This discussion has been very helpful to me, even if it has veered away a bit from my original question. I had been aware that there was a great deal of controversy surrounding CC, but had never really investigated it before now (by the way, someone might want to tell the Weakley Schools that their first example of SM concepts has an incorrect total).
Not to turn this into a political discussion, but CC seems like a prime example of government overreach to me. One need only to look at the lack of basic math skills in a typical high school student working at a local supermarket, to see that there is a problem even in supposedly good school systems. To think that 3 university professors with no practical experience teaching young people could create a set of standards that will solve all of our problems nationwide though, seems particularly ridiculous to me.
Going back to my original question, it looks like my daughter may just have been confused by being given problems in an unfamiliar format with little or no explanation. She could have easily solved the underlying math problems at the age of two, and had no issues whatsoever once I explained that these were simple addition and subtraction problems. This experience does tend to reinforce aeh’s point about math anxiety in elementary school teachers.
As my daughter doesn’t really like to talk about her day at school and parent-teacher conferences are only scheduled twice a year, I guess I should start supplementing math in some methodical way, rather than through my haphazard method of making up games and teaching her the way I learned math. This raises a number of questions though:
- Is SM the best method for a girl approaching the end of Kindergarten? I had originally been thinking of the CTY (when it reopens) or the Stanford online programs, but SM seems to have a proven track record and is much cheaper.
- Is using SM, would books or digital be a better way to go? My gut instinct says books, but maybe a digital approach would be more fun and less like additional school lessons. If using books, would the U.S. Standards or CC edition be best for supplementation?
- Finally (and perhaps most importantly), should I supplement at my daughter’s intellectual level, or follow along at the pace of her classroom lessons? I gave my daughter the SM placement tests and she breezed through 1A and over half of 1B before she started to run into problems. In addition, her teacher said she’s reading and writing at an end-of-first grade level. At the moment my daughter seems quite happy at school, and isn’t ready socially to skip a grade, so I’m a bit hesitant to do anything that would increase the odds of her becoming bored in class.
Thanks for your help.
