BlessedMom Posted July 13, 2008 Share Posted July 13, 2008 Can you please tell me more about how each component of Singapore Math functions? What books are necessary & why? Which books are optional & why? Textbook Workbook Intensive Practice Teachers Guide Home Instructors Guide Challenging Word Problems What is the difference between Standard Edition & US Edition? Which do you recommend? I am wanting to add this to Horizons Math 1. My child did Horizons Math K very easily. It has been recommended that I begin with level 1A. Am I safe to assume that starting with 1A would give us a good foundation in Singapore's approach to math? Is the teaching approach much different than Horizon? Is adding this going to give us more of a challenge or just more of the same? Thanks for your time! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kailuamom Posted July 13, 2008 Share Posted July 13, 2008 Can you please tell me more about how each component of Singapore Math functions?What books are necessary & why? Which books are optional & why? Textbook Workbook Intensive Practice Teachers Guide Home Instructors Guide Challenging Word Problems What is the difference between Standard Edition & US Edition? Which do you recommend? I am wanting to add this to Horizons Math 1. My child did Horizons Math K very easily. It has been recommended that I begin with level 1A. Am I safe to assume that starting with 1A would give us a good foundation in Singapore's approach to math? Is the teaching approach much different than Horizon? Is adding this going to give us more of a challenge or just more of the same? Thanks for your time! From reading through the Singapore site and using the books, I think to get full advantage of the Singapore program they recommend that you use the Textbook, Workbook and then the Challenging Word Problems and/or the Intensive practice (I think they suggest "and" rather than "or"). For the younger years, though, I used just the Text, Workbook, and Extra Practice. We started the CWP later. The Home Instructor's Guide came about as a response to the overwhelming homeschool use. It is written to the parent and gives teaching tips, etc., as well as the answers and a rough schedule of when to do what. The Teacher's Guide is what they had prior to the HIG and is written more for classroom use. I found the HIG more useful in the later years. For 1 and even 2 it is pretty easy math and not hard to correct yourself. You may want it for extra activity suggestions. The guides are optional, though. The US Edition includes standard measurement (not just metric) and US money. The standard edition is written for students in Singapore and doesn't include those. I would recommend the US edition. I have not used Horizons, but I think starting at 1A would be best because Singaore teaches the kids to look at math problems in a different manner than most US programs. I have used Singapore 1 - 3 with all of my kids and they really liked it. My ds is using Singapore 1A now and loves it. He is young, though, so we are only doing the workbook. He did the Singaore K program and wanted to continue. HTH! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myrtle Posted July 13, 2008 Share Posted July 13, 2008 Can you please tell me more about how each component of Singapore Math functions?What books are necessary & why? Which books are optional & why? Textbook Workbook Intensive Practice Teachers Guide Home Instructors Guide Challenging Word Problems What is the difference between Standard Edition & US Edition? Which do you recommend? I am wanting to add this to Horizons Math 1. My child did Horizons Math K very easily. It has been recommended that I begin with level 1A. Am I safe to assume that starting with 1A would give us a good foundation in Singapore's approach to math? Is the teaching approach much different than Horizon? Is adding this going to give us more of a challenge or just more of the same? Thanks for your time! The Challenging Word Problems will be a challenge! The textbook will guide you as to how to think about the problem itself. After presenting a lesson it will then give some basic practice problems. The workbook is only problems, but the problems they present in an exercise set tend to be more varied than the problems in the text. The text also has an exercise set consisting of review problems from prior topics, the workbook does not. The workbook, on the other hand, has practice tests. Intensive Practice is not part of the official Singapore program used in the schools. It's a supplement that Singapore parents would buy at their equivalent of WalMart. It has some very "good" problems in it, they require more clever thinking than the regular Singapore text, but sometimes some of the problems seem like they aren't as well thought out as the regular text. Because of these super-stumpers I sometimes refer to Intensive Pratice as "honors" Singapore. Challenging Word Problems is awesome. It's a book entirely full of word problems based on the topic. The first grade level is not very good, but the second grade level is. At the beginning of each topic they will demonstrate the use of the Singapore bar model and you can copy and tweak that when solving word problems. This is where you learn bar models from. I don't use the "guides" so I can't say what's in those. I was able to follow the instruction to the children in the textbook well enough to teach it without help. (I did need to go to outside help once in the sixth grade though) The bare bones of this program are: textbook, workbook The next thing I would get would be Challenging Word problems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nmoira Posted July 13, 2008 Share Posted July 13, 2008 The HIG's approximate the teaching that would have gone on in a Singapore classroom prior to the children looking at the text. They are similar to the TG's, which are for classroom use. Extra Practice has additional problems at about the level of the workbook Intensive Practice has revision questions at the level of the textbook (but often formulated in a novel way), and a series of more challenging questions and word problems. IP is ideal for high ability students CWP has worked example problems, lots of additional problems a bit more advanced than the workbook, and Challenging questions that are more difficult than those in the IP Compared to the US Edition, the Standards Edition has: a few new topics (most, if not all, taken from an older version of Primary Math); some topics rearranged; color textbooks; no Singaporean cultural references. Here's the comparison chart. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Targhee Posted July 13, 2008 Share Posted July 13, 2008 Can you please tell me more about how each component of Singapore Math functions? I'm not sure what you mean by component, but if you mean book it is addressed below. What books are necessary & why? The Student Textbook and Workbook are necessary - they contain the instruction for the student and the practice exercises. Which books are optional & why? Any other books are optional. Textbook - required Workbook - required Intensive Practice - optional, used for reinforcement Teachers Guide - not necessary, this is for a classroom setting Home Instructors Guide - optional, this is if you need answer key, help in teaching concepts - most people don't use it until you get to level 3 Challenging Word Problems - optional, used to "challenge" to student with more difficult problems What is the difference between Standard Edition & US Edition? Which do you recommend? US edition is the Singapore book adapted for US measures and conventions. The Standards edition is similar but includes a little bit more material and in slightly different order so that it could meet the CA state standards for adoption as a text. It has been recommended that I begin with level 1A. Am I safe to assume that starting with 1A would give us a good foundation in Singapore's approach to math? You may see some overlap, but it is easy to move ahead quickly if your child already has the concept down. I am not familiar with Horizon math, but my guess is you are right about starting at 1A to get the foundation there for him. Is the teaching approach much different than Horizon? Not sure - sorry Is adding this going to give us more of a challenge or just more of the same? I don't know for sure, but it will add more work in the day. Singapore is meant to be a complete math program, so you'll have to determine how you will combine these to reduce redundancy and not turn your child off to math because of all the math work. HTH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myrtle Posted July 13, 2008 Share Posted July 13, 2008 One more thing, I attribute the Singapore Bar Models as the approach that helped prepare my son for full blown algebra in the 6th grade, since he finished the entire arithmetic series early. This article talks about how bar models work and explains the connection to algebra. My son was completely familiar with the concept of "unknowns" in multiple step problems and as a result of this and calling it "x" was not a leap at all for him but just a tiny step. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JaneGrey Posted July 14, 2008 Share Posted July 14, 2008 Why don't you use the placement test to see what level is appropriate? It's here: http://www.singaporemath.com/Placement_Test_s/86.htm (Specifically, these are the tests to place into levels 1A and up.) Who knows: you might be able to skip Level 1A. If you're using this to supplement Horizons, why not just get the textbook? The workbook seems to just have extra exercises for lessons covered in the textbook. See description (of 1A workbook) here: http://www.singaporemath.com/Primary_Mathematics_Workbook_1A_STD_ED_p/pmstdw1a.htm If you find that extra exercises are necessary, get the workbook. In what I've seen, the textbook still has lots of problems to go through. I'm thinking of the $. Did you look at the samples on their website? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Closeacademy Posted July 14, 2008 Share Posted July 14, 2008 Can you please tell me more about how each component of Singapore Math functions?What books are necessary & why? Which books are optional & why? Textbook necessary because you need it to teach the course. Workbook necessary because this is where all the work is. Intensive Practice optional some use it rather than the workbook. Teachers Guide You don't need this one it is for the classroom. Home Instructors Guide Optional before level 3 or 4. Challenging Word Problems Optional before level 3 or 4 but some use it as a supplement to other programs. What is the difference between Standard Edition & US Edition? Which do you recommend? The standard edition is written to California State standards. I have heard some good things about it in that it has plenty of review but it costs more. Hope this helps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Testimony Posted July 14, 2008 Share Posted July 14, 2008 Textbook=required Workbook=required Intensive Practice=more intense than the problems in the workbook Teachers Guide=more designed for a public classroom Home Instructors Guide=designed for homeschoolers Challenging Word Problems=very challenging. I would go one grade lower What is the difference between Standard Edition & US Edition? The standard edition (which I liked) had more Asian names and the metric system. The US edition is more for the USA. I do not know if you can get the standard anymore. At least not through Rainbow Resources. Is the teaching approach much different than Horizon? I don't know Horizon math. Blessings in your homeschool journey! Sincerely, Karen http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/testimony Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kate in Arabia Posted July 14, 2008 Share Posted July 14, 2008 What is the difference between Standard Edition & US Edition? The standard edition (which I liked) had more Asian names and the metric system. The US edition is more for the USA. There are now three "variants" out there, as outlined in Moira's link above: Third Edition (1998), which I think you are referring to as the "standard edition", is the "original", with Singapore currency, names, fruits, metric system, British spellings. US Edition (2003) has US currency, metric and US measurements, and a mix of Asian and US names, fruits, etc. Standards Edition (2008) was a revision recently done to align the Singapore books more closely with California requirements. The topics have been rearranged some, and some things added; more review of earlier concepts; less or no Asian references. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
summer Posted July 14, 2008 Share Posted July 14, 2008 I get the workbook, textbook, and answer key. The rest are suppliments. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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