Everyday Math vs. RightStart/Miquon/Singapore

[FLW2003]

I know this can be a heated topic so I apologize in advance. Each of these programs offers alternatives to the traditional approach to teaching math, but has anyone compared Everyday Math to these great homeschool programs? I am sure that if Singapore math was thrown into a school district with teachers without a "profound understanding of mathematics" it would be a failure as well. Singapore and Miquon seem to use unconventional algorithms for solving problems. That is the critique that I have heard most often about Everyday Math. I have Miquon and Singapore and am impressed by those and plan to use them. Our public school uses Everyday Math and is very successful with it. Unfortunately, I can't easily get my hands on the Everyday Math books to compare. Anyone have experience with both programs?

[Snowfall]

No experience, but if you search threads started by me, I recently posted a quote from a public school teacher on a teacher's board, in which she used an Everyday Math algorithm and was unable to arrive at the correct answer. Even with it all typed right there in front of her, she got the wrong answer. If the methods used by the curriculum are so screwy that even the teacher can't get the right answer, I wouldn't expect it to be altogether helpful for the kids. Additionally, when you say your district does "quite well" that doesn't necessarily mean the kids understand math. In fact, with the specific algorithm used by the teacher in this problem, most kids would NEVER understand what was going on with the numbers.

 

Non-standard algorithms are fine, IMO, but they need to make sense and they need to be taught in tandem with conceptual understanding. From everything I can tell, EM doesn't teach the conceptual part of the math. Instead, it relies on using non-standard algorithms for the kid who get confused by the standard ones. That's great, but the reason most people are confused by the standard algorithms is because they don't undrestand why they work. The proper solution is to teach them why they work, not say, "Well, since you don't understand it, just do it this way instead." Based on the teacher's explanation of the way EM works, the non-standard algorithms are taught instead of conceptual understanding, not as complements to it. I might be wrong about that, but I highly doubt it. Any halfway intelligent person can use a good math program and teach it properly just by reading the TG and making sure they understand what it's saying. This teacher clearly had no conceptual understanding herself (based on the rest of her post, not the part I quoted), which leads me to believe the program doesn't teach it. These aren't difficult concepts, and reading a TG should be enough for an adult. It could be that she's below average intelligence, but my guess is that the program just stinks. (Editing to add that I'm not saying every program is for every teacher, of course, just that any average adult can easily gain conceptual understanding by reading the TG of a program that teaches it. Wanted to clarify, so that it didn't seem like I was saying anyone who didn't like one of the good programs was stupid or something. lol)

Edited April 25, 2011 by Snowfall

[nmoira]

 

Singapore and Miquon seem to use unconventional algorithms for solving problems. That is the critique that I have heard most often about Everyday Math.

Singapore teaches mental math techniques you may be unfamiliar with, but, for pen-and-paper work, traditional algorithms are explicitly and exclusively taught for all four basic operations in Primary Math.

[Spy Car]

I'm known on this forum as being quite fond of Miquon, especially as a first "exposure" program for young children. But as a "school" program for a typical classroom (as opposed to an exceptionally progressive, small classroom, highly educated teacher type situation) I have my doubts. Maybe yes, maybe not. Great at home with an open minded enthusiastic parent who is willing to put in the commitment to getting the most from this way of teaching and learning.

 

Singapore on the other hand is a great "classroom" math program IMO. While Singapore does teach a variety of mental math strategies they are not taught as "tricks" for getting solutions without understand the underlying math. To the contrary developing mathematical thinking is a strong point of Singapore. It also teaches the standard algorithms (things like column addition, subtraction, multiplication and long division).

 

I don't want to pile on Everyday Math (since I have never seen it) but it is a widely hated program in this community. And many parents are homeschooling because EM was used in the classroom in their children's schools.

 

Parental organizations that have formed to oppose the use of EM often advocate for the adoption of Singapore, so I don't think anyone puts Singapore into the category of "fuzzy math" or Reform math.

 

Bill

[Nart]

Singapore math teaches using concrete examples, then pictorial examples, then moves on to teaching abstractly. SM teaches conceptual math first then teaches the standard algorithms. Everyday Math often never gets around to teaching standard algorithms. Additionally, the examples they use are confusing. Here are examples from 4th grade math involving decimals. The formatting didn't come out perfectly but hopefully you can get the idea. The first is from Singapore Math (the actual example, is in color and is drawn to scale.)

 

John weighs 37.4 kg. Round his weight to the nearest kilogram.

John’s weight is ____ kg when rounded to the nearest kilogram.

 

37 l l l l l l l l 38

_____^

_____37.4

 

37.4 is less than halfway between 37 and 38. It is rounded to 37.

 

Here is an example on comparing decimals in Everyday Math.

 

Comparing Decimals

One way to compare decimals is to model them with base-10

blocks. The flat is usually the whole, or ONE [students learned in past lessons that a flat is equal to 100].

Compare 0.27 and 0.3.

2 longs and 7 cubes (l l . . . . . . . )are less than 3 longs (lll).

So, 0.27 is less than 0.3. 0.27 ?0.3

How is a student supposed to really understand decimals by using the same manipulatives that you used to teach place value of hundreds, tens, and ones? This lesson is really confusing.

Unfortunately I couldn't paste the picture but there is a picture of tens and ones, but here is the link so you can see how confusing the lesson really is:

http://everydaymath.uchicago.edu/about/sample_lessons/EM2007_G4_samples.pdf

[Snowfall]

Oy. Page 3 of that link is silly! They want the students to use 15 units for .15, but 3 ten rods for .30. Why wouldn't they use 1 ten rod and 5 units for .15? You always use a ten rod for a ten. I get that these are not whole numbers, but ten is ten is ten, if you insist on using base ten blocks for decimals. It makes no sense to use tens for one of the numbers, but not the other. It especially doesn't make sense when on page 7 they turn around and represent .12 with 1 ten rod and 2 unit cubes. They should at least be consistent!!!

[peacefully]

Their use of the manips is not what bothers me. There are plenty of times that when it is necessary to show that a 10-rod can be represented as 10 units. When a student is learning regrouping strategies, it is necessary that they see the two representations as interchangeable. Also, it's pretty standard in many math programs to use base-10 manipulatives to teach decimals.

 

I would not want to use that EM teacher's guide though. I got a chance to look over a TM and student materials. It made me very glad that we use Singapore and supplement with Miquon and Math Mammoth. I do admit, though, that after looking at EM, I have been thinking more about how to inject more cross-curricular math into our homeschool day and what kind of math "projects" that we can do.

[Snowfall]

Their use of the manips is not what bothers me. There are plenty of times that when it is necessary to show that a 10-rod can be represented as 10 units. When a student is learning regrouping strategies, it is necessary that they see the two representations as interchangeable. Also, it's pretty standard in many math programs to use base-10 manipulatives to teach decimals.

 

Yes, but the EM pages have the student using 15 units to represent .15 on one page, then 1 rod and 2 units to represent .12 on another page. It makes no sense.

[EKS]

Reform math programs like Everyday Math and TERC Investigations are actually modeled on Asian math programs. They just don't do it very well.