities based on a wide variety of manipulatives; 2) ShillerMath has activities based on movement and song (RightStart makes sheet music available for three songs but otherwise does not include a music component or kinesthetic component); 3) ShillerMath Kit I lessons are truly Montessori and are based on the actual curriculum used in Montessori schools; RightStart lessons are not; 4) RightStart requires substantial lesson preparation; ShillerMath requires none. Both ShillerMath and RightStart include an educator's guide and student worksheets; only ShillerMath includes tracking sheets. RightStart covers grades K-4; ShillerMath covers grades K-7. With ShillerMath you get about twice as many manipulatives as RightStart, an audio CD with 25 math songs (RightStart has only three songs), and free downloads (you have to buy RightStart again for each child in your family).

We appreciate your business! Is there a competitor you know that we don't? Please let us know: We'd love to learn about them and see if we can learn something new (we usually do!).