Ray's Arithmetic (Review)

Before the TOS Crew, I had not heard of Dollar Homeschool or Ray’s Arithmetic. When I first received and downloaded the files for Ray’s, I was taken back in time to the pioneer days.

Why? You might ask.



Let me share a little history about Ray’s Arithmetic with you. From the website:

“The Ray’s Arithmetic was originally created to be used by frontier Americans, Americans that often lived in areas where available teachers were few, often far away, or even completely unavailable. For this reason, the books are designed to allow children, once they can read, to educate themselves to a very great extent.”

I used Ray’s with my 10 year old 4th grader. He and I both enjoyed the mental multiplication exercises the most. The real life problems made sense to him, and the word problems added a story to the math. Since this particular child is an avid reader, he preferred these kinds of problems, as opposed to basic math number problems found in most textbooks. Ray’s is what I would consider “real-world” math. It teaches using real life word problems, as well as mental math. Math problems are learned while also incorporating learning in other subject areas, such as history. This program teaches math in a more natural way than a basic textbook does.

Ray’s Arithmetic contains a total of 38 books, including 12 Core Textbooks plus Answer Keys, Teachers Editions, and several books covering surveying and navigation, astronomy, book keeping, and physics. Ray's "is a complete K-12 math curriculum, from counting to calculus." You can view a list of the entire collection here.

Although I received Ray’s in a downloadable form, it is available on CD, and can be easily viewed or printed from any type of computer.

The entire collection of Ray’s Arithmetic is available on CD for $59 on their website, satisfaction guaranteed for 30 days.

If you are looking for an arithmetic program that has stood the test of time, educating over 100 million students, and still offers basic, yet valuable instruction, then Ray’s may be right for you.

To learn more, and to view the other subjects that Dollar Homeschool offers, please visit the website. To read what my Crew members had to say, please visit the TOS Crew Page for Dollar Homeschool/Ray’s Arithmetic.

*The author’s review and opinion is entirely her own. This product was provided to the author for free as a member of the 2009-2010 The Old Schoolhouse Magazine Homeschool Crew. No further compensation was received.*