Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Math-U-See vs. Singapore Maths

Madoosa, came upon this old thread while googling for Singapore math. I am wondering if you tried it and what your opinion is. I am considering it for dd4. Also how accurate was the placement test? Dd completed the 1a and 1b placement tests but I am a little hesitant to start her at 2a in case there are any big gaps. Thanks.

I have used Singapore, Math U See, RightStart, Saxon, Life of Fred, and probably some others that I can't remember right now.

If you're worried about gaps, I would start in 1A and move through the material quickly. One of the great things about Singapore is that it's easy to accelerate. Keep in mind that it's important to teach the material the Singapore "way" if you want to get the most out of the program. You can either get the Home Instructor Guides or read the book Elementary Mathematics for Teachers for help with that.

I will add...

We sometime use Singapore Maths books for my DS8 (we started when he was 7), but not from the company "Singapore Math Inc.". We have the current maths books used in the public school system in Singapore. I hope that hasn't confused you your cause, but I wanted to go to the source! They weren't as easy to get as I had expected. I wonder how different they are at the moment?

We find the maths book with explanations and some problems are enough (we don't use the workbooks). The colourful pages are a big bonus.

He also finds the Beast Academy fun to read, again no workbooks. Unfortunate, it doesn't go further but your younger guys might like it.

In the end we went with neither. I decided to give them both another year with only their SEMAS (Japanese abacus) class and Dreambox.com.

Although having said that I am getting some Life of Fred books since both older boys are obsessed with Algebra. It really will be supplemental right now - I am just letting them play with numbers and the concepts that fascinate them. From next year we will start to do more formalised things as I think they will be reaching the end of Dreambox by then...