Math U See vs Singapore

[aready]

I am looking at two different Math ideas for next year. I have heard people talk about Math U See and Singapore. What are the pros/cons of either of these. And what are their differences?

 

I am not sure what kind of learner my dd is, but it is either visual or auditory. I can't exactly tell. If there is a way to tell this can someone let me know? I think she might fall somewhere in between.

 

Thanks again! You guys are such a great help!!! I am SO glad I found these boards!

-Amy

[Sunshine State Sue]

I like Cathy Duffy's books to help determine learning style. In the elementary grades, we used MUS and supplemented with Singapore's CWP.

 

People say MUS is multi-sensory and so appeals to a number of kids. I think MUS is a solid, logical, straightforward program easy on the parent. It is weak on word problems, has no color, and not a lot of variety.

 

I *think* Singapore appeals to a more visual learner (don't quote me). IMO, Singapore is a fabulous program for teaching mathematical thinking. I found it difficult to teach because it was so different from the way I had been taught. I tried to use the workbook/textbook in 2nd grade, but failed. I started supplementing with CWP later and loved it.

 

I have written a detailed review of MUS. You may read it in this thread.

 

HTH!

[ElizabethB]

MUS is easier to teach, and the blocks were helpful for my daughter at the beginning. I love the way MUS does fractions, I'll buy their fractions book when we get there and supplement our Singapore with it.

 

I thing Singapore is better at teaching underlying math concepts and teaching the same concept in several different ways. It's also more interesting for my daughter--she likes that it teaches in different ways and she also thrives on the puzzle type problems. Although she's not great at math overall, she's good at puzzles so loves the puzzle-type challenging problems in Singapore's Intensive Practice (IP) workbooks.

 

I haven't found Singapore that hard to teach yet, but we're still on 1st grade math. The Instructor Guides you can buy are helpful, they should make it fairly easy to teach if you need math help at higher levels.

[AngieW in Texas]

MUS and Singapore are about as different from each other as two math programs can possibly be.

 

MUS was a flaming disaster here. I used it only with my oldest. The problem she had with it was that she memorized her way through it. Because my dd could repeat all the explanations verbatim and got all the answers right on the worksheets, I thought she was learning. But she was actually just going through the motions. We didn't realize that until she got to subtraction with regrouping. That's when she finally had to apply what she was supposed to have learned. I talked to my rep, but the only advice she had was to drill my dd on the math facts. The math facts weren't a problem at all. The problem was that my dd had an amazing memory and used that to get the answers rather than learning the concepts.

 

If you've ever seen a kid who's a phenomenal reader and then suddenly begins struggling in 2nd or 3rd grades, it's a similar deal. That kid memorized words without learning the phonetic concepts behind them. He could only read as many words as he could memorize. Anything beyond those words was nonsense to him.

 

I found Miquon and switched my dd to that, starting at the beginning. It was amazing. She couldn't memorize her way through it. She learned the concepts through the patterns of the worksheets. We found that she was really very good at math. After Miquon, she did Singapore, starting with 3A.

 

Singapore is a great program. I still prefer to use Miquon first and then switch to Singapore, because Miquon is a unique program and it teaches things in a completely different way. My youngest could deal with Miquon because of her visual processing issues, so she did Singapore from the beginning.

 

Singapore is great for visual learners, math-intuitive kids, and kids who think outside the box. As long as they're any one of the three, it's likely to work for them. My oldest is visual and thinks outside the box, but is not math-intuitive. My middle is visual and math-intuitive, but absolutely thinks in straight lines. My youngest is math-intuitive, but an auditory learner, a straight-line thinker, and dyslexic.

 

Miquon and Singapore both teach several ways to arrive at an answer and use more than just one visual/manipulative. MUS uses the rods and only the rods and nothing but the rods. If the rods don't do it, you're sunk.

 

I do know several families who swear by MUS. Nothing else worked for their kids. I know that MUS works great for some. It just didn't work here.

[Spy Car]

Would you expect your daughter is one who grasps concepts quickly, who likes fresh challenges, whose mind and personality run kind of "fast", and whose strongest quality isn't patience?

 

Or do concepts either come slower, or is she the type that really likes to dig into one thing and really (really) know it before moving on. Either one who is a patient (leading toward sightly-obsessive type) learner, or one who perhaps has some learning challenges and a slow build of skills would be more appropriate than accelerated exposure to multiple concepts?

 

The above is admittedly somewhat overly simplified. But if a child ran strongly one way or the other it would strongly influence the curriculum I would use with them.

 

Bill

[Pongo]

I use BOTH with my ds. I used only Singapore for my oldest gifted math student, it was to abstract, to soon for my ds. So, I teach the concept using MUS and a few of the corresponding workbook pages using the manipulatives. Then, I move onto Singapore and we work through it. If it gets a bit hard we go back to the concrete method of MUS. Until last year he was a grade level behind in Singapore, something must have clicked this year because he is in 3rd and doing Delta from MUS and is completing Singapore 3B. He flew through almost 2 years of math in 1 year.

I like them both...equally:)

[yslek]

That's funny, AngieW...I had the complete opposite experience with my ds (B). Miquon was a total disaster. We got most of the way through the second book (with an increase in tears over math as time went on) before it became clear that he did not get place value at all. MUS was a lifesaver for this boy. He does not intuit very well, but thrives when he starts off with a clear explanation before working problems.

 

This leads me to what I was going to tell the op of this thread (which the pps have mentioned as well), that the success of a given math program really depends on the child.

 

MUS is great for kids who need clear explanations, need to focus on learning one concept at a time (though there are review pages, to keep older concepts fresh), like a predicatable format, and prefer b&w uncluttered pages. The manipulatives are also helpful for kinesthetic and visual learners.

 

For children who like variety and color, MUS is a poor choice. T is like this. I started using MUS with him, and he was bored by it. He's currently thriving with RightStart, which has him using many different types of manipulatives and engages him in figuring things out on his own before being taught various approaches to problem solving. (B would have hated this!)

 

I don't have much experience with Singapore (other than using the Earlybird 1A & 1B books with D and looking over a friend's book) but I may end up using this with D, as she loves workbooks and color, and I've heard good things about how it teaches children to think.

 

HTH