Help with factoring

[jwmunson]

This is my first post to the forums, I hope it's in the appropriate place, my apologies if not. I'm a guided self study group working through the Number Properties guide (4.1) at the moment. On page 94, in the explanation to the answer for problem #9, Xsquared - 5X - 6 is broken down to (X-6)(x+1). Similarly, on page 98 towards the bottom X(Xsquared - 3X + 2) is broken down to X(X - 1)(X - 2).
The study guide seems to assume that the students will know to do this, but I didn't. Is this method of factoring covered in any of the materials, perhaps the Foundations of Math guide? If not, is there anyone who could walk me through it?
Thanks.

[mschwrtz]

Yes, chapter 2 of the FoM book is devoted to just that type of factoring. If you have access to the recorded Foundations of Math workshops, you might also find the first one useful.