Shred Betty Posted September 20, 2016 Share Posted September 20, 2016 My DD7 and I are working through SM with the HIG, TExtbook, workbook, and intensive Practice usually used as a review but sort of set aside for now, seems a bit challenging. I am enjoying following the HIG schedule by suggested weeks, and doing drill, games, and flash cards on the side as well to help her memorize the add/sub facts. This is going well, she has most of the add. within 10 down cold and is probably 1/3 of the way through the sub facts. She is a great memorizer so if I wanted to follow their recommendation to stop here for a bit I could, but do t want to stop if it's not really that important... I am at the point where my HIG suggests not moving on until all the facts within ten are memorized. How important is it to follow their guide to the letter on this? Thanks! -GG Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spy Car Posted September 20, 2016 Share Posted September 20, 2016 My DD7 and I are working through SM with the HIG, TExtbook, workbook, and intensive Practice usually used as a review but sort of set aside for now, seems a bit challenging. I am enjoying following the HIG schedule by suggested weeks, and doing drill, games, and flash cards on the side as well to help her memorize the add/sub facts. This is going well, she has most of the add. within 10 down cold and is probably 1/3 of the way through the sub facts. She is a great memorizer so if I wanted to follow their recommendation to stop here for a bit I could, but do t want to stop if it's not really that important... I am at the point where my HIG suggests not moving on until all the facts within ten are memorized. How important is it to follow their guide to the letter on this? Thanks! -GG Personally, I think it is very poor advice. Remember the HIG was not written by the authors of Primary Mathematics, but an American author associated with a US online distributor. In the main her books are quite good, but there are a few areas where I think she is off. One was the choice of Linking Rods as the main manipulative instead of Cuisenaire Rods, which was a catastrophically bad decision IMO. Another was to "stop and memorize" addition and subtraction facts, when the Singapore way is to learn them through use (and through such things as working number bonds). Drill and memorization is a good way to cement learned facts (after they are learned the slow way), but memorizing truncates work built into the program that is there for a reason. I think the HIG is dead-wrong on this point. Not just wrong, but detrimentally wrong. Against this point, there are many upsides to using the HIG (which is a valuable resource). Bill 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sneezyone Posted September 20, 2016 Share Posted September 20, 2016 (edited) Both of my kids used SM beginning with 1st grade. Neither had the facts down cold until they had to (i.e. for more complex problems). DS didn't master them until he needed them for double digit addition/subtraction in grade 2 and DD didn't truly master her multiplication facts until grade 4; she was counting up from known multiples. I think that's normal. Both of mine test in the upper 90th percentile for math and I have never held them back for memorization issues. The beauty of SM is that they can solve problems even without rote memorization. They understand concepts well enough that they don't have to rely solely on their memory. Edited September 20, 2016 by Sneezyone 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shred Betty Posted September 21, 2016 Author Share Posted September 21, 2016 Personally, I think it is very poor advice. Remember the HIG was not written by the authors of Primary Mathematics, but an American author associated with a US online distributor. In the main her books are quite good, but there are a few areas where I think she is off. One was the choice of Linking Rods as the main manipulative instead of Cuisenaire Rods, which was a catastrophically bad decision IMO. *snip* Thank you! I haven't bought /had a need for the rods yet so it's great to have that recommendation ahead of time! Both of my kids used SM beginning with 1st grade. Neither had the facts down cold until they had to (i.e. for more complex problems). DS didn't master them until he needed them for double digit addition/subtraction in grade 2 and DD didn't truly master her multiplication facts until grade 4; she was counting up from known multiples. I think that's normal. Both of mine test in the upper 90th percentile for math and I have never held them back for memorization issues. The beauty of SM is that they can solve problems even without rote memorization. They understand concepts well enough that they don't have to rely solely on their memory. awesome :) thanks for the pep talk! We will proceed and I'll keep up the practice on the side, thanks! It is so great to get to check others' ideas/experience on this board. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spy Car Posted September 21, 2016 Share Posted September 21, 2016 Thank you! I haven't bought /had a need for the rods yet so it's great to have that recommendation ahead of time! All the HIG exercises involving linking cubes can be translated into C Rod work, and will be better for the transposition. C Rods perfectly represent the Singapore Math Model, being both concrete "number bonds" and the best precursor for the bar diagram method. Cuisenaire Rods (plus base-10 "flats" to represent 100 values) are a fantastic addition to Singapore math. Bill 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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