Jump to content

Menu

Help Picking Singapore Math Edition for Son Going Into 5th Grade With Everyday Math


tonamom
 Share

Recommended Posts

Help.

 

My son will be going into the 5th grade at a New York public school that has been using Everyday Math. I loathe the curriculum.

 

When I found out that my son had to take NYS Standardized tests for 4th grade, I printed out past tests and had him do those tests the week before the exam. I think that this helped him, as he scored at Level 3, about mid-way up it, with "above average" in most topics.

 

I take no comfort in the score that I feel took intensive activity on my part to help him attain. I am angry because I know that he is a very smart boy. Probably gifted in some way. He has been able to put together 1000 piece 3D puzzles since he was 8. He entered school eager to be there and every year he seems to get more and more frustrated.

 

This year's math was a disaster. My son still does not know his times tables. They introduced him to probability, geometry, and a whole slew of topics, where he never mastered any of them.

 

I showed my son how to subtract the way that I learned (from the right side), and the teacher said that he was the only kid to get the right answer, but "it's not my way". I also had many times in the 3rd grade where he knew the right answer but couldn't explain how he got it.

 

My son passed his standardized English Language Arts test by the skin of his teeth. He hates to write. I currently have him in a Creative Writing course at the library and he seems to be enjoying creating a comic.

 

I insisted on textbooks being sent home so that he could study for tests. They told me that they are not following the text for science, that they rely on experiments. I still made my son read the relevant chapters and take the practice tests at the end. He always scored above a 90 on tests where I had him do this, despite his ELA score.

 

I set him up on a typing teaching program, and I saw that he seems to remember quite well what he has typed. I have a doctorate, but I do not retain well by listening, I've always had to take notes or find a "formula" to recall what I need to (don't have this problem with reading fiction though, lol).

 

Anyhow, I want to purchase a Singapore Math program. The background is to help you know the kind of learner that I am dealing with.

 

On both U.S. and Standard Edition, he is testing at about a 2A. On U.S. edition, he really only didn't know the weights/measurements. On Standards edition, he didn't know mental math at all, really struggled with a lot of topics.

 

Which makes me think, should I go with Standards as it seems to be more rigorous? Will it also align better with Everyday Math?

 

I almost feel as well that maybe I should not concern myself with the school curriculum and just have him go with the edition that is the most logical in topical order.

 

I am not sure if one edition is easier to teach than others. I am not a math major, but I am well-educated (doctorate level) and went to calculus and statistics in college. But I admit that lattice method in everyday math was very uncomfortable.

 

Any recommendations would be appreciated.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Help.

 

My son still does not know his times tables.

 

Anyhow, I want to purchase a Singapore Math program.

 

Any recommendations would be appreciated.

 

Singapore is a great program, but you will need to supplement it with practice on the times tables.

 

There are free websites (http://themathworksheetsite.com) where you can print off timing worksheets. I would encourage you to have him do at least 10 minutes of tables per day. Practice addition/subtraction/multiplication/division individually and then mix them all together once he has mastered each. Work up to 100 on a page or so.

 

I think either the Standards or the US edition would be a great supplement to his math education. Since your son is in a public school, it may be more of an advantage to go with the Standards Edition.

 

Good Luck :)

Edited by fractalgal
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you, I do intend to have him drill on the times tables separately, and it is my understanding that children in Singapore do a lot of extra drill. He keeps getting hung up on the 6s, 7s, 8s, and 9s. I don't really blame him, I often forget them too, but I also have the ability to figure it out in my head.

 

The mental math that I see in Singapore is something that I do now, but only figured out as an adult. I figured out other tricks to math as an adult that I wish they had just spelled out for me when I was younger.

 

I think that it is still early enough for me to go back to the basics with my son and begin a systematic approach to him learning math. Until now, it's been a piecemeal effort to show him the way I learned as problems come up, but at this point, I plan to make a lot of headway this summer so that there is no confusion whatsoever in school with what they are doing.

 

Recently, I was driving down the street, and realized why the area of a triangle is 1/2 bh. It's because it is half of a square. I never saw it as half of the square because it is cut diagonally. If it had been pointed out to me, I'd have gotten it earlier. Instead, I just memorized the formula. When I told a colleague this, he said "You are just realizing this now?" Pretty sad, considering my educational level.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'd probably just use the US Editions, not the Standard Editions. I know that many people like the Standard Editions because they contain more material. However, I think having more material in the curriculum is part of the reason that US schools are behind the schools in other nations; we try to teach a little bit of everything but not a whole lot of anything.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'd probably just use the US Editions, not the Standard Editions. I know that many people like the Standard Editions because they contain more material. However, I think having more material in the curriculum is part of the reason that US schools are behind the schools in other nations; we try to teach a little bit of everything but not a whole lot of anything.

 

There are only a couple of additional topics in the standards edition---negative numbers, probability and data analysis and coordinate graphing. It's far from "a little bit of everything". Both editions are good and I have used both. I prefer the standards because of the layout, spacing of review and that little extra material that helps my daughter be a bit more in line with the testing we have to do per state regs.

 

My suggestion in this case to go with the standards was because the topics are reorganized to be more aligned with the more usual US course of study. The following link lays out the scope and sequence of each one in an easy to see chart (do keep in mind that the chart doesn't include the new level 6 of the standards edition, which is just this summer coming out---I'm hoping they update the chart soon):

 

http://www.singaporemath.com/v/vspfiles/assets/images/SSUSandSTD2008.pdf

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My suggestion in this case to go with the standards was because the topics are reorganized to be more aligned with the more usual US course of study.

But I thought part of the reason that many people are using Singapore is because the "more usual US course of study" isn't working.

Edited by JudyJudyJudy
Link to comment
Share on other sites

But I thought that the reason many people were using Singapore was because the "more usual US course of study" isn't working.

 

As I read it, her child is remaining in the public schools and this is supplemental. Also, just because the topic order is more aligned does not mean it has been watered down or rewritten to be vastly different than the more familiar US edition. I think that has been a fairly common misconception in the hs community, though. Look at the link I gave for the scope and sequences. With the exception of the couple of additional topics, everything that is there came from the US edition (though it is sometimes shifted up or down in where it falls in the levels) or from material from the 2nd edition of Primary Mathematics (which was not released in the US). I would encourage you to go over to http://www.singaporemath.com and explore the similarities and differences so that you can see for yourself how the two editions match up. http://www.singaporemath.com/FAQ_Primary_Math_s/15.htm has more information.

 

As I said, both editions are good and I have no vested interest in whether she picks one or the other. They are both "Singapore Math". It is simply that some features of one edition will appeal to some folks more than the other, just as happened with the US edition and the 3rd edition. Changing the money to US units rather than Singaporean units and adding in US measurements didn't destroy the program (though evidently a lot of folks were very skeptical of those changes as well).;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Actually I have read that material. However, my issue with trying to teach too much each year still stands. I'm a certified middle school teacher (math, science, language arts, and social studies), and trying to teach too many topics each year, in my opinion, was one of the biggest issues with the curricula.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Actually I have read that material. However, my issue with trying to teach too much each year still stands. I'm a certified middle school teacher (math, science, language arts, and social studies), and trying to teach too many topics each year, in my opinion, was one of the biggest issues with the curricula.

 

And that has indeed been borne out by studies. However, I don't really see that Singapore Math in either edition can be tarred with the same brush as some US curricula or some US state standards. Given the wide variability in number of topics covered, approaches, etc between states in the US, it is hard to come up with a "usual" US curriculum anyway. I maintain that, IMO, having the topics presented at the same grade level is something worth at least considering when choosing a supplement. If I were the OP, I would look at the scope and sequence comparisons and then make my choice based on whichever edition was the best fit. I don't think she can go wrong with either one.

 

I realize this is more technical than the OP is probably interested in, but

http://www.air.org/news/documents/Singapore%20Report%20(Bookmark%20Version).pdf (p. 30 has a chart) shows a comparison of the number of topics covered by Singapore math vs. that in several US states. It ranges from 18 topics per grade in NC to 39 topics per grade in Florida (California was at 20 and is noted as having its standards already more aligned conceptually with Singapore methods than other states). I believe they are comparing the 3rd edition of the Singapore materials here when they mention that Singapore has 15, so the US edition will have a few more topics at some grades since they added in US measurements. The standards edition added in a handful of additional topics, plus more mental math and review problems (the latter two taken from Singapore 2nd edition), so the number of additional topics is still quite small. The biggest change is that some topics are moved up or down in grade levels.

 

So, while I do bow to your experience in your classroom, I want to make sure that folks actually understand that not all US state standards are the same, and the fact that the standards edition is aligned with California standards in terms of when topics are presented should not automatically be equated with "mile wide, inch deep". The differences would be much more pronounced between teachers' experiences with math curricula in, say, Florida, than in Texas, or those using Scott-Foresman vs. Everyday Mathematics (the paper details a comparison of Scott Foresman, Everyday Mathematics and Singapore (3rd edition)).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

All of these posts and links are helpful, but your points all highlight why I am still on the fence as to what to do. I almost ordered Standards last night, because I felt like "Why not get more for your money?", but wanted to post one more time before I do anything.

 

That chart showing what each covers topically was very helpful. In 4th grade Everyday Math last year, they did begin to cover bar graphs, probability, and negative numbers. I thought it was ridiculous that they covered these things before the kids even have their basics down. But the fact is that they did cover them, and so my dilemma is "Should I cover them too?" If so, then Standards is the edition that I should be looking at. If he's still at this school in the fall, he'll be taking Everyday Math for 5th grade, and as it is a spiral curriculum, he'll probably revisit those things.

 

On the other hand, I also agree with another poster on doing too much, and wonder if I should give any credence to what the school is doing. My concern is the that his grades will reflect his performance in school. I just don't know. Maybe I should just proceed logically with the US, decide that these are the math concepts that matter, and hope that he has the brains to deal with the Everyday Math homework.

 

My son did much better on the US edition test than the Standards. If I began with 2A this summer on the US edition, and really drill him on his multiplication tables, my son could progress pretty rapidly, possibly through the end of 3B by the end of summer. But will I then regret that I didn't cover those extra things in the Standards edition, because you can't go back or interchange editions?

 

The week before the NYS 4th grade Math test, I printed out old tests for my son and he scored well above average on all topics but Algebra. If I had started a couple of weeks earlier, he probably would have aced it. All this tells me is that my son can be trained to quickly learn how to do the problems needed to pass the test. Hell, I could print out the Grade 5 standardized test, start having him practice that, and he'd probably do well on that too. But then struggle all year with the homework. But the school does not care and will not provide any math help, so long as he passes that test.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Also, my main concern is 5th grade is the year that they pick kids to go into advanced math and science in the 6th grade. If you don't get in then, it follows you through high school. My daughter was an AIS math and reading student in the younger grades, but by 7th grade she won the spelling bee, and was bored in Algebra Freshman year. But they refused to move her to a more challenging math because "those decisions were made in the 6th grade".

 

I had to hassle him to read and study his science and math, but when he does, he gets high grades. I don't want my son to miss the boat and be judged for his immaturity when kids get picked for the better classes. He just turned 10, and last weekend, he got 4 very challenging bionicle and building type sets meant for up to age 14. One of these things had about 20 pages of diagrams, and as I sit here typing, he has brought me the last one that he has completed putting together. This kid loves to construct! He should probably be a builder, architect, or engineer when he grows up, but it won't happen if he bombs math.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why don't you ask Jenny (the moderator) over at the Singapore Math forums. She's very willing to help and lots of folks have these kinds of questions.

 

http://www.singaporemaths.com/forums/

 

You might also try posting this to the Afterschool boards here to see if anyone has experience with this sort of thing in NY in particular.

Edited by KarenNC
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I just wanted to let everyone know that I decided to go with the Standards edition. My son knew basically everything on the test except for how to do the mental math and he did not really know weights and measures. Since mental math is such a big component, I figured that I had better start there. I bought 2A text and workbook, and the HIG. Also bought CWP 2-6 since I see they are being discontinued (I am sure putting a lot of faith into this program).

 

I am still a bit on the fence about whether this covers "too much", but since it covers everything in the U.S. edition, I suppose I could always elect to not cover extras as I wish. Since my son did cover some of the extra topics in Standards, it makes sense to have it as a resource.

 

Now I think I'll move on an wonder what to do about other subjects....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest CritterSitter

I have been a middle school math teacher in middle school for the past several years. I am familiar with Everyday Math. I am now taking a break to homeschool my son. We are going to use Singapore Math and I ordered the Standards version. I looked at samples from each of the versions with my son and he liked the Standards version visually the best. If you think they are trying to cram in too much stuff you can always skip some of the added topics especially if you are using this as a supplement.

 

As for math facts, teachers argue about this with administrators. What we are told is that they should be drilling these facts at home for homework not using valuable class time. So, every curriculum that I have every seen supposes that students will learn their times tables they absolutely need them for middle grade math no matter what curriculum you use. They will never see algebraic patterns without them.

 

My son went to a private French school when he was young that had an outstanding math program. The Singapore Math is the closest I've seen!

 

Hope this is somewhat of a help! God Luck!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'd probably just use the US Editions, not the Standard Editions. I know that many people like the Standard Editions because they contain more material. However, I think having more material in the curriculum is part of the reason that US schools are behind the schools in other nations; we try to teach a little bit of everything but not a whole lot of anything.

 

It's just slightly more material. They also seem to have a more regular review cycle. And what my son likes most about them is that the textbooks are in full color for all levels (the US ed only has full color in levels 1 and 2). From what I've seen, the added material is appropriate and not excessive.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...