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    ©Katherine Prouty

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January 25, 2005

Comments

honeydo

I am not saying that those in favor of EM math are wrong and as I told our principal, I'm sure it works great for some kids. But not for mine. I do not believe in this program, not one little bit. I did give it a chance...the whole second grade. Now the princ. told me that I needed to wait that in 2 years, he would be ok.

Backstory.....last year my son was in 1st grade, doing 4th grade math by the end of the year. GREAT. I'm proud. Never a calculator was used, he borrowed and carried to his heart's content and always got the answers right.

then......EM was instituted for second grade. Oh joy. I didn't understand it. But, ok, I'll give it a chance. After almost the entire year has passed, his math has gone down the drain. He cries during math at school, fakes taking his tests and outright refuses to do it. Why? Because he gets all the answers wrong. At this point he cannot complete a 1st grade math question properly when implementing the EM techniques.

I have gone round and round about this. Tried to use their "algorithms" and ways of solving problems. I have encouraged him to love math and follow the directions given to him by Mrs. H. I have supported this program despite my reservations. I have had to sign papers saying I will tutor him at home on the subject because he was doing poorly. NEVER in the history of that school have they had summer school or after school math tutoring....till now. Until they implemented EM into the curriculum. Almost the whole 2nd grade has to go to after school tutoring.

SO, last night I did an experiment. I let him do his HomeLink paper for EM. 4 problems on the bottom, 2 addition, 2 subtraction. Using the EM methods, all on his own, he got 1 right. 1. and done very inefficiently I might add, but I digress.

So, I re-wrote the problems on the back of his paper. I told him to do it the way Miss M. taught him. He lit up. "You mean the way I did it in 1st grade?" Yup, the way you did it in 1st grade. Lickety split, it was done. AND ALL 4 CORRECT.

Right there, spelled out in pencil. All on his own. HE responds to traditional algorithms best.

Math will now be homeschooled in our house and my children are now forbidden from learning Evil...errr....Everyday Math.

I'm probably going to get a phone call.

TuLyn

I have been working on a free math help site. Over 2000 video tutorials, hundresds of word problems and printable PDF worksheets. Please take a look : http://tulyn.com

Diane

I'm concerned with EDM. Our district implemented this program this year. My child is in third grade. For K thru 2nd she was not taught EDM, yet is expected to just "pick up" at third grade. There is no time for any drilling of multiplication facts, addition facts, subtraction, division. It is just "expected" that parents will do this. There is no time for the "games" that go along with this program as the teachers are just trying to teach the EDM curriculum. My child also is not the best reader. Therefore, she gets hung up on new words. For example, I gave her an example using the word "square" and she did the math problem very easily. Yet when the EDM test used words like "hexagon" "polygon", she did not get the math problem right.
Am I crazy or did our district make a mistake starting this program with kids who are in the 3rd grade? Any help with understanding is much appreciated.

Mary Ellen Sofield

I would like our school district to get rid of Everyday Math. When my daughter was in 2nd grade I realized she was not learning math facts. The only homework she received were single page worksheets that took her all of 30 seconds to complete and had no drill of math facts. I begged for homework but was told that research shows that homework is not effective. I enrolled my daughter in Kumon which gives her 20 solid minutes of math practice a day. Within six weeks her teacher told me how very happy she was with my daughter's progress and how well she suddenly knew all her math facts. Yes, I said, because she's been going to Kumon and doing homework - it's not because she learned it from Everyday Math. The school district and Everyday Math will use her good math grades to show how well Everyday Math works. She's learned math at Kumon. Also, we here in NJ pay a fortune in property taxes. 90% of the property taxes I pay in my town goes to support the school district. It makes me incredibly angry that on top of all that I have to pay Kumon $1200 a year so my daughter can learn the math that she's not learning in school.

A student

As a student, I hate ALEKS. Just about everyone in my school hates aleks. It makes me completely depressed. It's insanely time consuming and irritating. I can't explain why we hate it exactly. we just do. When I'm doing ALEKS, I feel as if the light and joy is being sucked out of my soul. It makes me want to run far, far away. And I am NOT the only one. Not by a long shot. Ignore me if you want, I can't stop you, and I'm glad if it helped your kids, but I have to speak for myself, my friends, my classmates and all the kids at my school. Our side of the argument needs to be heard.

Ankit

Nice Article. In India a2zExam.com is an Assessment company, which test students knowledge and skills and figure out what they know? Where they are weak? Whether they know concepts or they remember the rules.

Based on this it is very helpful for children, teacher and parents to work and improve on students learning. They call is Learning Outcome Management System.

Marc DeMartini

Friends-I am heartbroken and livid about Everyday Math. I suspect that at least 30% of my daughter's anxiety problems stem from repeatedly being unable to master problems that "spiral" past her. While there maybe other things contributing to her anxiety and depression relating to school, it always seems to peak when new math material is introduced. I suspect that she repeatedly sees herself as a failure because she knows she cannot solve the problems presented to her. Kumon has helped but she is being emotionally trashed by the EM program. She has an IEP and was using an alternative curiculum which she mastered so quickly that they mainstreamed her back to EM. That has been an ongoing headache. I always know when it is problematic because she refused to let me see her homework. Come next Monday, I am going to start pushing for her to let her go back to that other program. The school will whine about how overloaded their special ed resources are. We are paying for Kumon and counseling. But what really hurts is to see how miserable our daughter is.

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