Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Best & worst math curriculums (and those between)

So, I am considering where I want my kids to go to school in the fall. One school I'm considering uses Pearson Envision for 4th grade, but for highly gifted kids they use the 5th grade level. Then they start with Math Connects Course 2 in 5th grade. I know I have read bad things about Envision Math but can someone clarify what is bad about it? Is it bad enough to avoid the school? Is there a lot of writing or "showing work" required? Because both of my kids would really hate that. And what about Glencoe Math Connects?

Feel free to share other curriculums and which ones you don't like or like.

I have more experience with enVision on the 1st and 2nd grade levels. For those ages the program relies heavily on spiraling (covering a topic somewhat superficially and then coming back to it again later). As a positive, there is quite an emphasis on problem solving and conceptual questions (i.e., at least 3 word problems and 1 conceptual problem for every lesson).

It really depends on how the teacher choses to use the curriculum and what he/she uses to enrich it. For NT kids I have found that there are concepts that need to be stretched out a bit. Gifted kids tend to need quite a bit of outside enrichment (I use a lot of problem solving math books from Mindware, Critical Thinking Co., Marcy Cook, etc.). I also find that some teachers require more writing and "showing work" than others. For example, each 1st/2nd grade workbook page has a conceptual question like, "Can 3+3+2 be written as a multiplication problem? Explain." These can be used as springboards for whole group discussion, or the students can be asked to write their own answers individually.

In my opinion what it comes down to is this... There are math programs that I like better, but the ability of the teacher to adapt the curriculum to fit each student's needs is a more important factor for overall success.

I can comment on Pearson Course 3 (and up)-- Course 3 is a horrific mashup of concepts, without a lot of coherent framework to tie them together.

Given what my DD has seen as a tutor for this course, it's fine for GT learners, but pretty much awful for everyone else. It's ten miles wide and about half an inch deep, if that makes sense.

Ok, thanks. It doesn't sound like it's as bad as Everyday Math, but that's probably not saying much. DS has done some Singapore math and I like how that curriculum let's them (or even encourages them) to solve things in their head rather than writing down every single step. It suits DS in particular. He has no idea how he solves things half the time, or if he does, he can't explain it. He did 12X18 in his head last night in about 10 seconds (he had to figure out how many inches are in 18 feet), and he did not like the idea of writing 12X18 down on graph paper like the teacher wants, and doing the actual computations on paper. Personally I think he needs to learn to write because he makes too many errors, but not write excessively either. DD is better about writing things down, but not great.

Funny you say that... I have friend at a very large international school in Asia and her school recently switched from Everyday Math to Envision. She does like it better than Everyday Math but I don't get the impression it is terribly different.

Could be it's just as bad--I don't know. Everyday Math seems to be the one that everyone puts down constantly, though.

EnVision is almost as bad. (Seriously). Same hash, different company.

Ducking in here curious about the BEST math curriculum, particularly for a HG kid who's skittish about math. My daughter does 'Life of Fred' at her school supplemented with IXL practice and it's not working for her. She likes that Life of Fred has CONTEXT (how would you use this math in the real world) but thinks it lacks CONCEPT (why do these techniques work, what's the theory behind them). At least this is what I gather from her less than coherent feedback. I think last year the teacher made a point of including the concept stuff, but this year she feels like she's not getting taught math. The teacher works through sample problems and they practice using IXL (I think that a lot of people would say this is teaching, but I think she's looking for something more here). And IXL's scoring system just drives her nuts.

We have the option of switching to different curriculum, but which one?

I don't know--here's a website describing Singapore Math. I thought it was a good curriculum but it might not have ENOUGH drill on basic facts, like it might introduce multiplication and then a couple lessons later it's expecting the kid to solve 96X8. They have to learn their math facts before they can do that, so outside drill/practice besides the regular curriculum is needed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore_math

Here's a link to the Mathematically Correct Website. It has some reviews of math curriculum. I'm still searching through the site trying to find info on Envision and Math Connects.

http://web.archive.org/web/20120414010022/http://www.mathematicallycorrect.com/books.htm

I just bought the enVision Math book for 4th grade as I got tired of my son bringing home unfinished math papers and being unable to do them because the school does not allow kids to bring books home.
The book is okay. It is colorful which I like. My son finds the book slighly confusing (but that could be just for him).
I haven't used the book long enough to give you a well educated opinion... but so far I like most of it.
What I don't like about the program is that it requires explanations as well as answers. Sometimes gifted students know the answer but don't know how they got there. There should be nothing wrong with not knowing how to explain as long as you get the answer right.

Yeah, that's what I'm worried about. The more visual-spatial kids solve things and are correct but they have no clue how to explain what they did. My DS in particular would hate that.

I really wish the subject of "math" were divided (pardon the pun) into a)arithmetic and b)applied mathematics - the same way we divide up spelling and handwriting from reading. I feel that most math curricula would benefit from teaching arithmetic as its own subject apart from the applied mathematical concepts. Kids can be great or poor at one or the other or both, and might need different pacing at one or the other.

Maybe *some* kids need to have their math facts down before attempting multi-digit multiplication, but not all kids. DS would have gone nuts if we had withheld showing him long multiplication and division until he had mastery of his times tables. In fact, practicing long multiplication problems turned out to be a great way to practice his math facts.

Here is my opinion, for what it is worth -

I don't know about 5th grade enVision, but 4th grade enVision is very confusing. I'll go out on limb here and say I bet 5th grade isn't any different, but more of the same.

DD9 is a 4th grader and we have been dealing with the Pearson enVision digital curriculum her school chose since August. DD has drawn more pictures and written out more explanations of math than I (and she) can stand. All it has done is totally confuse her with all their gimmicks and tricks to doing math. It jumps from one trick to the next so about the time you figure out what they want you to put in box A, then box B of the picture you move to some other trick to doing math and you can't remember which trick is which. You draw pictures for everything. At first DD9 drew little smiley faces and hearts, but that didn't last long. Soon is was close to impossible to get her to draw the pictures - she just wanted to do the math and be done with it and I don't blame her. The curriculum also asks the students to do a lot of written out explanations - explain why 9X2=18.

For a child that gets math without all the tricks and doesn't need endless repetition, enVision is seriously painful.

Thanks 1frugalmom. I have a headache just reading your post. It really does sound like Everyday Math (or what I've heard about it).

Yeah that sounds like torture. DD hates visual math with the hate of 1000 stupid little math tiles.

I know everybody loves Singapore Math, but I didn't love it for my kids when we casually tried it for aftersschooling. I'm afraid I forget exactly why.

I believed DD is using a Harcourt-Brace series now. It seems oddly easy compared to last year's book, which was both challenging and poorly written and conceptualized (a weird mix). I don't feel like she's learning as much this year, but at least the book doesn't have errors and confusing problems. Note that this is her fourth math curriculum and she is in fourth grade (but did switch schools once).

My son's school uses envision math. I am not at all a mathy person but neither my son nor I care for it. My son, however, does like the problems - there are always word problems and making up your own problems and puzzles and such and he likes that but he is very, very verbal. I think he's learned the most going to mathnasium. He only goes once a week and we did it because he wanted to learn more math and because he really likes it. He loves it and it's the mathnasium, I think, that resulted n his math achievement being going up so much.

My daughters school district is going to switch to Go Math. They previously had Everyday Math. They liked Go Math over Singapore Math, Math in Focus and Envision Math because Go Math didn't have the gaps the others did.

Go math here. Can't give any information except son doesn't complain and shows progress each time they test him (and they test a lot).

I think he does his assignment quickly and the spends his waiting time on different math websites on the computer in the back of the room...that may be where he actually learns new stuff.

My daughter is in 6th grade and didn't do Everyday Math since 2nd Grade. She's in Accelerated Algebra so I don't think she will have anything to do with Go Math anyways but the school district here is one of the better ones

We have the NZ national curriculum. It specifies topic and standards but not texts. There are texts to go along with them but I haven't found anyone who used them. The result is we have no idea what the kids are or aren't learning. Can you tell I am getting grumpy?

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Maybe *some* kids need to have their math facts down before attempting multi-digit multiplication, but not all kids. DS would have gone nuts if we had withheld showing him long multiplication and division until he had mastery of his times tables. In fact, practicing long multiplication problems turned out to be a great way to practice his math facts. [/quote]

Agreed. DD4.5 still has a hard time doing 3+4 but takes under a second to do 343+434. Also, re: Singapore math, I just got the 2A and 2B workbooks and DD is not too thrilled. There actually seems to be a lot of repetitions as they try to approach the same concept from different angles. I am letting her skip most of it and sometimes just do the review section to keep her engaged.

Many of the conceptual math programs run into this issue... if you are using their methods you have to buy into it and can't revert back to what you learned in school...

For a problem like 96x8 they probably don't expect you to use the long multiplication algorithm... that certainly isn't how *I* would solve it.

Now lets see.... 96*8
Well if the kid already has an ok grasp of place value they probably know 100*8=800. So 96*8 is 4 less 8s. So 8x4=32, thats either memorized of easily figured out. So 800-32, well thats subtraction. If multidigit subtraction has been covered you're all set.

Singapore, Math Mammoth, MEP, and at higher levels AOPS are very big on mental math strategies. If the problems seem very tedious or too difficult for the age range, you are probably doing it wrong and should look for an easier approach. This allows kids to build deeper number sense and problem solving skills. However, if you take a Singapore workbook and try to teach it using a traditional American style... well thats not going to work.

I didn't buy the Singapore Math textbook which is probably part of the problem with there seeming to be large gaps. I'm not sure how the textbook teaches them to do divison for example. In DS's 3A workbook in exercise 34 there are problems like 28/7. DS has this memorized, or if he didn't, he could skip count by 7's, so no problem. Then a couple pages later it is 803/7. I'm not sure if they are expecting kids to write this out the long way or do it in their head or what. I told DS to forget about writing it out the long way. 7 goes into 8 one time so write a 1 above the 8. There is 1 left over so write a little one in front of the zero. Now you have a 10. 7 goes into 10 1 time. Write a 1 above the 0. There's 3 left over. Write a 3 in front of the other 3 so you have a 33. 7 goes into 33 4 times, and you have 5 left over. That's your remainder. So then his first grade teacher put him on the computer to do above level testing and started sending home problems like convert 546 inches into feet. She attached graph paper for him to "show his work." I had to explain to her that I didn't teach him how to do long division the normal way, he wouldn't know what to write on graph paper. But I will try.

blackcat, you might try this report about enVision: http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/interventionreport.aspx?sid=618 Our district uses it and I think it's ok, though I've seen a few worksheets that required some non-math-related knowledge to get a correct mathematical answer which I felt might be unfair to some kids. FWIW the web archive page you linked seems to be dated 1999.

I think maybe - 803/7.

Well more than a 100, 7*100 =700
103/7. Well 7 *10=70, 4*7=28, 70+28 =98
So 100+10+4=114 with 5 left over.

That I can do in my head.

Aufilia--thanks for the link. That makes me feel somewhat better about it.

puffin--i wonder if that's what Singapore Math teaches them to do. I think that's what DS is doing when he multiplies large numbers, like 96X12. But he makes too many errors so the teacher is trying to get him to write it down and carry numbers the normal way. For a kid with good working memory it probably is fine but he is only in first grade and has pretty average working memory so that's probably why it's a problem. I tell him it's fine to do it in his head, but can he please write it the normal way afterwards to check his answer.

Whoa. I don't get this at all. Brains are weird.

It's very interesting to see this, too. I would much rather just do the multidigit multiplication. I wonder what DD would choose. She's faster at mental math than I am, but also very fast and competent at standard algorithms of all sorts.

Let me clarify. When asked 3+4, she will try to count up from 3 to get to 7, which takes some time. But when doing the same addition but in a multidigit number, she just seems able to pull the sum out of her head. Similarly, she takes much longer to do 4 times 7 for example than 4 times 13 bcos she does 40+12 in her head. So yes it is a little weird but it seems perfectly normal when you are watching her solve it.:)