Yes, Val. I'm so happy that someone else saw this.
I read this article on CNN and had to laugh. I thought I was a lone, secret rebel in teaching my kid math the old-fashioned way. DS8 has Everyday Math in his PS. While it is not too terrible for most subjects (fractions are introduced in 1st grade, lots of geometry and 3-D shapes, and tons of word problems for math.. to name a few), it does a horrible, horrible job of teaching division in 3rd. The emphasis is on getting a "ballpark estimate" first, before explaining to the kids how do actually do division. For example, if the problem was to divide 529 by 13, they would emphasis that it is about 40. (in a very hand-waving way). Our problem arose in that DS had to have a firm understanding of size and scale, or he would start out trying out too small of a number for the ballpark estimate and get frustrated and quit. (13x5, no too small... 13x7, no too small.. this was a long, long approach to get to 13x40!!)
So after about 25 minutes of sheer frustration, I finally said look... here is the easy way, and showed him long division. He could do all of the problems easily after that.
I understand the importance of being able to do rough math in your head quickly. But maybe this should be a refinement AFTER the basic concept has been mastered.
Oh and Everyday Math teaches multiplication using two different method (as an extra way to confuse the kiddos!)... the lattice method and the partial products method. Neither are made for multiplying large numbers.
Is anyone else stuck with this type of math program? Our school has been using it for 4 or 5 years now, and the scores on the state achievement tests appear to be going down in math proficiency.
