Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Help! Charter with Everyday Math?

Hi everyone --

Not sure if this is the best forum for this, but I was hoping some people could give me feedback on Everyday Math. We have been having trouble with appropriate math accleration for DS6, who is in first grade. He is doing third grade math this year, and excels in it (his processing speed is slow, but his conceptual grasp on things is outstanding). It has been a bit tough at his private school to get him going at the pace he should be doing; they have done a great job, but there are not many kids, and nobody on his social level who is also functioning at his math level.

A local charter school is opening a K-5 school next year. They will have full time gifted classrooms, which is great, and at least say that they will work with kids at whatever level they are at. It is a "Science School", and the current middle school has a huge number of math and science based activities (Math Olympiad, Science Olympiad, robotics, solar power, Lego building, etc.). However, they use the University Chicago funded math curricula (Connected Math Project and College Preparatory Math) in middle school, and are planning on using Everyday Math in Elementary school.

I have heard SO many negative things about Everyday Math. I was hoping some people who have mathy kids who have been exposed to it could comment on the curriculum, and how good it is for kids who pick up math concepts very quickly. My impression is that there is so much "cooperation" and repetitiveness in the program, and so many complicated methods of doing calculations that for him are very intuitive, that it would be very frustrating for him. Any thoughts?

I'm on my phone, so must be brief. They use EM in my district. IMHO it is unsuitable for use with a HG+ math student as implemented in our district. It is a heavily spiral curriculum and characterized by endless constructivist drills where children "learn" to construct number relationships in different ways, etc. For someone with math talent a lot of this is just so much fluff.

Even knowing the history, pedigree and intent of EM, it would never be my first choice for any student. For an advanced student it presents a real danger, as it is chock full of opportunities and encouragement for teachers to insist that the student go "wider instead of deeper", but in meaningless, wasteful ways.

My son utterly hates it.

Our ds' elementary school didn't use Everyday Math, but used a similar curriculum (our school district uses EM in the neighborhood schools, ds was in an optional school). DS is a total math kid, but did *not* like the spiral-ness of the curriculum and found it boring. I think if it had been implemented in a situation where he was able to work at his ability level and move through the units at his own pace he would have been ok with it.

The school he's in now uses Connected Math, and fwiw, ds likes it a-ok and there are things that I like about it (and I'm a total math geek with a math degree who does not like EM!). The school ds is in now ends after 8th grade, and the kids who move on to our districts gifted magnet program for high school have to test back in for math placement... and fwiw... it appears from what I've seen so far that it's not curriculum that matters as much as... the teacher. I've also found that even though ds' school does not accelerate for all subjects, he has done well and really enjoyed some of his non-acclerated subjects even though they are slower-paced than he needs... when he has an inspiring teacher. So that would be what I would probably spend more time thinking through and researching - what do you know about the teaching staff?

Best wishes,

polarbear

DD 13 is not what I would call a Mathy kid..she is I think three years accelerated doing Algebra II in 8th grade. Her real strength is in her verbal... She hated Everyday Math. It really clogged the wheel for her. In fourth grade she changed schools and into a more "old fashion" math curriculum and soared! Can you influence the school to adopt a different curriculum or to use two?

One of the many things I love about this forum. A post can start with:


And follow with three perfectly spelled and punctuated paragraphs, high on relevant information, including stuff like: "heavily spiral curriculum and characterized by endless constructivist drills", and nary a texting abbreviation in sight.

My DD is fairly mathy. It is a talent, but not a passion. We did not like EM, for the reasons others have stated.

"It is a heavily spiral curriculum and characterized by endless constructivist drills where children "learn" to construct number relationships in different ways, etc. For someone with math talent a lot of this is just so much fluff. "

Yes, this about covers it for us. It was slow and repetitive and didn't suit a kid who picks up math quickly. I should mention, though, that DD was never given any of the enrichment or differentiation that is apparently available.

DD is now doing something from Houghton-Mifflin that is more straight ahead and seems to suit her a lot better. She is going through it about doublespeed, I think.

An ACCELERATED Everyday Math curriculum should be fine -- if they're willing to have him two or three levels above his grade level. If they're wanting to keep him ON grade level, it won't be good (but that would be true for just about any math program). My DD8 does Everyday Math, but she's currently in the 4th grade level of it (she's a second grader now). She does just fine. I teach Everyday Math in my self-contained 4th and 5th grade GT class (I teach one grade level above, so the Level 5 and Level 6 books) and my students are sufficiently challenged. However, I'm not "religious" about it, in that I tell my students that I don't care how they "get" an answer (in terms of which algorithm is used) -- I'm just looking for a correct answer. I also don't spend 30 minutes teaching a lesson that my students understand in the first five minutes, and much of the "work with a partner" stuff is completed independently by my students. I went from teaching Singapore Math for a number of years to teaching Everyday Math last year and this year. If I were to compare the difficulty of content in equivalent grade levels of Singapore and EM, the EM content is actually much more difficult. EM 6 is like a full Pre-Algebra curriculum. So, if they're willing to keep your son in an accelerated version of it and you get the sense that they'll "let him be" in terms of algorithms, he'll be fine.

I don't like EM- it just seems muddled. There have been times where my son had to "write what you like about math.". We have him do a little Singapore math for problem solving and kumon for math facts, above his grade level, at home.

I second both of these posts (plus a lot of what others said). My son detested EM and complained about it bitterly. In first grade, he'd say, "Why can't we just ADD?!?" In second grade, he had to cut pictures of triangles out of magazines and write a sentence about each president on US coins.

But I think that the worst thing about EM is that it gets things wrong in subtle ways. One example is a number chart that's used to teach adding and subtracting. It looks like a calendar that goes from 1-100. The problem is that there's no zero and 10 is at the end the first row. So each set of tens is off by one. As a result, kids don't see that the tens go from 10-19. They see 11-20. Like Jack'smom said, it's muddled.

If you're thinking of a charter school, I'd dig very carefully into their curriculum and the teacher qualifications. Don't believe the PR and don't believe the jolly glib stuff the principal will tell you. Do the teachers have subject-specific degrees or education degrees? What do they REALLY do in the gifted classroom? Do they go "wide and deep" instead of accelerating, and if so, how "wide and deep" can you really go in, say, basic arithmetic or AR-defined second grade reading? What's the cutoff? Is it based on a high IQ (130+) or do they pick the top 20% of the kids in the class based on something like grades or standardized testing?

My eldest goes to a supposedly math and science charter school. During the first semester, the Math Olympiad kids spent about a third of their time painting some things outside. One of the math teachers is, IMO, clearly unqualified (see this thread). Obviously, not every charter school is like this, but I would advise checking carefully.