Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Best & worst math curriculums (and those between)

I just bought the enVision Math book for 4th grade as I got tired of my son bringing home unfinished math papers and being unable to do them because the school does not allow kids to bring books home.
The book is okay. It is colorful which I like. My son finds the book slighly confusing (but that could be just for him).
I haven't used the book long enough to give you a well educated opinion... but so far I like most of it.
What I don't like about the program is that it requires explanations as well as answers. Sometimes gifted students know the answer but don't know how they got there. There should be nothing wrong with not knowing how to explain as long as you get the answer right.

Yeah, that's what I'm worried about. The more visual-spatial kids solve things and are correct but they have no clue how to explain what they did. My DS in particular would hate that.

I really wish the subject of "math" were divided (pardon the pun) into a)arithmetic and b)applied mathematics - the same way we divide up spelling and handwriting from reading. I feel that most math curricula would benefit from teaching arithmetic as its own subject apart from the applied mathematical concepts. Kids can be great or poor at one or the other or both, and might need different pacing at one or the other.

Maybe *some* kids need to have their math facts down before attempting multi-digit multiplication, but not all kids. DS would have gone nuts if we had withheld showing him long multiplication and division until he had mastery of his times tables. In fact, practicing long multiplication problems turned out to be a great way to practice his math facts.

Here is my opinion, for what it is worth -

I don't know about 5th grade enVision, but 4th grade enVision is very confusing. I'll go out on limb here and say I bet 5th grade isn't any different, but more of the same.

DD9 is a 4th grader and we have been dealing with the Pearson enVision digital curriculum her school chose since August. DD has drawn more pictures and written out more explanations of math than I (and she) can stand. All it has done is totally confuse her with all their gimmicks and tricks to doing math. It jumps from one trick to the next so about the time you figure out what they want you to put in box A, then box B of the picture you move to some other trick to doing math and you can't remember which trick is which. You draw pictures for everything. At first DD9 drew little smiley faces and hearts, but that didn't last long. Soon is was close to impossible to get her to draw the pictures - she just wanted to do the math and be done with it and I don't blame her. The curriculum also asks the students to do a lot of written out explanations - explain why 9X2=18.

For a child that gets math without all the tricks and doesn't need endless repetition, enVision is seriously painful.

Thanks 1frugalmom. I have a headache just reading your post. It really does sound like Everyday Math (or what I've heard about it).

Yeah that sounds like torture. DD hates visual math with the hate of 1000 stupid little math tiles.

I know everybody loves Singapore Math, but I didn't love it for my kids when we casually tried it for aftersschooling. I'm afraid I forget exactly why.

I believed DD is using a Harcourt-Brace series now. It seems oddly easy compared to last year's book, which was both challenging and poorly written and conceptualized (a weird mix). I don't feel like she's learning as much this year, but at least the book doesn't have errors and confusing problems. Note that this is her fourth math curriculum and she is in fourth grade (but did switch schools once).

My son's school uses envision math. I am not at all a mathy person but neither my son nor I care for it. My son, however, does like the problems - there are always word problems and making up your own problems and puzzles and such and he likes that but he is very, very verbal. I think he's learned the most going to mathnasium. He only goes once a week and we did it because he wanted to learn more math and because he really likes it. He loves it and it's the mathnasium, I think, that resulted n his math achievement being going up so much.

My daughters school district is going to switch to Go Math. They previously had Everyday Math. They liked Go Math over Singapore Math, Math in Focus and Envision Math because Go Math didn't have the gaps the others did.