I have always loved basic math, and began teaching addition and subtraction to my daughter (now 5) shortly after she turned 2. She loves it too, and we both like to challenge each other with math problems (her WRAT-4 scores place her in the mid 90th percentile for math computation).
My concern is whether the methods I'm teaching my daughter are going to create problems for her when she enters first grade, and starts getting more heavily into the common core way of doing things. Having learned the basics over the course of first & second grade the traditional way, I look at common core examples and find them ludicrous and incomprehensible. I'm saying this as someone who once considered math as a potential college major, but found that it became too weird and abstract once I got past multidimensional calculus. To my mind, it's almost as if they've taken all of the weird & abstract stuff, and brought it down to an elementary school level.
In any event, my understanding is that traditional addition, subtraction, multiplication & division are now postponed until fourth - sixth grades, while students learn the common core theory. I'll reserve judgment on whether this is a good or bad thing until I see how my daughter does with it.
My question in the meantime, is whether I'll be helping or harming my daughter if I continue to teach her math in the traditional way. I can see an argument being made that the methods I've taught her might just confuse her. On the other hand, it might be helpful to her to be able to calculate the answer to a question in advance, before having to deconstruct the problem using the CC methodology.
I would appreciate hearing any thoughts that others might have.
