Singapore Math Advice?

[Newlearner]

In the past week I have had two different people rave to me about Singapore math.  Is anyone here familiar?  What are your thoughts on educating young children with Singapore math?  Can you recommend any quality (and hopefully free) resources?  Or is there a good case to be made to not teach Singapore math to American children who will be subject to American education designed exams?

[forty-two]

Welcome to the board!  I use Singapore Primary Math (aka elementary math; it covers grade 1 through grade 6) with my kids; my older two have finished it (my middle just recently).  I think it is a strong conceptual program, and is especially good at developing mental math and problem solving skills; I've been pleased with the results.

WRT potential mismatch issues between a Singaporean program and American exams, I have two thoughts.  One is that it's mostly only an issue if you intend to test every year in elementary - it's possible that some US tests might cover some things a bit earlier than Singapore, and if you test a lot in the middle of the elementary math sequence you could get caught in a few of those.  (As well, there are a few things that US schools tend to cover in elementary, such as introducing negative numbers, that Primary Math doesn't cover.) If that is a strong concern, then the solution would be to do the Common Core edition of Primary Math - it has added to and rearranged the original sequence to mesh with Common Core standards. 

But my other thought is that, for the most part, elementary math is elementary math.  In the end, both US math and Singapore math cover all the standard elementary math topics - any little differences in sequence doesn't matter once you've finished.  As well, one of the benefits of homeschooling is that we aren't tied to American school testing schedules, especially not in elementary.  It doesn't *matter* that we do something ahead or behind of "the school norm" - we can fly through what our particular children find easy and spend extended time on what our particular children find hard.

Singapore Math, while fairly low cost as far as it goes for math programs, isn't free (you can find it on singaporemath.com (the American distributer) and rainbowresource.com (a large online homeschooling bookstore)).  If free is needed, two well-regarded free programs are MEP math and Ray's Arithmetic.  MEP (Mathematics Enhancement Programme) is a UK program, and takes a very conceptual, puzzle-math kind of approach.  (As an fyi, Reception is K4 and Year 1 is K.)  Ray's Arithmetic, otoh, is a popular program from the 1800s that is in the public domain.

[daijobu]

I used Singapore Math US edition, levels 1-5 1-6.  It's a solid curriculum, that despite its name, presents the standard algorithms that should be familiar to most Americans, but with a little more depth and explanation about why they work.  I encourage you not to gloss over those explanations, but really make those lessons hands on.  

We then switched to AoPS Prealgebra without any problems.   

Edited December 16, 2020 by daijobu

[Clemsondana]

We used Singapore Math for elementary school, and it was a good fit for both of my kids.  It does a good job of helping kids 'see' the regroupings, so my kids were far better at mental math than I was as a student.  My younger had to do yearly basic skills standardized testing starting in 2nd or 3rd and there were no problems.  

[wendyroo]

I think that American standardized math scores make it pretty clear that the standard American math curriculum leaves a lot to be desired. My husband and I are both engineers with higher degrees and we are fully committed to giving our kids a better math education than they would get in the local schools (where only 28% of 6th graders meet the math standards!!).

Singapore is an amazing curriculum, but certainly not the only one that offers a rigorous, conceptual, Asian style math education. For an easy to implement, lower cost alternative, you could look at Math Mammoth. For a free, but teacher-intensive option, you could look at MEP. 

[kbutton]

We used Primary Math US edition, and while I loved it, I would do one of the newer versions. We found that the "missing" topics in the US Edition, while not damaging, did bog us a down a little later when we had to move to pre-algebra. I chose it specifically to keep a more narrow focus as my older son was really stressed and need that, but I should've switched to the broader Singapore offerings sooner. Dimensions Math is their latest offering, and I am not sure how many boardies have used it yet. 

I would echo what Wendy says about Math Mammoth. Rather than spend a lot more to get the updated Singapore stuff for my second kiddo, I switched him to Math Mammoth at some point and watched for a sale. Math Mammoth was a really good fit for him. He's following it up with Dimensions Math 7 and 8 from Singapore. DM 7 and MM 7 cover the same stuff, but DM is a bit more challenging. I kind of wish I had tossed the DM workbook at him while he was working through MM, but I didn't think of it. He's ahead by a year, so I think it's going to be fine--he'll cover Algebra I, a lot of geometry, and some probability by the time he completes DM 8. 

If you still have quite young ones, Miquon is also a very inexpensive but solid option. 

Also, keep in mind that you can customize the baseline SM textbook plus workbook with the various options--Extra Practice, Intensive Practice, Challenging Word Problems, and the Fan-math Process Skills in Problem Solving books. They all offer different roles to play depending on the student needs. 

[SilverMoon]

Fwiw, when most homeschoolers say Singapore math they mean the specific curriculum from www.singaporemath.com rather than a style, so you won't find much for free materials other than the samples on that website. 🙂 Primary Mathematics shows up at my local used bookstores regularly too. 

My youngest two have used SM regularly and it's worked fabulously for them. One of them is the mathiest kid in the house and the other one is naturally good at math but has a lousy attitude about it. Both of them were/are the type of kid who worked best with more than one math curriculum every year, but it's plenty by itself if you're using the Home Instructor Guide. If you find it moves too quickly for your kids you might take a look at Math in Focus instead, which teaches very similarly but breaks concepts into smaller pieces. 

Neither of these two SM users have had a standardized American exam, but I have no doubts they'd do well in a math portion for their grade. From what I've seen of same-grade kids distance learning on friends' fb, they are more likely to be bored than struggle with standard "american" math. (Does that sound rude? I don't mean it that way. They're strong math kids.)

Edited December 16, 2020 by SilverMoon

[Not_a_Number]

44 minutes ago, kbutton said:

We found that the "missing" topics in the US Edition, while not damaging, did bog us a down a little later when we had to move to pre-algebra.

What were the missing topics, out of curiosity? And how did they bog you down? 

[wendyroo]

18 minutes ago, kbutton said:

Also, keep in mind that you can customize the baseline SM textbook plus workbook with the various options--Extra Practice, Intensive Practice, Challenging Word Problems, and the Fan-math Process Skills in Problem Solving books. They all offer different roles to play depending on the student needs. 

This is very true and exactly what we did for the brief time my oldest used Singapore. However, this obviously greatly increases the cost of the program. To challenge my son at an appropriate level we needed to use the workbook, the textbook, Intensive Practice and Process Skills. For a parent who did not already feel comfortable with conceptual math methods, I would also recommend the Home Instructor's Guide.

[kbutton]

Just now, Not_a_Number said:

What were the missing topics, out of curiosity? And how did they bog you down? 

I don't think the US Edition uses variables at all. They don't do negative numbers. I would have to compare things side by side with Math Mammoth to see what else, but it all added up when we hit DM 7. It wasn't like the foundation wasn't there, it's just that DM 7 has so much in it (especially if you want to use the WB) that it didn't really leave time to go back and spend a little extra time on those topics. It might have been less of a big deal for my second son, but I wasn't taking any chances after my first one really started slowing down, so we started MM after doing US Edition 5. 

[kbutton]

1 minute ago, wendyroo said:

This is very true and exactly what we did for the brief time my oldest used Singapore. However, this obviously greatly increases the cost of the program. To challenge my son at an appropriate level we needed to use the workbook, the textbook, Intensive Practice and Process Skills. For a parent who did not already feel comfortable with conceptual math methods, I would also recommend the Home Instructor's Guide.

One of mine used the TB and IP. The other used the TB and the WB, but not the IP. 

[Not_a_Number]

6 minutes ago, kbutton said:

I don't think the US Edition uses variables at all. They don't do negative numbers. I would have to compare things side by side with Math Mammoth to see what else, but it all added up when we hit DM 7. It wasn't like the foundation wasn't there, it's just that DM 7 has so much in it (especially if you want to use the WB) that it didn't really leave time to go back and spend a little extra time on those topics. It might have been less of a big deal for my second son, but I wasn't taking any chances after my first one really started slowing down, so we started MM after doing US Edition 5. 

Ooooooooh. I was thinking it might have been something less important like "naming weird shapes" or something like that, but those are SERIOUS omissions. Those are both concepts that are worth introducing early so they can marinate. 

Edited December 16, 2020 by Not_a_Number

[kbutton]

1 minute ago, Not_a_Number said:

Ooooooooh. I was thinking it might have been something less important like "naming weird shapes" or something like that, but those are SERIOUS omissions. Those are both concepts that are worth introducing early so they can marinate. 

The negative numbers are something my kids figured out on their own, but we didn't do operations with them much.

I think they do name weird shapes but maybe not to the extent they do in other programs.

I wasn't introduced to negative numbers until I had pre-algebra. 

Variables--they do some conceptual work that gets them ready, and they do bar models, which helps with setting up problems, but it could be more robust.

Lots of people go from US edition to AOPS on here (or did when I was starting), so I just didn't think much of it until we were bogged down.

Anyway, they have multiple options at this point that do cover those things. 🙂 

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, kbutton said:

I wasn't introduced to negative numbers until I had pre-algebra. 

Variables--they do some conceptual work that gets them ready, and they do bar models, which helps with setting up problems, but it could be more robust.

I like doing those early in an unstressed way, to help them sink in without any time pressure. So not having those would be a serious problem for me, personally. 

[EKS]

We loved the Primary Mathematics Standards Edition.  We switched to it because the textbook was in full color (ridiculous, I know, but if that's all it takes to alleviate crankiness, I'm all for it!).

If you're going to use Singapore math, I highly recommend that you read/work through the book Elementary Mathematics for Teachers first.  Any math program is only as good as the teacher teaching it.

[Clemsondana]

We used the Standards edition and it had both negative numbers and variables.  I don't remember what year each was introduced.  

[Porridge]

DS did Standards 1-5 and is now doing Dimensions 6. Both variables and negative numbers were touched on in standards 5 and reviewed in greater depth in Dimensions 6.

[alisha]

You have to be careful when you say "singapore math", because, that is both a style and a brand. As SilverMoon mentioned, the curriculum, "Singapore Math" (singaporemath.com) has 2 branches of the elementary program-US and Standards. Each has 1 workbook and 1 textbook per semester, plus any teacher manual (there is a homeschool one, and a regular one-both very expensive from what I remember), and any supplemental workbooks you choose (challenging word problems is the most popular).

However, the style of singapore math can be found in other curriculums such as Math Mammoth, Math in Focus and probably others, as well as Singapore Math. 

 

 

[caffeineandbooks]

Another difference between Singapore and the US (and many other countries) is that in Singapore the curriculum instructs the teachers *how* to teach the concept, whereas in the US etc that would be seen as talking down to teachers and restricting their professional freedom.  It can be a real advantage of the Singapore approach (Primary Mathematics) for homeschoolers who are not trained math teachers though: you can buy a Home Instructor Guide to use alongside it, which gives specific, almost scripted lessons and activities designed to help one or two students at a time.  It's not essential but I do highly recommend it to hold your hand and ensure that the kids are understanding the concepts, not just copying the examples and plugging in different numbers.