Math instruction is a fascinating topic. I personally believe we must:
1. Spend as much time as required at the basic levels to teach place value/base ten so students have the foundation to do much of our math. We need to use manipulatives and LINK the manipulatives, in due time, to the abstract numeric representations/algorithms.
2. We should dispense with teaching 13 strands of math each year in favor of developing deep and profound understandings at the basic level. Basics are not simply recitiation of facts, but truly understanding the concepts, the processes that mathematics describes.
Please read, if you are inclined:
Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics
By Liping Ma
Bought mine right off the shelf in Borders.
BRAVO
Then, perhaps our 5th and 6th graders would understand what an equation is and the concept of place value, for starters.
Math is like an alien language to so many, LD and non.
Re: Agree!
My husband read the Liping Ma book, in conjunction to our switch to Singapore Math for homeschooling. Some public schools in Maryland are piloting Singapore Math for their gifted programs. SM would work great in regular classrooms also, but very few U.S. schools know about it. Or, perhaps there is great incentive to purchase U.S. published math curriculums.
Anyway, since we started using Singapore Math (which teaches along the lines that Liping Ma advocates), dd has made huge gains in math.
Mary
THANK YOU!!
I feel I’ve been a voice crying in the wilderness about this for the last thirty years. Please keep up the good work and keep spreading the word.
And yes, students in regular classes need an organized and focused math curriculum even **more** than the gifted kids, who can sometimes puxzzle through (although my daughter lost out badly with former Maryland curriculum).
By the way, read the sections in “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman” where Feynman, a Nobel-prize-winning mathematical physicist, describes his reaction to the math programs he was asked to evaluate. This isn’t news, although I sure am glad the word is getting out.
I find this whole situation very frustrating. If teachers - and curriculum developers, and the adminstrations who buy them could get a clue, they would understand that teaching a less and teaching it better makes more sense than cramming a vast variety of topics into a small space of time without any opportunity let it become solidly planted.
Robin