I was told my ds couldn't explain how he got his answer and it was one reason they didn't want, at first, to subject accelerate him in math. He can learn to explain how he gets his answer in 4th grade math or 3rd grade math...but put him where he needs to be and then teach him that skill.

But I always wonder...are they wanting you to explain how and why you set up your problem or how you actually did the computation or both?

"using the strategy of drawing a diagram, I drew a diagram, labeled the parts and determined that I needed to add all the sides to find out how much fencing I needed. It was a square lawn and all the sides were equal so I used multiplication 6feet times 4sides to find that I needed 24 feet because 6x4=24 and I know that 6 x 4 = 24 because I passed my math minutes for all my times tables and I got an ice cream sundae for doing it. If I hadn't passed my math minutes I might just use the method of skip counting or repeated addition and would still be sitting here waiting on that ice cream sundae reward. Or because this is math class here is the real answer in a more mathematically concise manner that needs no additional explanation and should be considered the true answer by any real mathematician:

P of a square = 4 x s
4 x 6 ft = 24 ft


All of my explain my answers would have an element of snark in them.

...reading is pleasure, not just something teachers make you do in school.~B. Cleary