I personally like to work from worksheets. They allow me to scribble and in the
end I have something in a compact form that I can refer back to.
I wrote a worksheet for myself for the first 3 sections in Collier and Manley. I
would be more than happy to share.
You should be able to download it from here:
http://mathcs.slu.edu/Members/barta/misc/C-M-ch1-sect123.pdf/view
Anneke