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EDM is... weird. There are some things that they make more difficult (just my opinion as a teacher and parent and lover of math) in the name of teaching the "bigger" lesson.

When I taught fourth grade last year, for example, my students (who were all average or above average math students) struggled with long division. They understood the concept of dividing, understood how to work with big numbers, but got tripped up on the EDM-style dividing. It was driving us all bonkers because both they and I knew that they were capable of doing it, but they kept getting lost in the process of "try a number and see if it works." Finally, at the end of the year, I showed them what would be probably be called the "old fashioned" way, and we practiced for two days straight and VOILA! A class full of kids who could do long division.

Add into that the fractured nature of the program and it drives me completely bananas. It's not the spiraling I take issue with, necessarily, but the tiny one-day chunks in which things are presented... some kid stake a day to orient themselves to that specific style of doing math, and then POOF the curriculum has moved on and they spent a day "not getting it," when in fact we have to move on just as they're mentally prepared to show what they know. Kids would struggle demonstrating mastery of concepts that I knew they were fully capable of getting, not because they didn't understand or it was too difficult or they didn't work hard enough or I didn't teach it well enough, but because they had spent the few short hours devoted to that subject figuring out the language and expectations, rather than just DOING it.

I'm not articulating what's in my brain very well, but it is entirely possible that a student with a higher level of math comprehension is, in fact, struggling in EDM because some of the activities don't just teach and then ask you to show what you know. If you get tripped up on the game or algorithm or whathaveyou, you don't get to demonstrate that you do, in fact, have an advanced mastery of that concept.

I'm not saying this is your dd's issue... but in general, EDM drives me bonkers when it comes to both struggling and high-achieving students. Struggling math studentsspend their time pushing through activities that don't hone in on the skills they need to be working on (BUT OH! IT SPIRALS! MAYBE THEY'LL GET IT NEXT TIME! Ummm...), and high-ability students spend their time pushing through activities that don't just let them demonstrate mastery; they can get caught up on weird language and rules that aren't really necessary if you already know what you're doing (or are so behind that you're not prepared to access the information).

/rantmode

"Add into that the fractured nature of the program and it drives me completely bananas. It's not the spiraling I take issue with, necessarily, but the tiny one-day chunks in which things are presented... some kid stake a day to orient themselves to that specific style of doing math, and then POOF the curriculum has moved on and they spent a day "not getting it," when in fact we have to move on just as they're mentally prepared to show what they know. Kids would struggle demonstrating mastery of concepts that I knew they were fully capable of getting, not because they didn't understand or it was too difficult or they didn't work hard enough or I didn't teach it well enough, but because they had spent the few short hours devoted to that subject figuring out the language and expectations, rather than just DOING it."