General Questions

As a small business, we don't have the capacity to man a customer service phone line at this time. We do respond to each and every email that comes our way, though! Please reach out to [email protected] with any questions or inquiries, and we'll get back to you as soon as we can.

Nope! We don't have an affiliate or referral program, and don't participate in paid partnerships with social media influencers or homeschooling platforms. It isn't that partnerships aren't authentic, we just love having 100% organic and unsolicited feedback from parents and students!

While we don't have a particular elementary math curriculum that we recommend, we do have a few suggestions on what to look for when choosing a program. Particularly, you'll want to find something that allows your student to make progress at his or her own pace without becoming frustrated or taking on the "I'm bad at math" mindset. Our Pre-Algebra course spends the first few chapters shoring up arithmetic skills by reviewing them in a way that students will see going forward in high school math. So, it isn't essential that your student be a whiz at every arithmetic skill. In fact, it's quite common for students to have a weak spot (or spots) coming into Pre-Algebra or Algebra 1. This does not need to hold them back from starting upper-level math, nor does it need to cripple them going forward... they will still get lots of practice with arithmetic in our courses! 

*We do NOT recommend starting Pre-Algebra before 7th or 8th grade!! See the Placement FAQs for our reasoning and Pre-Algebra specifics.

Our teaching and solutions videos are by far the most valuable aspect of our courses. They include hundreds of hours of teaching and instruction, the culmination of decades of teaching experience. Our course price is a reflection of the presence and quality of this instruction, rather than of the physical materials themselves, and we ask that each student purchase his or her own copy of the course for this reason. It's similar to paying for your student to be taught by a teacher in a class setting or hiring a tutor, just much cheaper!

Note: We technically can cancel the physical materials from shipping to you, if for some reason you really want to reuse your old materials. The course price will stay the same. Just send us an email immediately after you make your purchase, and we will halt your course kit from being shipped (this is the full course kit, which includes the student textbook, the solutions manual, and the parent's guide & test booklet).

Our courses are only available for purchase as kits, with the printed materials (textbook, solutions manual, and parent's guide) and videos together. Our books are bundled into kits at the printer so we don't have a way to order a la carte books. This means that courses must be purchased as a whole package, and that we can't sell any part individually. While this does mean that materials can't be reused for multiple children in following years, we have found that consumable textbooks and complete materials sets make a profound difference for students tackling upper-level math, particularly when they don't like the subject...(yet!)

The short answer is... probably (for our standard courses).  Because NCAA approves homeschool curriculum on a case-by-case basis, there's no blanket guarantee that Denison Algebra courses will be approved. But don't despair! We've compiled a separate webpage to help you navigate the NCAA application process using our curriculum.

Click here for NCAA-specific FAQs, supporting documentation, and core course worksheets.

There is not a Success version of Pre-Algebra, but we hope this course will be good gauge as to whether our standard or Success courses will be better fit for your student moving forward. If your student thrives with the pacing of Pre-Algebra, they are likely a good fit for our standard courses. If, however, the pacing is a bit of a challenge, or you feel that your student needs shorter videos and assignments to absorb the material, then it's worth checking out our Success series. These courses are identical to Pre-Algebra in terms of format (i.e. daily teaching videos and physical textbooks), but they are modified courses with shorter teaching videos and more compact homework assignments designed specifically for students with learning challenges.

While there are certainly some exceptions, we recommend that students take a summer break. We've found that both students and parents benefit from some sort of breather in the summer. All of our courses start with hefty review of previously learned material to knock any rust off math skills so there is no need to worry about a break setting a student back irreversibly. 

Absolutely! Denison Algebra courses have so much review built into them, that a student can easily take a summer break and pick back up with their course in the fall. We recommend that a student pause for the summer at the end of a chapter. Then, once they are ready to begin again, they can go through the review lessons from each previous chapter to catch back up on the course content quickly. Each chapter has a review lesson at the end of it along with a practice test. Your student can use either or both to review the topics they previously learned. Content is also reviewed and retaught throughout the course, which will help your student relearn any forgotten material.

While we don't have the capacity to offer additional help to students individually, there are several features of our courses that make the need for extra help far less likely. Our courses are specifically built with the understanding that students tend to forget math skills they've learned. So, each lesson has reminders and constant review layered into it. In fact, the habit of reviewing is taught throughout the course so that students will be able to take this skill with them to future math courses. There are also "cheat sheets" for each chapter included in the front of the student textbook (we call it the BHAC for Algebra and the BHAG for Geometry) and students are encouraged to refer to this often to brush up on skills and to work through assignments and tests.

Additionally, every homework problem and test question is worked out on video, walking students through each step and visually demonstrating how to work the problem. Students are encouraged to check each answer against the solutions manual and to rework any they missed with the help of the solutions videos. This can act as a mini "tutoring" session if a concept is taking a little more time to sink in. Finally, lesson videos are concise and straightforward, making it possible for a parent or even an older sibling to be able to quickly watch the video (and possibly even the solutions video) and answer questions. This is true even if the parent was not a fan of math when they were in school! 

In the end, we hope these built-in features will minimize the need for additional support and make it easy for both students and parents to tackle the world of abstract math.

For our courses, we recommend that students use a scientific calculator with a screen that is able to display typed equations (our personal favorite is the TI-30XS MultiView Scientific Calculator, but any brand will do!) A student can also use a graphing calculator, but these can be quite pricey and there is no need to buy one specifically for our courses with the exception of Advanced Algebra & Trigonometry.

Additional Calculator Resources:

Mr. Denison's Free, Downloadable Calculator Guide

Mr. Denison's blog post on "Calculator No-Nos to Avoid"