Saxon Math: An Honest Review and Analysis

Introduction

In our assessment, few homeschool programs draw stronger opinions than Saxon Math. The reviews cited below include one reviewer who credits it with thorough preparation for later math while also describing the volume of work as heavy, and three who describe moving to it from other programs. In our assessment, how well it works often comes down to the age of the student, the edition in hand, and how much of the teaching the parent is willing to carry.

Saxon Math is offered by HMH, whose program page says its authors were guided by “the incremental approach developed by John Saxon.” What follows draws on HMH’s program and shop pages, retailer and video-service pages, and homeschool video reviews. For the full listing, see the Every Homeschool directory page for Saxon Math.

What Saxon Math is

Every Homeschool classifies Saxon as a traditional math curriculum. HMH’s program page describes an incremental approach: “an incremental approach gives students the time to understand and practice a small concept before adding the next step.” The same page says distributing skills across the year ensures that students have time to practice and master a concept, and that “cumulative practice and assessments cover ideas from earlier lessons.” HMH adds that Saxon “continues to review information introduced earlier.”

On worldview, Every Homeschool’s directory classifies Saxon Math as faith-neutral. HMH’s program page states no religious affiliation.

How it teaches, day to day

The daily rhythm changes between the early books and the later ones, and in our assessment understanding that split helps explain the disagreement about the program. In the elementary years, a reviewer who has used Saxon with all of her children describes a meeting book, two workbooks, a daily math-facts page, and a daily concept page, with a teacher’s manual that is “almost scripted” to show the parent what to say and do. She adds a candid note about how that dependence fades: she used the manual all the time with her first child, and by her fourth, “I don’t reference it at all” (Doing Life Deliberately). In our assessment, that makes the early books a parent-led program.

Later lessons look different. In the Math 5/4 lesson the same reviewer shows, a lesson has a warm-up, a new concept, lesson practice on that concept, and mixed practice that includes problems from earlier lessons, with numbers pointing back to the lesson that taught each skill (Doing Life Deliberately). A second reviewer says her seventh grader, who reads well, reads the lesson and works the problems without her help while she checks the answers against the solutions manual (The Happy Homeschooler). Nicole the Math Lady’s page labels Saxon a spiral method, and a reviewer comparing approaches in a Singapore Math video describes the difference this way: with a mastery approach “a child learns a skill thoroughly before moving on,” while “the other way is the spiral approach” (Smith Party of 6). In our assessment, whether that constant review is reassuring or tiresome is where families divide.

The edition question

In our assessment, editions are the confusing part of buying Saxon. The homeschool line does not use one edition across the board. HMH’s shop lists the Saxon Teacher CD-ROM for the 3rd edition of Math 5/4 (5/4) and Math 6/5 (6/5), the 4th edition of Math 7/6 (7/6), and the 3rd edition of Math 8/7 (8/7). Nicole the Math Lady states that its online grading works only with the editions it lists, and that a family with an earlier edition needs a correlation sheet to use most of its video lessons (Nicole the Math Lady).

In our assessment, the stakes climb at the high-school level. HMH’s shop lists the Saxon Teacher CD-ROM for the 3rd edition of Algebra 1 (Algebra 1) and Algebra 2 (Algebra 2), and a Teacher DVD for the 4th edition of Algebra 2 (Algebra 2, 4th edition). Nicole the Math Lady’s support site says the 3rd editions of Algebra 1 and Algebra 2 have geometry integrated into the lessons, while the 4th editions do not and handle geometry in the separate Geometry textbook (Nicole the Math Lady support article). Any video or grading service a family plans to use should be matched to the exact edition first: Nicole the Math Lady, for example, lists editions such as “Saxon Math 5/4 - 3rd edition” and “Saxon Math 7/6 - 4th edition” as the ones its program was designed to support (Nicole the Math Lady).

Saxon on video

Third-party video teachers can deliver the lesson on screen alongside the textbook. Nicole the Math Lady is one of these. Its page says more than 100,000 homeschool families have learned math with Nicole and that Saxon families have been learning with her since 2016. Its lessons cover Saxon Math 3 through Advanced Math, most videos run 5 to 10 minutes, and it includes online grading so “warmups, practice sets, and tests are checked instantly” (Nicole the Math Lady).

Two of the reviews cited here focus on video teaching. One reviewer uses Saxon 5/4 with Nicole the Math Lady (Gathered & Grounded), and another compares three online Saxon options, Nicole the Math Lady, My Math Assistant, and DIVE, from her research, noting that she had not used all three (Science Mama, on online Saxon options).

What families praise

In our assessment, the praise in the reviews cited here centers on preparation for later math. The reviewer who has used Saxon with all of her children calls it “intense” but “very thorough,” and says it “prepared our children very well for advanced math levels,” which is why her family stayed with it through the elementary years and early middle school even though it is difficult (Doing Life Deliberately). That is the shape of this positive review: Saxon is described as demanding, and as worth the effort.

Other reviewers describe moving to Saxon from other programs. One homeschooler switched after a year of Teaching Textbooks in which, in her words, her son “went down an entire grade”; she says Saxon has him write out his answers in full, which she felt Teaching Textbooks did not ask of him very much (The Happy Homeschooler). Another moved to Saxon from Singapore Math, a program she says she loved, after her son kept stumbling on the addition and subtraction facts and the number-bond system, opening her account with the line that “homeschooling is a very humbling experience” (Science Mama, on switching from Singapore Math). A third moved her fourth grader to Saxon from The Good and the Beautiful and says she wanted something more black and white, with video lessons (Gathered & Grounded). In our assessment, for a child who does better with steady repetition than with deep conceptual leaps, Saxon can be the program that finally sticks.

What families criticize

The criticisms in these reviews concern volume and parent load. The reviewer who has used Saxon with all of her children says it is “not for the faint of heart,” and that her family stayed with it anyway. She also describes it as “a lot of material”: in the first and second grade years she cut work, having her children do the odd problems on odd calendar days and the even problems on even days, because “the sheer amount of work” was frustrating to them (Doing Life Deliberately). The same reviewer says that keeping up with all of her children’s math assignments had become challenging, so she moved some of them to Teaching Textbooks, which does the checking, correcting, and recording of grades.

In our assessment, the teaching burden is a version of the same complaint. The reviewer above describes a teacher’s manual that is almost a script, and a reviewer who uses the Math 5/4 kit describes a solutions manual for whoever is grading the work (Gathered & Grounded). A parent who wants a hands-off program should weigh that. A reviewer who left Teaching Textbooks for Saxon says she does not think a computer is “ever a substitute for parental supervision and guidance” (The Happy Homeschooler). In our assessment, Saxon rewards parent involvement, whether the parent teaches, checks, or hires a service to grade. Whether that is a strength or a cost depends on how much time the teaching parent has.

It is worth being precise here. Of the videos cited, three describe a move into Saxon and one describes moving some children out of it. The reviewer who moved children out says she still wanted to keep her children in Saxon through the elementary years and early middle school because of the foundation it gives them (Doing Life Deliberately).

Who it fits, and who it does not

In our assessment, a program this opinionated sorts families fairly cleanly, and Saxon tends to fit:

• Students who do better with steady, repeated practice than with a few big conceptual jumps, and who find constant review reassuring rather than dull.
• Parents who want a traditional, thorough sequence and are willing to teach the early grades directly, script in hand.
• Older students who can work a mixed problem set independently, especially when paired with a video lesson and automatic grading.
• Families looking for a plain, traditional approach, which two of the reviewers cited here describe wanting when they switched.

In our assessment, it tends to fit less well when:

• The teaching parent needs a truly independent program from day one, since one reviewer describes the elementary teacher’s manual as almost scripted for the parent.
• A child craves conceptual depth and mental-math strategy over repetition, the focus Singapore Math Inc. describes for its programs (Singapore Math Inc.).
• The household is running several children at once and finds it hard to keep up with every child’s math assignments, the situation one reviewer above describes.
• A student finds long problem sets tedious to the point of resistance. Nicole the Math Lady’s page lists students who get bored with repetition as a poor fit (Nicole the Math Lady).

Cost and value

Christianbook listed the Saxon Math K home study kit at $121.79, the Math 5/4 and 6/5 3rd-edition kits at $152.33 each, and the 7/6 and 8/7 kits at $169.59 each, all retrieved October 2026 (Christianbook Saxon Math). Kits at other levels list at different prices on the same page, for example $184.93 for the Math 1 home study kit and $203.19 for the Algebra 1 homeschool kit with solutions manual. A reviewer describes the Math 5/4 purchase as three books: a student text, a tests-and-worksheets book, and a solutions manual (Gathered & Grounded). In our assessment, the edition warnings above apply doubly on the secondhand market. Kits are also listed at general retailers, such as Amazon, if a family prefers to compare Saxon homeschool kits across sellers.

Video lessons and online grading are an optional added cost. Nicole the Math Lady lists its Math Pass, which includes 365-day access to video lessons and online grading, at $79 per year for one student, with a household discount listed for students who reside in the same household, and with textbooks purchased separately, retrieved October 2026 (Nicole the Math Lady pricing). In our assessment, a family weighing total outlay against time should add the parent hours in the early grades to the price of the books and of any support service.

How it compares

In our assessment, Saxon is best weighed against two very different programs. Teaching Textbooks describes itself as a complete homeschool math curriculum with lectures, automated grading, and step-by-step solutions (Teaching Textbooks), and Singapore Math Inc. says its programs instill conceptual depth and math mastery (Singapore Math Inc.). In our assessment, Saxon asks more of the parent than Teaching Textbooks, which grades problems automatically, and reads as more traditional than Singapore Math. The three-way comparison is laid out in the Every Homeschool guide to Saxon vs Teaching Textbooks vs Singapore.

For a wider field of math options, see the best homeschool math curriculum guide and the general framework in how to choose a homeschool curriculum. For families moving away from Abeka, the switching mechanics are covered in the guide on leaving Abeka. To match math programs by method, worldview, and budget, use the curriculum finder.

The bottom line

In our assessment, Saxon Math earns its reputation honestly, in both directions. It is thorough, and the reviewer cited here who has used it for years trusts the foundation it lays. It is also demanding, leans on the parent in the early grades by that reviewer’s account, and is built on a cumulative review cycle that some children handle well and others find long. Neither camp is wrong.

The practical advice is narrow and worth following. Match the edition before buying anything else, decide honestly whether the teaching parent has the hours for the early books or needs a video teacher, and watch the child’s response to the review cycle rather than the marketing. Start from the Saxon Math directory listing for a summary and the publisher’s website, and if the fit looks wrong, the field of alternatives is wide.