We homeschooled two children through middle school and high school, and math was one of our primary reasons for beginning homeschooling. They stared at me blankly. We tried several programs before I discovered Saxon in the late 1980's.
Students work from concept to specifics.
In traditional texts, once students have practiced procedures for a while, they are expected to apply them to word problems. Saxon Math, of course, turns this didactic approach on its head. The program introduces new procedures or algorithms very gradually, not one procedure at a time, but instead one or two steps in a procedure at a time. At the same time, the problem sets focus on review rather than new material. Out of 30 problems in each lesson, roughly 25-28 will be review problems.