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Reading "The More Child" Blog today led me to an article about a father's experience "afterschooling" Everyday Math. (Thanks SwitchedOnMom!)
http://ednews.org/articles/one-step-ahead-of-the-train-wreck.html
One of the comments at the end caught my attention.


I thought this was an important point in terms of accelerating children in math but I couldn't find additional information. Has anyone come across anything like this?

I agree with the Author 100%. Everyday Math is a train wreak!! When my DS6 started school, he had already mastered the concept of multiplication. By the end of the multiplication section of EM he had lost that ability. Why? Because everyday math teaches many different methods to get the answer. They have partial products, lattices (the ultimate insanity) and others. The idea is that each child will latch on to one method and learn. Being the little perfectionist that my DS is, he tried to implement all of the methods reasoning that if one was good then all of them together should be better.

I had to reteach him to multiply and had a conference with his math teacher regarding screwing up concepts that he already knows. He know takes a unit assessment on each new section prior to being introduced to the material. Next year he is supposed to use connected math but I haven't heard anything good about it either.

My son was taught at home to do maths the traditional way - the way I was taught. At school they started teaching multiplication using 'partitioning'. This was a disaster and my son started to struggle. The thing is they used this method as a means to teach place value, then later on move to the traditional method. What better way to get kids to jump through hoops, master a skill then say 'forget that, it didn't really matter'. So next time teacher shows them something they think 'does this one matter? Should I bother learning this one and putting some effort in?'

I have had to reteach my DD6 math but for a different reason. She knew how to do add/subtraction when she went into K but when they taught it to her in school. They taught the concept using a number line. My DD is a sponge so we had to work to fix that problem.
And now this year in her "accelerated math" class they are teaching her to count coins by counting by 5's!
5 counts for the qtr & 2 counts for the dime.
I had to go talk to the teacher because my DD can count change just finein her head.
Counting change by 5's is the silliest thing I have ever heard to teach to ACCELERATED math students.