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Skipping books for mental math in early grades


birchbark
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ETA: I should have titled this "Replacing books with mental math in early grades."

 

I've been doing a bit of reading and thinking on this in recent months. I first stumbled upon this article by Benezet, then found similar thinking by the Bluedorns and Ruth Beechick. (Here is the Bluedorn's article.) I'm fascinated by these ideas as I'm getting ready to start schooling my 2nd born.

 

I'm curious if anyone has tried this approach, or perhaps known someone who has.

 

I have also heard that Ray's Arithmetic teaches this way, as well as Making Math Meaningful. Can any users chime in? Are there any other resources?

Edited by birchbark
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You'll need to excuse my thick-headed ness this morning but could you please clarify a little - the thread title is confusing me. Are you asking about skipping books or skipping mental math? I enjoyed the first article and parts of the Bluedorn one and frequently reference Beechick's book on The Three Rs. I recently gave up requiring math workbook work but not math. My son was already naturally strong in math (no genius child, though) but was hating "math". Since making changes away from formal math his attitude has turned around and he is even more "accelerated" than before. I know there are a number of people around here doing living math and math journalling - perhaps they would be up the alley you're exploring?

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To clarify, the articles do not promote skipping math entirely, but rather to approach it with a completely mental method during the early years. I think it was the author of Making Math Meaningful who said that children's ability to think mathematically runs way ahead of their ability to deal with the abstractions on paper. So it is the bookwork, the symbols, and the algorithms that are being skipped, not the math.

 

Here is another article, or rather blog post, on the subject. The author references Benezet.

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I read the Benezet article in January. After closely watching and reflecting on my son's math study, I decided to drastically reduce formal math lessons. The time we do spend on math, we focus on Miquon. I have my husband committed to working on bringing out oppotunities for mathematical thinking in daily life since he naturally does this very well. I am focusing on the "reading and reciting" portion of Benezet mantra. I dramatically increased the amount of reading and level of reading we are doing. I also focused in on the level of discussion we were having during our school time and throughout the day to build those reasoning and communication abilities.

 

Our math time has improved immensely because of these changes. My child, who is naturally inclined to math and who loved it during our Miquon-only kindergarten year, went from being bored and glazed over to truly engaging again with math.

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I read the Benezet article in January. After closely watching and reflecting on my son's math study, I decided to drastically reduce formal math lessons. The time we do spend on math, we focus on Miquon. I have my husband committed to working on bringing out oppotunities for mathematical thinking in daily life since he naturally does this very well. I am focusing on the "reading and reciting" portion of Benezet mantra. I dramatically increased the amount of reading and level of reading we are doing. I also focused in on the level of discussion we were having during our school time and throughout the day to build those reasoning and communication abilities.

 

Our math time has improved immensely because of these changes. My child, who is naturally inclined to math and who loved it during our Miquon-only kindergarten year, went from being bored and glazed over to truly engaging again with math.

 

I like this. Measuring and estimating are something else the article mentioned that I'm doing more of.

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I like this. Measuring and estimating are something else the article mentioned that I'm doing more of.

 

Yes, I am completely behind his recommendations on estimation! Sadly, I am horrific at estimating, an altogether too-obvious sign of what was lacking from my own mathematical education. Thankfully, my husband excels at it so I've out-sourced it to him while I work on improving my own powers of estimation. :)

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I think it was the author of Making Math Meaningful who said that children's ability to think mathematically runs way ahead of their ability to deal with the abstractions on paper. So it is the bookwork, the symbols, and the algorithms that are being skipped, not the math.

 

 

This is really interesting, because most americans think it is harder to talk, read and write word problems that it is to do pages of simply numbers. So we are usually giving the little ones the OPPOSITE of what they can do best.

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This is really interesting, because most americans think it is harder to talk, read and write word problems that it is to do pages of simply numbers. So we are usually giving the little ones the OPPOSITE of what they can do best.

 

I've noticed this but it baffles me.

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My little girl is proof that these people are right in that it is harder for a child of this age to do math worksheets. She will completely zone out when it comes to math. But she loves the hands on stuff. My problems is that I can't keep a focus on what to do next. I don't want to use buttons 5 days a week. Is there anything free online that will help me to keep a schedule and move on to the next thing?

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My little girl is proof that these people are right in that it is harder for a child of this age to do math worksheets. She will completely zone out when it comes to math. But she loves the hands on stuff. My problems is that I can't keep a focus on what to do next. I don't want to use buttons 5 days a week. Is there anything free online that will help me to keep a schedule and move on to the next thing?

 

:bigear:

 

I want this in hopes that it might help. http://web.me.com/meaningfulmathbooks1/Site/Lower_School.html

http://www.jamieyorkpress.com/making-math-meaningful-a-source-book-for-grades-1-5/

Edited by Hunter
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  • 4 weeks later...

I'm bumping this because of a great resource SCGS clued me in to: The Verbal Math Lesson books.

 

I actually ordered a copy of the first level of the VML along with the first book of Ray's Arithmetic and teacher's guide. They both look really good and exactly what I'm looking for. It will be hard to decide on which to use.

 

Ray's lessons are shorter, the book is cheaper because it covers two grades (also it's free to view online), and has the great teacher's guide. I recommend the guide; it explains the brilliance of the approach and lays out the lessons in a weekly rhythm.

 

The VML has a clean, modern typeface as opposed to Ray's, the story-problem subjects and prices are current, and it is a single volume. The type of problems it contains are remarkably similar to Ray's. I like the idea of not working out of two books, but you are missing some great info and extra game/application ideas from the Ray's guide. VML's lessons are longer and do not fit as tidily into days or weeks.

 

I have a feeling that if Ray's were reprinted in a larger size with a colorful cover and modern typeface I'd prefer it. I'm such a sucker for appearances.

 

I'll probably end up doing a road-test of each and see which works better for us. But, I'm glad there are options for this type of math!

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