Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion struggles with Core Curriculum

Just checked DS grades and he has a 54% in math. There are all these notes about him not showing his work and struggling with box methods. DS can do the problems in his head and show his work the traditional way although its very hard to read as wesuspect dysgraphia. Any other children having issues with Core?

My child got 15 points taken off for not showing work. He is unhappy with the situation because he is competitive and likes to score high in math, which is his strong subject. So, we are "training" him to show work - we use his homework sheets to practice. If your child struggles with writing, then, you can teach him to show work using bar diagrams, number lines and pictures. That is good enough to get full scores.

DD9 is encountering this less at the 5th grade level, but in previous years she was getting things that made little sense. We were pretty sure they were teaching innumeracy. DD openly rebelled, and so, too, did her parents.

My first question to the teacher would be, what on earth are box methods, and what possible utility could they have? A quick google turns up a box method of multiplication that looks like the inverse of a "partial quotient" division method that caused much consternation in our home. I'm a STEM worker, and I could not independently parse that nonsense. Once I did some googling, I figured it out enough to realize they were demonstrating how to turn a 5-step division process into a 20-step process, and creating more opportunities for mistakes along the way. So we revolted, taught DD long division the standard way, and she never looked back, except with contempt.

If your DS can reliably perform long multiplication without resorting to box methods, then that's what he should be doing. The point of all this is to show the children that there is more than one way to skin the cat, and they should use the one that fits best for them. Where Common Core math implementations go horribly wrong is in insisting the children be able to use all of the methods correctly, on demand.

ITA!!!! Amen!!

I agree with Dude, but it would appear as though this is EXACTLY how it is being implemented here.

DD9, my more highly verbal child, is thriving in gifted math class. If anything, it is going too slow for her, because they have slowed down the pace in favor of "going deeper." To be fair, she is also good at math...but it is not her favorite subject. In my opinion, her math class is a very VERBAL math class, where they are currently expected to do a great deal of careful reading and writing...with a bit of math thrown in.

DD6, who might be my more mathy child, is being asked to write and write to explain himself (which is pretty laborious for a 6-year-old, despite the fact that he is also pretty good at spelling/writing). DD never had to write like this as a 1st grader. I do wonder whether this approach to math will turn off the truly mathematically talented kiddos.

So far, my DS7 (first grade) has not been asked to write his math explanations. But our school is transitioning to common core, so I see it coming. One question I have is - are kids allowed to use the language of math to explain their process? For instance, these days if my son is asked to explain how he knew that 23+31 = 54, he will say, "20+30= 50 and 3+1=4, and 50+4=54. Would he get credit for that?

I'm just borrowing trouble from the future. But wondering ...

It may depend on the school. Right now if my son was told to show his work using their common core method and he doesn't then he gets a zero.

Yeah, my first grader doesn't get credit if he doesn't draw his "math mountain." So stupid.

Oh good heavens. That's way worse than I thought. My sympathies to you. Ick.

Its a mess for sure and something I am passionately against. I'm still trying to determine how I come across to the district with this.