Sorry about the long title. We're in the process of going through a lengthy testing with dd#2. I'll update on that as we continue to get in results, but as of the two IQ tests she's taken thus far (one last year and one recently), we have reason believe that she is at least HG. She is having a really horrible school year in 3rd for a variety of reasons and not performing much above average in school, however.

Some of these issues will go away next year in that she will have a different teacher. One that won't however is a bad mismatch with the math curriculum. The district she is in uses everyday math which just doesn't work for dd. At this point, she thinks that she is bad at math and she hates it. I am actually pretty sure that math is one of her stronger suits if it is taught to her in a different way.

The main issue seems to be that they introduce multiple ways to do something all at once and expect the children to learn them all before getting one down. For instance, they learned lattice method, partial products, and traditional multiplication all at once as soon as they were introduced to multi-digit multiplication. The traditional method was shown like once and then dropped while the other two were expected to be mastered together. The traditional method is the one that makes the most sense to dd, but she is marked wrong if she uses it b/c she isn't using the method they are asking for. It is too much info all at once and not the way she learns.

I know what the 4th grade curriculum looks like b/c dd#1 was in that grade last year and it is not going to work any better for dd#2. It's mostly a repeat of 3rd grade material.

We have two school options next year:

1) keep her where she is with a better fit of a teacher, but the same curriculum issues
2) send her to a nearby school in our home district that doesn't use EM.

The pros of #1:
* known teacher for 4th whom we like and have a good relationship with
* continuity
The negatives of #2:
* the EM curriculum
* despite an IQ in the HG+ range she won't get a GT label or qualify for GT services b/c her achievement scores have sunk like a rock this year and she needs a math achievement score in the 98th+ percentile to be subject accelerated and a reading achievement score in the 95th+ percentile to go to the TAG reading class next year. This is going to be really tough on her self image b/c she already feels stupid and it will make her feel badly that she doesn't qualify for things her sister did. She's a pretty competitive kid.

The pros of #2:
* they don't use EM
* she would track with the kids from this school to middle school
* same school breaks as her sister, who is in this district for middle school
The negatives of #2:
* this would be her fourth elementary
* in talking with parents whose kids go there, they feel the following:
- the principal can't admit when she's made a hiring mistake, so poor teachers don't leave
- the school, while IB PYP, isn't as academically challenging as our neighborhood school (which we didn't find challenging at all and is less challenging than the school dd#2 attends now). I worry about her making little academic progress, which is already a concern.

I'm trying to come up with other options as well. If these were your two choices, do you know what you'd pick, though?

Don't get me started on the topic of lattice multiplication...grrr....
But, for all the detractors of EM, my kids have done well with it. I agree it is very confusing to introduce more than one way to multiply. DD used to ask me which way to solve a multiplication problem, to which I would reply, "Just multiply will you?!" I have spoken with several math teachers who agree it is confusing, although one of them said that truly some kids don't understand the traditional algorithm and lattice works better for them. Hmmmm...
There are no easy answers regarding which school would be better. We are in a similar position (moving DD for a better math curriculum but would be different breaks from DS, versus continuity of friends and fine arts at the current school). We are leaning towards continuity/stability, even though we know she would be additionally accelerated in math (but the "other" school doesn't offer language arts acceleration that she will get at her present school). There are trade-offs everywhere.

Could you tutor her in math over the summer to get her up to speed, then re-take achievement testing in the Fall? I know this is difficult - I sympathize.

Unfortunately, no. We ran into this with dd#1 when she was a 4th grader. Her MAPS math score was in the 97th percentile -- 1 percentile too low to be accelerated -- and they don't redo the MAPS test until too late in the fall to make a difference on placement for that year. By the time they retest achievement in the fall, they won't rearrange placements for that school year. Her scores from this spring pretty much sink any chances she has of getting GT placement for math at least.

Reading may be more flexible, although I think that math is innately her stronger subject. She was in the 99.7th percentile on verbal on the WISC, though, so I don't imagine that she has a verbal weakness. She just isn't reading tremendously above grade level and has some issues with writing conventions (run on sentences, poor punctuation...) We're trying to rule out learning disabilities (2E) with the testing as well.

This would sway me the most!

Does the school have the information about her WISC? Keeping her out of GT classes because she missed the cutoff by 1 percentile? Uuugh! Hopefully the retesting will help show what she needs.

Thanks for the information about EM. That's what they're using in DD7's school. My biggest complaint so far is that the level/pace has been too low/slow. We've been working around it with afterschooling and supplemental workbooks that I sent in.

You might find these links interesting about EM
http://ednews.org/articles/one-step-ahead-of-the-train-wreck.html
http://www.hoover.org/publications/ednext/3853357.html

Yes. Her current teacher has expressed the opinion that it is falsely high b/c she is sure that she isn't gifted. The school counselor has told me that her high scores (WISC and the few times MAPS have been high) are possibly due to "good guessing."

Now I remember from the RIAS thread. "Good guessing"...Grrrr

I'd probably still go for the known good teacher but fight hard to get her into GT classes. I'd also afterschool math this summer with something that works better for her than EM.

Well, Cricket, many gifted kids are good guessers, as in, making good inferences. I wouldn't dismiss a kid who guessed well enough to get a high WISC score.

I'm aware of the controversy about EM. Several newer math programs try to get away from memorization/standard algorithms and towards a conceptual approach. Just google "fuzzy math" and you'll get more of the same criticisms. All I can say is that so far, DD11 and DS5 are excelling in math - not sure if that's in spite of or because of EM.

I'm not trying to lambast everyday math across the board. It may work well for some kids. It just isn't a good fit for my kid.

I remember a few years ago when I used to teach, our county was looking at a new Math series and Everyday Math was one of the curriculums that was looked at. Every single grade level teacher that was on the textbook committee really did NOT like Everyday Math at all. I don't think any single teacher even had something nice to say about it - so needless to say, that wasn't looked at any further :-)

Well, I had a conversation with the GT coordinator at school#2 today and they use Investigations Math at that school, which is another fuzzy math curriculum. I am probably going to just have to spend some time w/ dd this summer reviewing more traditional math and giving her more advanced material if we are ever to hope to have her match her ability with achievement.

School 2 will not consider subject acceleration for math. For reading and math they just basically group w/in the classroom (doesn't everyone?) and the GT teacher comes into the class and works with small groups of kids. That is totally inadequate IMHO, but that's one of the reasons we left our neighborhood school in the first place, so not surprising. That aside, school#2 is new and small in dd's grade and has few GT identified kids as a result. Thus, the GT coordinator felt that she'd have more time to devote to dd there.

Honestly, our current school has a better GT program. Unfortunately dd doesn't qualify for it.

Hi, I wanted to chime in about Math Investigations. Yes I suppose fuzzy might be an ok term for it - it is one of those curricula which offer kids a broad variety of strategies for problem solving and not quite as much rote work on plain old addition, subtraction, etc. Some of the parents in our county are very opposed to it. This seems to be due mainly to the idea that the child is building too broad a base, taking too long to move forward to newer topics. I suppose I also was not sure of things in 1st and 2nd, but I think now in 3rd grade things are coming together and my ds is gaining momentum and learning to winnow out the strategies which don't click for him and showing a fairly flexible approach to solving problems. The teachers seem to like it, for the most part. I have not heard any grumbling, anyway...
Having a good, experienced teacher who recognizes which methods are working for which kids is key with this sort of curriculum, I think. Sure, they have to practice them all, but allowing some you-pick-the-strategy problems only makes sense!

Our ds has demonstrated some issues in the past with math fact 'regurgitation', however, so I sort of cheated and had him do timezattack to build knowledge and confidence before he got into the multiplication unit. He has done pretty well this year in multiplication.

Sounds like she is shut out of the gt program in #1 school (for now), not that everything depends on it, but I would be inclined to make the leap and give #2 a try. Have they stated she would be included in that gt program?

The GT coordinator has stated that, with where her IQ falls alone, she will at a minimum be a "watch and enrich" kid meaning that, while she wouldn't necessarily get a gifted id unless her achievement comes up or something else warrants it, she'd get some attn from the GT coordinator in an effort to get her achievement up.

School#2 doesn't really have much of a GT program in that there is no acceleration for math and limited to no pull out for reading. The GT coordinator comes into the classroom to help work with the kids and the teachers group the kids w/in the classrooms. So, there isn't much to exclude her from.

At school#1 (current school), the kids with a GT label in reading/language arts go to a separate classroom with the GT teacher every day for an hour in replacement of the regular classroom reading block. Otherwise they have no interaction with the GT teacher who doesn't come into classrooms.

I just want to say that my dd used EM from K-3 grade and really enjoyed the curriculum. It has built a strong math foundation. She is 8 and is starting on pre-calculus this coming fall and credits EM for her start in math. I think if you give EM a chance, it might work out for later.

Thought you might be interested in the response to "One Step Ahead of a Train Wreck" by one of the Everyday Math coauthors.

http://www.ednews.org/articles/the-case-for-everyday-mathematics--.html

That is NOT how the Everyday Math thing is supposed to work! The whole point of it is that there are different ways to do things, and there should be a way in there for every kid. They should NOT be marking things wrong because a kid uses one method over another, as that is what the system is designed to avoid! That said, I am not a huge fan of it for anything except that point. I think most of the methods are ridiculous and there was nothing wrong with the methods that have been around for centuries that we were taught. But that's because I already know how to do math that way and am too old a dog to be taught new tricks. Umm, I digress.

I would move a child for the reasons you state, if it were necessary. I would also discuss with the teacher that you know, the wrongheadedness of the last teacher's approach to the fuzzy...err...Everyday Math program, and see if you can't get a better approach to your needs where you are. Do what you gotta do.

Edited to add:
Having reviewed the link in the post above mine, and read all the comments there, I must say that I think the only reason I have not gone rounds with the school over Everyday Math is that my son didn't actually need to learn any of the math this year. If he hadn't already known the stuff they were doing (and I have only been exposed to it at the first grade level), we would have been fighting with the school all year. I also believe that his teacher may have been doing a better job with that curriculum than what it calls for, from what I saw this year and what the parents in that post have experienced. I look forward (with dread) to the following years, and we'll see what happens.

Last night I read a thread on the Well Trained Mind Afterschoolers forum about Everyday Math and many chimed in that EM is one of the reasons they are homeschooling. I watched the youtube video "Math Education: An Inconvenient Truth" as well as the response by a math professor. I also had DH watch so he'd understand EM's different approach and where problems can occur.
http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=57981




Imagine my surprise this morning to read that our district will be adding Singapore Math.
http://www.kentucky.com/latest_news/story/853565.html

I take it as a good sign since homeschoolers are a very diverse group and although I know many using Singapore Math, I don't know any using EM.

Coming in late here.

My son's previous school used Everyday Math. He hated, hated it.

I analyzed the curriculum and I think I understand the idea of what they're trying to do. If my interpretation was correct, EM's goal is to teach children to understand mathematical concepts by showing variety of ways to solve a problem. This was a response to what was perceived as poor outcomes that came from depending too heavily on learning one or at most two algorithms. It's a good idea in some ways, but I think it's poorly implemented.

I have a few main criticisms of the program:

1. There are too many areas where there is no correct answer. Example: when kids are learning to use a ruler, they have to measure a few things at home. Because the teacher has no way of knowing the lengths of the objects each student measures, s/he has no way of knowing if the child is using the ruler correctly. There were a lot of instances of this sort of thing through the grade 5 books.

2. There was a lot of busy work: e.g., cut out pictures of triangles (in the second grade!), name the presidents on the coins and one thing they did, write a story. I found myself writing "This is not mathematics!" every week or two on homework assignments.

3. There were flaws that could lead to confusion. Overall, I thought that the people who designed the curriculum didn't realize that things that look obvious to adults don't look obvious to kids seeing something for the first time.

Example, one of the methods for teaching addition uses a chart that looks like a calendar (numbered up to 100). Each new 10 starts at the end of a line, rather than the beginning, so 20 is on another line from 21-29. This could make understanding the concepts of new tens confusing (they're a beginning, not an end).

Kids were supposed to learn to add, say, 15 + 7 by starting at box #15 and "jumping" 7 spots with their fingers. This assumes that kids intuitively understand that moving to the right and down a line is "more" and moving left and up a line is "less."

EM didn't use manipulatives, which seems to me to show the whole point of addition/subtraction ("I get more blocks/chips/whatever" when I add).

4. Finally, the spiralling nature of EM (do method #1 for a few days, move to method #2, then to #3 then back to something more complicated with #1) can mean that kids who get confused early on, stay confused.

Overall, I think the system can lead to serious misconceptions about the foundations of mathematics. I've it works for some kids, but I'm concerned about its overall effect.

Will stop there! But I could go on.

Val

Re: Everyday Mathmatics

I have said this before - EM has worked for my DD and DS. I agree with Val that it has its faults, no question. However, as my kids have progressed through the curriculum, they have transitioned to algebraic concepts very easily, because EM introduces concepts and word problems early in the curriculum. DD has had no problem with Algebra 1 (we are doing at home/afterschooling)and is moving on to geometry. My observation is - the traditional algorithms we were taught work for many kids to a certain point (i.e. computation), but the jump to concept-based disciplines (algebra and geometry) is more difficult. I've seen it in another kid my DD's age, same HG++ level, who is doing poorly in algebra in part because it is a big conceptual leap for that kid who was taught more traditional methods.

I agree that EM does not emphasize "drilling" facts enough, and I personally think EM needs to be supplemented with repetition of facts.

EM has become like the New York Yankess - everybody loves to hate them.

Inky, my reading of the article about Singapore makes it sound conceptually-based, similar to EM (the so-called "fuzzy math" programs). Am I reading it right?

Anyway, EM has worked for my kids, so do not despair if your school is using it. There is no perfect way to teach math.

This was my issue with EM - it was just really slow for our HG+ kid. It may have been different if we could have been able to skip up.

I do feel like we've been able to move a little "slower" with Singapore at home. I'm kind of hoping not to reach algebra until 4th grade if we can keep working steadily on Singapore and supplementing with math facts and more conceptual work (and doing things like programming and logic).

Despite how it sounds in the article, my understanding is that Singapore math is closer to traditional math than reform math. Pacing and level were probably my biggest issues this year with DD7 and EM. It'll be interesting to see how including Singapore math affects things.

Glad to hear from those whose DC have made it successfully through EM. I'm pressing on with teaching DD7 the traditional algorithms for multiplication and long division in any case.

I do think this is true (we've done 4 years of Singapore). But Singapore does do the "good" stuff EM does, like plenty of open ended problems that require multiple steps and thinking outside the box. Not necessarily 100's of cookie cutter problems. It is short on the drilling as well. We do additional multiplication/division practice.

A lot of the time, when people discuss EM, they are comparing apples and oranges. I have 2 teacher friends whose districts use Em and they implement it quite differently from what my district does and very, very differently from another friend's district. One complaint I read on EM is that the conceptual leaps are readily obvious to adults but not to kids. So that makes me wonder if HG+ kids do make those conceptual leaps that more avg kids don't make with the program. I agree the pace was much too slow for my son.

EM is similar to Sm in some ways but SM does not spiral the way EM does. EM is similar to Rightstart (which is now being used in several schools in the US after branching out of the homeschool market) which is very effective. Again, though it doesn't work w/ every kid and some parents aren't effective in teaching it.

Just to update -- here's our plan for now:

Based on the more recent testing dd#2 had, her WAIS (achievement scores) were in the 98th and 99th percentile (total) for math, reading, and writing. I am a bit skeptical on how the psych input the data I have to admit b/c I asked her for age based norms as well as grade based (end of 3rd since she took the test the week after she finished 3rd). Both the age based and grade based norms were identical for every subtest and the totals on each of the three tests in terms of percentiles and that seems very unlikely to me given that she is very young for grade.

The WISC scores left me confused from the 2nd testing b/c her GAI was 148 a year ago and 127 this time -- both will qualify her for gifted programming combined with the WAIS scores, though. I just don't think that her perceptual reasoning subtest dropped from the 99th percentile to the 75th with no explaination other than "actual fluctuation in abilities," which is what the report says. Her verbal subtest was in the 99.7th the first time and 99th this time which seems like a reasonable fluctuation.

All of that aside, if we move her to school #2 (the one closer to home that tracks to the middle school she'll attend), the classes will have about 20 kids, but the GT programming (which she will qualify for) will consist of the GT coordinator (who is split btwn three schools) coming in maybe once/week to work with her and other kids in the class and her being in a within class grouping of like ability kids. I'm not sure how many like ability kids they are going to get in the grade with two classes of 20, though.

If we keep her at her current school, I am almost certain that she'll qualify for the one hr/day TAG pull-out for reading. Dd#1 was in that class for a year in 4th grade before she skipped and moved to middle school. It wasn't totally adequate for dd#1, but she was much more advanced in terms of reading and writing in 4th grade than dd#2 is. They do use Caeser's English, learn Greek and Latin word roots, and write poetry as well as doing small book groups as I recall. It is better than what she'd get at school#2 in terms of literacy. I am pretty sure that this is what we are going to do -- keep her at the current school.

For math, I have signed her up through Melmichigan's EPGY hs group and plan to approach her teacher (with whom I have a good relationship) about using this as a supplement at school hopefully rather than just piling more on her at home.

There are two kids they are subject accelerating for math which they claim is based on 98-99th percentile scores on MAPS, CSAP (NCLB tests), and the quantitative and nonverbal portions of the CogAT. However, these kids were accelerated last year prior to the CSAP and CogAT scores, so I guess that they were just using MAPS. Dd does have two scores in that range on perceptual/visual spatial/math related tests -- a 98th total math on the WAIS and a 99th total perceptual reasoning on the first administration of the WISC-IV. However, since her MAPS scores have been all over the place (btwn 56th to 95th percentile on the MAPS -- varying btwn the 20th to 99th percentile on the same subtests every time she takes it), her CogAT scores were not that high, and the perceptual reasoning score also wasn't the last time she took the WISC, I'm thinking that I am going to be fighting an uphill battle to try to get her subject accelerated in math.

As her mom, I can honestly say that math is innately her strongest area. My biggest worry here is that her self-image re math was totally crushed last year. Her teacher was convinced that math was her weaker area and convinced dd as well. Dd now hates math and her MAPS scores came out lower at the end of 3rd than they did the end of 2nd. Actually, her scores dropped something like 20 pts (and 40 percentiles) from the end of 2nd to the late fall of 3rd when they retested. The high scores from 2nd were, of course, due to "good guessing" -- just like her IQ scores.

Sorry -- yes, I meant the WIAT-II, which was co-normed with the WISC-IV, I understand. Dd's WIAT scores are significantly higher than would be expected given the IQ scores the second time around. According the the GAI chart, if they were that far below her GAI, it would be considered a learning disability. Her WIAT composite scores varied from 5 to 14 pts higher (depending on the subtest) than would be predicted given the GAI. The psych didn't find that odd, but to me it would indicate that the second test may be an underestimation of her GAI, no? The reading composite score was statistically significant to a .05 significance level and the math and writing subtest differences were significant to .01.

Dd's bd is in late Sept, a few days before October, so she will be turning nine more than a month after she starts 4th grade. I, too, expected the #s to be somewhat higher using age norms as a result.

Me too. I did email the psych and asked her (in a polite manner) if she was sure about the age norms being identical to the grade norms. She said that she input the #s into the computer and it did all of the figuring, so she was sure it was right. I guess that it doesn't matter hugely unless she is significantly less or more able than we are assuming right now.

In re to accelerating her for math, I don't know if it is the right solution. I do know, however, that the curriculum thus far has been a very bad fit for her in math and her confidence has been hugely shaken as a result, so we need to do something different in terms of math. I am sure that she'll at least get placed in the 4th grade accelerated class, but that class does the identical curriculum but moves through it faster. I don't think that is a good idea for her. I'd, honestly, rather have her stay in the std classroom for math and get pulled out once a week to work on the EPGY stuff or be given the opportunity to independently work on the EPGY stuff once/week. That's what they did with my older dd when she was in that class, but they used some fairly weak enrichment activities (like suduko puzzles) when she was pulled out weekly.

As far as her IQ/GAI, it was 99.9 the first time and 96th the second. I, too, imagine that it falls somewhere in btwn the two, but we don't have the $ to retest again in a year. eta: she had a lot of 18s the first time she was tested (raw scores), and one 19 and a 17 in verbal the second time, but her PRI -- where two of her 18s were the first time -- didn't have a single score higher than 12 the second time.