Primary Math

[rose]

Greetings all. I haven't been here for awhile but I wanted to pop in and get some help.

Here's my math history. I've been a big mep fan-girl and used it from y2 through gcse with my oldest. I've been working with it for my younger school aged children and am growing frustrated with it's weaknesses. It is an excellent program but I feel like it rushes into way too much abstract problem solving too early. There are too many exercise types and too much variety. My younger children are coming along through it but I'm finding it so teacher heavy because of all the variety. Now that I have so many littles I just can't spend 45 minutes a day with each child. I don't mind teaching but I need something that the children will understand to some extent what they're supposed to be doing when they face the days problem set.

I really hate the look of R&S. It looks SO dry. I love math and I want a program that helps a child think and not just how to do the work. That said, I'm not sure grade 1 is the place to start this. Maybe getting some of the facts under their belt and then starting a conceptual program is the way to go. I'm undecided.

Math-u-see doesn't really appeal to me either. I don't like doing a whole year of fractions. I can pull out manipulatives if I need them. Basically it looks cheap to me.

As a side consideration, I would appreciate a program that is non-consumable if at all possible. I hate the waste and I have a lot of up and coming students. We're also considering missionary work in a very poor country so the fewer books we need to take the better an reordering might be difficult.

I also have a younger child with significant delays. I've been thinking of doing something like Strayer-Upton just because it's a getter-done sort of program that we can do at his pace.

I'm seriously considering Saxon but I'll probably switch back to MEP for middle school but maybe not.

In summary:

What I like about MEP:

• teaches mental math very effectively
• doesn't just coach children to use standard algorithms but helps them understand what they're actually doing
• doesn't just have pages full of drill
• conceptual
• free
• non-consumable
• metric (I'm in Canada)

What I don't like about MEP:

• too teacher intense
• too abstract early on
• too much variety in the primary years; the children get confused

Suggestions?

[birchbark]

I was going to recommend Strayer-Upton. Here's my review: http://unembellishedliving.com/?p=1297

 

 

[rose]

2 minutes ago, Æthelthryth the Texan said:

Hi Rose, good to see you.

I can't weigh in on the merits of what to use, but just will say, early Saxon is consumable fwiw- K-3. It's two student books, and a Meeting Book. You could reuse the flash cards for sure, but I think those come with the students books anyway. The only thing reusable is the TM. Starting with around 4th grade you could go non-consumable with 5/4, or Intermediate 4. Actually, I think you can get Intermediate 3. But honestly if you've been using MEP, you could totally jump into Saxon at 3 or 4 pretty easily.

Rainbow Resource has a very comprehensive review of the Saxon level comparisons- 5/4 vs Intermediate, etc. if you are interested. 

Thanks! I'm not sure if I'm going to find a perfect fit or if any non-consumable primary texts except the vintage ones and MEP (and it's consumable when it really comes down to it) even exist.

We're using MEP but not at grade level. My 9yo is in the middle of y2 and my 7yo is in the middle of y1. I feel like 9yo would be capable of doing more difficult problems if the abstract stuff was removed. One of my older children had this issue too. She would cry every time she saw a table and took the longest time to figure out how to write the algebraic rule for the problem. Can even 10% of six year olds figure out a problem like this?:

a 9 7 6 _  4 9

b 3 5 _ 8  _ _

Write the rule for the table three different ways: (expected answer: a+b=12, 12-a=b, 12-b=a)

[smfmommy]

Have you looked at Mathematical Reasoning (Critical Thinking Plus)?  It is very consumable but the problems are often more puzzle like, so similar to MEP in that respect.

[Ellie]

12 hours ago, rose said:

I really hate the look of R&S. It looks SO dry. I love math and I want a program that helps a child think and not just how to do the work. That said, I'm not sure grade 1 is the place to start this. Maybe getting some of the facts under their belt and then starting a conceptual program is the way to go. I'm undecided.

Have you actually read through the oral lessons in the teacher's manual? And through a whole first grade workbook? R&S is a master at helping children learn to think. It just does it without fanfare.

Here's a long review from a friend, which she might even have posted here long ago, but it was long ago and I didn't keep the reference, lol.

Quote

 

Rod and Staff is a traditional math program, more similar to the math programs used in the 50s and 60s to many of the programs used today. These were excellent math programs, and most would acknowledge that Americans were better at math when we used these traditional math programs than students are today who are using all of these programs that are emphasizing “conceptual understanding” every step of the way. Traditionally, math was taught with the classical model, where there was more emphasis on drill and memorization in the early years, with an increase in conceptual understanding or analysis occurring each year. R&S does teach conceptual understanding, but it is quite difficult to see until you are perhaps 2 or 3 months into the program because it is done in the early years with little baby steps.

The best example I can think of this is the instruction with fractions. My daughter’s understanding of fractions, now in the fourth grade, is absolutely wonderful. Rod and Staff began with the traditional dividing of shapes into halves and thirds and fourths in the second grade, and also advancing to two-thirds or three-fourths, and the idea the three-thirds or four-fourths equals one. In the third grade, they apply this knowledge to math in all types of contexts - what is one half of a foot, what is one-fourth of a pound, what is one-fourth of a dollar? What is three-fourths of a dollar? This is done pretty much, off and on in the daily lesson, all year long, and is seen in MANY word problems. My daughter really understood fractions and applying them to numbers and real problems.

Then you move to fourth grade, and they introduce counting by halves, by fourths, and by eighth, using a ruler as a visual aid at first. So they count 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, 1, 1 1/4, 1 1/2, etc. and also 1/8, 1/4, 3/8, 1/2, 5/8, 3/4, 7/8, 1. After doing this exercise for several days, they do equivalent fractions, but it is almost not necessary to explain anything, because they have already figured out that 4/8 = 1/2 and that 2/8 = 1/4 because of the counting exercises. They just now learn the algorithm that shows that this same logic can apply to numbers which can’t be visualized, such as 27/36. By the time my daughter reached the lesson where they taught how add fractions, she already ‘understood’ that you could just add the numerators of like fractions, but that you couldn’t do that with a fractions like 1/8 + 1/4, but that you needed a common denominator. This understanding was about 2 months in the developing and it would have been difficult to see by just flipping through the book.

Somewhere around this general timeframe, they are also doing long division and giving remainders as an answer, but combining it with word problems so that it is obvious why the remainder is actually a fraction such as “3 boys share 4 peaches. How many peaches will each boy get? What part of the remaining peach will they get?” After a couple lessons with word problems like this, they have division problems where they are supposed to give their answer with the remainder as a fraction, and they are then introduced to the term “mixed numbers.”

So, yes, I would say there is wonderful teaching in R&S that leads to conceptual understanding, it is just done in a different way than many modern math programs, and that it occurs very slowly in the lower grades. Because there is a strong emphasis in the primary grades on drill, particularly fact drill, people often get this misperception of R&S, especially if they look primarily at the student workbooks or text instead of at the TM. The real lesson and the real learning takes place in the daily lesson at the whiteboard. The workbook and/or textbook is mainly just review problems and/or drill.

I recommend that you read this article which is linked on The Mathematically Correct Web page by Dr. H. Wu called “Basic Skills Versus Conceptual Understanding: A False Dichotomy in Mathematics Education.” This article will help you understand why it is essential that students get plenty of drill and review as well as lessons that work towards conceptual understanding; and also why conceptual understanding can only get you so far - no one can visualize a problem such as 2/97 divided by 31/17; eventually a student must become fluent with the algorithms, which means to have them memorized to the point of automaticity. This only happens with drill and review.

 

Edited July 12, 2020 by Ellie

[kiwik]

Math Mammoth.

[Xahm]

I agree that Math Mammoth hits most of the things you want. It's cheap rather than free, but I think there's a metric-only version. Each day has some variety, but no where near the amount of MEP.

[kiwik]

There is an international version that is metric and use can choose your currency.