MM to Singapore?

[shukriyya]

Can a child go from MM to the next level of Singapore? For example can one move from MM 3B to Singapore 4A? I've read that the two programs are similar but am wondering if they're similar enough to go from level to level.

Edited November 5, 2011 by shukriyya

[Halcyon]

We might be going from SM4 to MM5 so :bigear:

[TKDmom]

I went from SM 3B to MM 4A. The scope and sequence is slightly different, so you may need to fill in some gaps. My dd hadn't had a very good foundation in times tables, so I had her do the MM Blue unit on multiplication before starting 4A. SM introduces long division in 3B, but it looks like MM doesn't get to it until 4B. You may want to either do a MM unit on division or back up to SM 3B and cover unfamiliar material. Either way, take the placement test for the program and level you are moving to so that you can identify what material you need to cover before making the switch.

[Farrar]

I know from doing the CWP alongside MM that they don't line up totally. There are topics covered in Singapore grade one and two that aren't in MM. But I don't think that means you can't switch programs. I would just look at the table of contents for each.

[....]

My daughter switched from SM3B to MM4A. It was fine. Like nothing happened. :tongue_smilie:

 

My son tried to go from SM 2B to MM 3A and we had to shelf it for a while. I bought some of the MM 2nd grade addition/subtraction stuff and he's working thru that until he catches up. In his defense, the dude was drowning in Singapore, which is why I switched everybody. He was just having a really hard time with it.

 

Edited to say: if you look on the math mammoth website, she talks about switching between math mammoth and singapore. They're supposed to cover the same topics.

 

OK, here it is - she compares SM to MM: http://www.mathmammoth.com/comparisons.php

 

Edited again: she says that math mammoth covers more statistics and probability than singapore...interesting...by 6th grade, they've covered the same topics.

Edited November 5, 2011 by starrbuck12

[boscopup]

Just take the placement test for Singapore. That's the easiest way to figure out where your child needs to be.

 

In the grade 3-4 range, Singapore and MM have a very different scope and sequence. I use Singapore IP and CWP, and I've usually had to use them a semester or year behind where we are in MM because of the scope and sequence (although for multi-digit multiplication, I think it's in Singapore 4A, same as MM, which seems strange given the division difference). Also, I believe Singapore does long division in grade 3, whereas MM does it in 4B, so I'm really thinking you'd have to at least use Singapore 3B, if not 3A if your child hasn't gone through all of MM 4 yet.

 

In the 5 and 6 grades, I think they start to get closer in sequence. But really, any time you're switching programs, do a placement test, and look at what types of problems were missed on that test. You might be able to just fill in a missed concept if it's a simple one.

 

It's probably easier to switch from Singapore to MM than to go from MM to Singapore, just because Singapore introduces several concepts earlier. By 6th grade, they reach the same place, but in the middle, they are doing things differently. While MM spends more time working addition/subtraction facts early on, Singapore is introducing multiplication in 1B, and everything follows from there.

[Haiku]

Can a child go from MM to the next level of Singapore? For example can one move from MM 3B to Singapore 4A? I've read that the two programs are similar but am wondering if they're similar enough to go from level to level.

 

Having used both programs, I would say it would be a hard transition. SM has their own way of doing things, and jumping in in the middle wouldn't be easy, imo. I used Singapore with my oldest dd, who is now 17. As I have mentioned here many times, I hated it (and so did she). I hear all the time that MM and SM are similar and honestly, I don't see it at all. My younger dc and I love MM because it's so straightforward (in a way that SM completely isn't) but still teaches fantastic mental math strategies.

 

Tara

[....]

Having used both programs, I would say it would be a hard transition. SM has their own way of doing things, and jumping in in the middle wouldn't be easy, imo. I used Singapore with my oldest dd, who is now 17. As I have mentioned here many times, I hated it (and so did she). I hear all the time that MM and SM are similar and honestly, I don't see it at all. My younger dc and I love MM because it's so straightforward (in a way that SM completely isn't) but still teaches fantastic mental math strategies.

 

Tara

 

You're right, MM seems more straightforward and offers more explanation on how to do something.

 

Also, my 4th grader is completely independent with MM. She doesn't even need me. I just check her answers at the end. :hurray: (can't hide my excitement on that one)

[Halcyon]

THis is one of the reasons I am considering switching to MM--the independence factor. DS really likes to do his work alone, likes to teach himself, and gets irritated with me when I try and teach. Up until now, this hasn't been an issue, as the SM textbook has provided enough teaching and I haven't had to step up. But as we hit fractions, there were some areas that I wanted to clarify by (horrors!!) teaching him and he doesn't like it. :( So MM might be a better fit.

[shukriyya]

Thanks, everyone, for your replies. They've all been very helpful. We did 1/2 a year of Singapore and it wasn't a huge hit so we're trying MM. We've been RS users from the get-go but I'm feeling the need to expand the math horizons.

[Crimson Wife]

You're right, MM seems more straightforward and offers more explanation on how to do something.

 

:iagree::iagree::iagree:

I got slammed by Bill (SpyCar) on a thread the other day for saying that the "conceptual leaps" I've found in Singapore are only there because I use the IP instead of the workbook. No, the problem is in the textbook where it leaps from A to D unlike MM where Maria Miller walks the student through A to B to C to D. Bill and his son are "mathy" enough where it appears they don't even notice it. DD and I aren't, so we supplement with MM "blue".

[Spy Car]

:iagree::iagree::iagree:

I got slammed by Bill (SpyCar) on a thread the other day for saying that the "conceptual leaps" I've found in Singapore are only there because I use the IP instead of the workbook. No, the problem is in the textbook where it leaps from A to D unlike MM where Maria Miller walks the student through A to B to C to D. Bill and his son are "mathy" enough where it appears they don't even notice it. DD and I aren't, so we supplement with MM "blue".

 

Skipping one of the two "core" books and then blaming the program for making "conceptual leaps" strikes me as an unfair criticism of the program. We are not so "mathy" that we glide over "leaps", we just use all (rather than half) of the basic materials. I don't think that is unreasonable.

 

Bill

[Farrar]

What you're saying, Crimson Wife, is my experience too. If my kids are asked to get from A-D, they just shut down. MM does a much better job, IMO, in spelling out those steps.

 

But I think kids are different. I don't know if it's being "mathy" or "gifted" or just being a kid who enjoys making those connections alone or who likes to work out puzzles, but I can see that for other kids, MM would be really dull and infuriating. I know as a kid, I would have been frustrated by being told that B and C are in between A and D.

[Crimson Wife]

Skipping one of the two "core" books and then blaming the program for making "conceptual leaps" strikes me as an unfair criticism of the program. We are not so "mathy" that we glide over "leaps", we just use all (rather than half) of the basic materials. I don't think that is unreasonable.

 

Bill

 

Does the workbook offer any additional teaching? From the previews I've done of it, it appears to be all just practice problems. That's not what I find lacking in certain Singapore chapters. If I were skipping the workbook and then complaining about a lack of practice, then DUH, the solution would be to add back in the workbook. The problem I have with Singapore is that even with using the HIG's, it isn't incremental enough in its teaching in certain places. It leaps from A to D and just assumes that either the student can follow along or that the teacher has enough math understanding himself/herself to help bridge the gap. The HIG's do help a bit with this, but not remotely as well as Maria Miller's explanations in MM.

[TKDmom]

I got slammed by Bill (SpyCar) on a thread the other day for saying that the "conceptual leaps" I've found in Singapore are only there because I use the IP instead of the workbook. No, the problem is in the textbook where it leaps from A to D unlike MM where Maria Miller walks the student through A to B to C to D. Bill and his son are "mathy" enough where it appears they don't even notice it. DD and I aren't, so we supplement with MM "blue".

 

ITA. I used the workbooks and still found the teaching lacking in places. The workbooks added practice, but they don't do any sort of teaching. In particular, the way SM introduced the full long division algorithm without any build-up made my dd's head spin. The incremental (bordering on tediously incremental) instruction in Math Mammoth is very different. It takes a child step-by-step, sometimes by half-steps so that they understand the material thoroughly.

 

Don't get me wrong, I love Singapore. I love the way it approaches math, but I always understood math intuitively. Leaps and bounds and figuring out new connections were fun. I would have found MM tedious and boring. My dd, unfortunately needs explicit, step-by-step instruction. She used to throw the Singapore book across the room in frustration when she didn't follow some of the leaps that it made. This week, I was trying to figure out if I could take her back to Singapore, because I find it so much more appealing than MM. She was horrified by the suggestion and assured me that she is very happy with MM. :tongue_smilie:

[Crimson Wife]

ITA. I used the workbooks and still found the teaching lacking in places. The workbooks added practice, but they don't do any sort of teaching. In particular, the way SM introduced the full long division algorithm without any build-up made my dd's head spin. The incremental (bordering on tediously incremental) instruction in Math Mammoth is very different. It takes a child step-by-step, sometimes by half-steps so that they understand the material thoroughly.

 

That particular chapter in 3A was when I first started supplementing with MM. I'd actually pushed it off as long as I could by doing all the other chapters in 3A and 3B first while DD finished getting her times tables down pat. But we ran out of other topics to do so I had to figure out a way to teach it. The Khan Academy videos weren't available at the time and while I could've resorted to the purely procedural method I learned myself in school, that would've defeated the whole purpose in using Singapore.

[Haiku]

The problem I have with Singapore is that even with using the HIG's, it isn't incremental enough in its teaching in certain places. It leaps from A to D and just assumes that either the student can follow along or that the teacher has enough math understanding himself/herself to help bridge the gap.

 

That was exactly my experience with Singapore. The teaching simply isn't step-by-step. And to be fair, I have heard and read that Singapore was never intended to be used without a math teacher to help students make those leaps. It wasn't designed as a homeschool program. It was designed for Singaporean math teachers to teach their students. I think it's assumed that the teachers will fill in these gaps.

 

That said, I completely agree that there are conceptual leaps in Singapore that would make it an unsuitable choice for some families, including mine.

 

*sigh* Math wars suck.

 

Tara

[Halcyon]

so will my child who doesn't have problems with the so-called "leaps" of Singapore be bored with MM? He does need more review than SM offers, but only for a few of the topics. Maybe I should just keep on chugging with SM but supplement with some MM blue books. The multiple books of SM are driving me a bit nutso this year, I don't know why. HIG, IP, CWP, Text, WB......Maybe I'm just in a bad mood.

 

Or could be that I'm bored and looking for a change :tongue_smilie: Off to research hair colors instead for a while.....

[boscopup]

so will my child who doesn't have problems with the so-called "leaps" of Singapore be bored with MM? He does need more review than SM offers, but only for a few of the topics. Maybe I should just keep on chugging with SM but supplement with some MM blue books.

 

Not necessarily. You can skip steps if you need to. We certainly have. I've skipped sections or chapters that my son was completely proficient in. Or sometimes I'll just have him do a few problems of a section that is at step B or C, knowing that he really can easily get from A to D on his own. ;)

 

Maybe I'm just bored :tongue_smilie:

 

This is usually my reason for switching curriculum. :D

[Spy Car]

I'm not seeing any so-called "leaps." Like most children (I suspect) mine required some "practice" to get used to doing long-division problems. That was due to needing time spent with seat-work developing procedural competence, and not because of any intellectual or conceptual "leaps" needed to understand the concept of division.

 

Had we "leaped" over the basic practice necessary to develop procedural competence I'm fairly certain we'd have run into problems with the more challenging work in the IP books. While there are evidently exceptional children who don't require any basic practice I am skeptical that many kids can pull this off without finding themselves in trouble.

 

Bill

[Halcyon]

I'm not seeing any so-called "leaps." Like most children (I suspect) mine required some "practice" to get used to doing long-division problems. That was due to needing time spent with seat-work developing procedural competence, and not because of any intellectual or conceptual "leaps" needed to understand the concept of division.

 

Had we "leaped" over the basic practice necessary to develop procedural competence I'm fairly certain we'd have run into problems with the more challenging work in the IP books. While there are evidently exceptional children who don't require any basic practice I am skeptical that many kids can pull this off without finding themselves in trouble.

 

Bill

 

 

This. My son sometimes needs practice simply to get some of the procedure down pat, which is what I suspect is happening with equations involving mixed fractions. He just needs to sit down and do a dozen or more.

[Halcyon]

Not necessarily. You can skip steps if you need to. We certainly have. I've skipped sections or chapters that my son was completely proficient in. Or sometimes I'll just have him do a few problems of a section that is at step B or C, knowing that he really can easily get from A to D on his own. ;)

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks. I'll figure it out. I may just get MM and make a decision. We can always use the practice sheets. BTW, MM is going on sale near THanksgiving.

[shukriyya]

s

Or could be that I'm bored and looking for a change :tongue_smilie: Off to research hair colors instead for a while.....

 

:lol:

 

Lots of discussion here, all very helpful. Singapore for us was too much drill though I suppose I could have cut it in half. Lots of folks here have said that MM is more drill than SM but my after my initial perusal of the curriculum I'm feeling it will work well for us. Halcyon, like you I find the myriad books for SM offputting. The single book for MM is a small part of its appeal. It looks very clear and well laid out.

 

Thanks again, everyone, for sharing your wisdom and experience.

[boscopup]

Lots of discussion here, all very helpful. Singapore for us was too much drill though I suppose I could have cut it in half. Lots of folks here have said that MM is more drill than SM but my after my initial perusal of the curriculum I'm feeling it will work well for us. Halcyon, like you I find the myriad books for SM offputting. The single book for MM is a small part of its appeal. It looks very clear and well laid out.

 

I also love that it's one book (though I sometimes pull out IP and CWP to break things up).

 

MM does have a lot of drill, but you can just do half of the problems if it's a page of drill. Maria Miller says that somewhere in the instructions. I think grade 1 was the worst for that. The upper grades aren't so bad (or in the upper grades, more drill is necessary :tongue_smilie:). In grade 4, I'm assigning most of the problems, whereas in grades 1-3, I wasn't.

 

Just make sure you do the word problems! Much of the "review" in MM is snuck in via word problems. ;)

[Crimson Wife]

I'm not seeing any so-called "leaps." Like most children (I suspect) mine required some "practice" to get used to doing long-division problems. That was due to needing time spent with seat-work developing procedural competence, and not because of any intellectual or conceptual "leaps" needed to understand the concept of division.

 

Again, the problem is in the TEACHING rather than the number of practice problems. MM eases the child into the long-division equation incrementally and provides excellent explanations as to what he/she is doing. It's like wading into the pool from the shallow end. Singapore 3A tosses the kid into the deep end and provides only a little bit of guidance to the teacher as to how to keep the kid from drowning.

 

DD didn't do the 3A IP section on multiplication until after she had already worked through the MM "blue" section on long division, so by that point she had had plenty of procedural practice.

[Alte Veste Academy]

ITA. I used the workbooks and still found the teaching lacking in places. The workbooks added practice, but they don't do any sort of teaching. In particular, the way SM introduced the full long division algorithm without any build-up made my dd's head spin. The incremental (bordering on tediously incremental) instruction in Math Mammoth is very different. It takes a child step-by-step, sometimes by half-steps so that they understand the material thoroughly.

 

That particular chapter in 3A was when I first started supplementing with MM. I'd actually pushed it off as long as I could by doing all the other chapters in 3A and 3B first while DD finished getting her times tables down pat. But we ran out of other topics to do so I had to figure out a way to teach it.

 

Again, the problem is in the TEACHING rather than the number of practice problems. MM eases the child into the long-division equation incrementally and provides excellent explanations as to what he/she is doing. It's like wading into the pool from the shallow end. Singapore 3A tosses the kid into the deep end and provides only a little bit of guidance to the teacher as to how to keep the kid from drowning.

 

OK, I didn't read this thread until this morning. I posted in the s/o thread yesterday. I admire the way MM teaches, as you say, leading from the shallow into the deep. I think it is a fabulous program and it does a great job moving from conceptual to algorithms in baby steps. However, I do also think that is largely a product of all the teaching being in one book, making the student less likely to miss important info or steps in the process.

 

I personally didn't find the introduction of long division to be a leap because there is explicit, concrete instruction in the HIG. So many people skip reading and teaching what's in the HIG. Some people don't even buy them, for Pete's sake. If they're teaching without a hitch, fine for them. But it's unfair to slam SM as a program when you come up against problems if you haven't been reading and applying what's in the HIG. (PP's I do not know if this is you or not, just something I've seen before and drives me nuts!) I'm not saying that using the HIG is going to make SM work for everyone, but for those who aren't using it, it would obviously be helpful. It provides a bridge. Heck, most of the time, the teaching laid out in the HIG is meant to serve as the primary introduction of the topic.

 

If you're expecting the TB to do all the teaching, those conceptual leaps will abound. It's not fair to say that the leaps are a problem with SM though. Nor are they a product of not using the WB or EP. They are most likely a product of not using the HIG, which explicitly instructs me on how to lead my kids through each new topic with manipulatives and practice and word problems...until they get it enough to move on to the WB, IP, etc. I wonder if the people who are having problems with conceptual leaps are sitting down with their kids using the manipulatives that SM describes in the HIG. If that's not your cup of tea, fine, move to MM. But the teaching is there. I admit, sometimes I skip them. My kids don't always need them and prefer the stepping stone style jumps in thinking rather than the incremental path. But when they have any difficulty with a new concept, I pull out the HIG and manipulatives. I wouldn't look for a new program unless the teaching in the HIG wasn't effective.

 

so will my child who doesn't have problems with the so-called "leaps" of Singapore be bored with MM? He does need more review than SM offers, but only for a few of the topics. Maybe I should just keep on chugging with SM but supplement with some MM blue books. The multiple books of SM are driving me a bit nutso this year, I don't know why. HIG, IP, CWP, Text, WB......Maybe I'm just in a bad mood.

 

Or could be that I'm bored and looking for a change :tongue_smilie: Off to research hair colors instead for a while.....

 

:lol: Been there.

 

MM is a cheap investment, whether you use it completely or as a supplement. My oldest quickly bored of MM. It was like the books were doing all the work so his brain stopped working and he started to go on auto-pilot, doing the problems. Because he wasn't having to figure anything out for himself though, he wasn't really learning. I think that's his learning style though. With SM, he reads the TB himself and I usually talk to him about what's in the HIG that isn't obvious from the TB. Even then, he's the one manipulating and working out solutions. I kind of tend to take the HIG stuff and make it more discovery oriented for my kids.

 

I'm at the point in math where I don't want to jump ship from SM for the long haul. It's just not worth it to me. Supplementing is great but switching main math programs gives me a headache.

 

OK, I've had too much coffee and I'm worried this has turned into some kind of psychotic rant, which is not what I intended. I don't know if what I wrote even applies to the people I quoted at this point so apologies! I'm not in your home and I don't know you or your kids. I also don't think SM is the One and Only Perfect Math Curriculum that would work with everyone if only they would try harder. :tongue_smilie: I've just read enough people claiming they don't need or use the HIGs to have a bee in my bonnet on the subject now. :tongue_smilie:

[Spy Car]

Again, the problem is in the TEACHING rather than the number of practice problems. MM eases the child into the long-division equation incrementally and provides excellent explanations as to what he/she is doing. It's like wading into the pool from the shallow end. Singapore 3A tosses the kid into the deep end and provides only a little bit of guidance to the teacher as to how to keep the kid from drowning.

 

I think that is quite an overstatement. "Division" as a concept has already been long introduced before one gets to the procedure of long-division. Including a fair number of exercises in the 3A Workbooks that work on showing that multiplication and division are the inverse of one another (easy problems).

 

I thought the introduction of the terms "quotient" and "remainder" were well explained in the Textbook, although (as is my custom) I worked out the idea using C Rods in addition to the good pictorial illustrations in the materials.

 

As one moves to dividing multi-digit numbers using long-division there isn't any "conceptual leap," as the issue really isn't the "concept of division" it is mostly a matter of learning the procedure of long-division.

 

The "procedure" involved in long-division is notoriously one that has given children problems. That has always been the case. I happen to think Primary Mathematics does a pretty reasonable job teaching this. I also understand how some children might need additional teaching and additional practice to work out how to "do" long-division.

 

If MM (or another resource) helps children and their parent/teachers by taking it a little slower, more incrementally, or by offering alternative explanations, that's great!

 

I just don't see how in any way, shape, or form that children using Primary Mathematics are being thrown into the deep-end to drown. That is quite an overstatement.

 

Bill

[shukriyya]

I also love that it's one book (though I sometimes pull out IP and CWP to break things up).

 

MM does have a lot of drill, but you can just do half of the problems if it's a page of drill. Maria Miller says that somewhere in the instructions. I think grade 1 was the worst for that. The upper grades aren't so bad (or in the upper grades, more drill is necessary :tongue_smilie:). In grade 4, I'm assigning most of the problems, whereas in grades 1-3, I wasn't.

 

Just make sure you do the word problems! Much of the "review" in MM is snuck in via word problems. ;)

 

Thanks, Boscopup. We'll be supplementing with SM CWPs and IP + Zacarro's PGCM and MIRL. Whew, that's a lot of supplements. But still, our spine is only one book :tongue_smilie:

 

And thanks, again, to everyone who is contributing to this wonderfully detailed discussion. I'm learning a lot about the two programs :D

[Halcyon]

 

MM is a cheap investment, whether you use it completely or as a supplement. My oldest quickly bored of MM. It was like the books were doing all the work so his brain stopped working and he started to go on auto-pilot, doing the problems. Because he wasn't having to figure anything out for himself though, he wasn't really learning. I think that's his learning style though. With SM, he reads the TB himself and I usually talk to him about what's in the HIG that isn't obvious from the TB. Even then, he's the one manipulating and working out solutions. I kind of tend to take the HIG stuff and make it more discovery oriented for my kids.

 

I'm at the point in math where I don't want to jump ship from SM for the long haul. It's just not worth it to me. Supplementing is great but switching main math programs gives me a headache.

 

OK, I've had too much coffee and I'm worried this has turned into some kind of psychotic rant, which is not what I intended. I don't know if what I wrote even applies to the people I quoted at this point so apologies! I'm not in your home and I don't know you or your kids. I also don't think SM is the One and Only Perfect Math Curriculum that would work with everyone if only they would try harder. :tongue_smilie: I've just read enough people claiming they don't need or use the HIGs to have a bee in my bonnet on the subject now. :tongue_smilie:

 

 

YOu've described my older to a T. If he just "steps through" the procedures as outlined in a guide, he totally checks out and doesn't THINK. He doesn't like being spoon-fed the answers or even the procedures--he likes to figure them out for himself, after looking through the Textbook. That IS a concern with me for MM--that it's TOO step-by-step and will drive him crazy. I think, if I get it at all, I will get it to supplement those areas where he needs a bit more review, and we'll keep on chugging with SM. Don't change it if it isn't working, right? I mean, the only time he gets annoyed with SM is when I am trying to explain a faster way of doing something (let's say, cross-reducing fractions prior to multiplying). Part of me suspects he'd "get it" on his own down the line anyway.

 

Anyway, my guess is we'll be doing an AOPS/SM tandem course next year, and I think the two are a good fit.

 

Lightbulb moment!!:Maybe I'll chop the bindings off the books and put them all together into one large binder, resorted appropriately.

Edited November 6, 2011 by Halcyon

[justLisa]

 

Lightbulb moment!!:Maybe I'll chop the bindings off the books and put them all together into one large binder, resorted appropriately.

 

:w00t: Do you mean as in the SM textbook and workbook and then interspurse them so there is a textbook lesson followed by appropriate workbook pages?! That never occurred to me but that is a fabulous idea. the ONLY thing DS doesn't like about SM is with 2 books he automatically acts like he has to do twice the amount of work.

[Spy Car]

I quite like having completely separate books. A full-color Textbook that we use in a teacher-intensive fashion, and a separate Workbook that is all student work done independently (or semi-independently, depending on the age and topic).

 

This way we both have very clear expectations about what kind of activity is going to take place. The Workbooks are like "homework." The Textbooks are one-on-one learning time. I would not personally wish to conflate the two.

 

People are different.

 

Bill

[Embassy]

I quite like having completely separate books. A full-color Textbook that we use in a teacher-intensive fashion, and a separate Workbook that is all student work done independently (or semi-independently, depending on the age and topic).

 

:iagree: That is pretty much how we do it too, but my oldest will sometimes work his way through his text without me. But I do like the separate books. I think switching back and forth keeps my child's attention better.