Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Supplementing Your Child's Math Education

When parents perceive that the work being done by their children in school is not rigorous enough, by whatever measure, most parents look for ways to supplement the work.  At home here we have several decks of flashcards which we use to drill our daughter.  We have also printed off worksheets from the Internet for multiplication, addition, and subtraction practice (watch out, division is next!).  And we have books of word problems which she will delve into when she has nothing to do (which is seldom) or on car trips. 

One of the best resources we have found, which was recommended to us by a good friend, is Khan Academy. 

http://www.khanacademy.org/

This site has both practice sessions, as do many other sites.  The real gem are the videos which explain concepts like borrowing and carrying (or "trade first" and "regrouping" in Everyday Math - although there are slight differences), multi-digit addition and subtraction and many others.  They go into the "why", not just the "how."  Look in the Arithmetic and Developmental Math sections, but there are also sections for Algebra, Geometry, Calculus and up to Diff EQ. 

Side note: how do you remember to spell ARITHMETIC?  A rat in the house may eat the ice cream.  Third grade was a long time ago, but I still remember.

My daughter will often ask to watch a video before reading/bed time.  Music to any parents ears when the video is teaching them something. 

It is interesting (to me, at least, given my campaign to change/eliminate Everyday Math) that some of the techniques used in the well executed Khan Academy videos to explain how to do a procedure or algorithm are included in EDM.  Since there is no EDM text book, we have to assume the teacher is teaching it well, or the children are discovering it for themselves (?!?!).  Teaching these alternative algorithms can help your child understand, but they should be used as teaching tools, not an end in themselves as EDM preaches.  Teach the reasoning, the "why", then get back to the efficient standard algorithms (and don't ignore long division).

Next up: what do standardized tests mean?

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