These two workbooks have an effective layout with clear diagrams and good use of white space. The two column layout for exercises allows more questions per page, but still leaves the page uncluttered. The language is easily understood, but all the required vocabulary is used including denominators, LCD's and GCF's. There is also lots of practice using the signs for greater than and less than.

The explanations are effective and there are lots of examples for each new skill. First the new vocabulary or skill is introduced, then practiced with hints and then the students must complete the exercise on their own. As one instructor pointed out, "This will eliminate a lot of flipping back and trying to find help; students will get the review of the teaching as they do the problems in the first set, with taints."

Basic Decimals has over fifty pages and Basic Fractions has over one hundred pages devoted to promoting an understanding of the concepts behind these two essential components of a mathematics curriculum. The extensive work in fractions involves work on factors, divisibility and going from one denominator to another. The students' knowledge of the times tables are improving from doing this so thoroughly.

There are a variety of exercises. Some exercises teach and review vocabulary; for example, "Put a check mark before each pair of fractions that have like denominators. (Hint: Two denominators are 'like' if they are the same.)." Other exercises help with parts of the tasks; for example, "Put a check mark before the numbers that are divisible by 5."

Each chapter has word problems, but the problems are only based on the subject of the chapter. Thus at the end of the chapter on division, there are only division questions. One problem with the workbooks is that there are primarily imperial measures, although there are some examples using metres and centimetres.

All those who field tested these books said students found them useful to improve their understanding of the concepts. The teacher's guides which include answer keys must be ordered separately and, according to the guides, there are also two reproducible tests available for each book. Basic Algebra is also available and has the same effective format.