New York Times – Early Math Counts

The Wrong Way to Teach Math

Early Math Counts — Fri, 04 Mar 2016 18:28:30 +0000

According to last Sunday’s New York Times’ article in the Sunday Review by Andrew Hacker, we are teaching math wrong. Rather than focusing on algebra and geometry, we should be focusing on “quantitative reasoning” skills – the math skills we will most likely use throughout our lives. These skills support a more comprehensive understanding of the math we need to move through our lives rather than math that exists for most of us only in the classroom.

For instance, many people read newspapers, magazines, and look at advertisements, etc. In some of these, there is data that supports the articles. Sometimes the data is in graph form. Other times it is in percentages. We, as mathematical literate people need to be able to read and understand those numbers and graphs. Most of us don’t need to know how to solve for X, when y is imaginary and m=4. We do need to know how to calculate the square footage of our front lawn in order to buy fertilizer and we do need to know how to understand our phone plan so we can make the most informed decision financially.

Take a look at the article and tell us what you think. Are we doing it all wrong?

Pursuing Creativity

Early Math Counts — Tue, 02 Feb 2016 18:32:48 +0000

This article from the New York Times describes how important it is to let children’s creativity flourish and reiterates what we know to be true about the development of children; we need to stop pushing one agenda over another and let children grow up to be who they are meant to be. Creative children who grow up to be creative adults are more likely to have lived in homes where their parents were less likely to push an academic agenda and more likely to let their uniqueness and originality shine.

Check it out.

Learning Through Play

Early Math Counts — Sun, 17 May 2015 22:04:25 +0000

I read this article this morning as I thought about what to write this week. I decided that every time I read an article that supports teachers who support a play-based curriculum, I would repost it here. Please read.

Let the Kids Learn Through Play

If You’ve Ever Wondered Why Play Is The Work of Children

Early Math Counts — Wed, 22 Oct 2014 17:09:44 +0000

Read this….

The Building Blocks of a Good Pre-K

Why do Americans Stink at Math

Early Math Counts — Sun, 27 Jul 2014 12:44:37 +0000

Yesterday, one of my dearest friends sent me a link to this article from the New York Times ;

Why do Americans Stink at Math?

It is long. So go and get yourself a good cup of strong coffee and pull up a chair. This article not only explores the reasons why Americans suffer from profound innumeracy but it begins to dig at the roots of why American teachers struggle to teach math effectively. The article looks at international examples of math teaching that works and domestic examples from several decades of math education that didn’t work and continues not to work.

There is a sense of urgency as well. The author describes multigenerational innumeracy: teachers who don’t know how to teach math effectively, colleges that don’t know how to prepare teachers to teach math effectively, teacher preparation programs that aren’t focusing on teaching as an art, and children who can’t puzzle out even the most basic math-based problems.

Here’s a teaser….

On national tests, nearly two-thirds of fourth graders and eighth graders are not proficient in math. More than half of fourth graders taking the 2013 National Assessment of Educational Progress could not accurately read the temperature on a neatly drawn thermometer. (They did not understand that each hash mark represented two degrees rather than one, leading many students to mistake 46 degrees for 43 degrees.) On the same multiple-choice test, three-quarters of fourth graders could not translate a simple word problem about a girl who sold 15 cups of lemonade on Saturday and twice as many on Sunday into the expression “15 + (2×15).” Even in Massachusetts, one of the country’s highest-performing states, math students are more than two years behind their counterparts in Shanghai.

What do you think?

Who Says Math Has to be Boring?

Early Math Counts — Tue, 10 Dec 2013 18:00:06 +0000

On Sunday, I opened the paper to an article called “Who Says Math Has to Be Boring?” I am always drawn to articles about education, especially ones with the word math in their titles.

It isn’t too long but if you only read one part of it, scroll down to the paragraph entitled Very Early Exposure to Numbers and read that bit. It is what we at Early Math Counts have been saying for almost 2 years. Early math matters – more than you can imagine.

Simon Says Don’t Use Flash Cards- NY TIMES Magazine

Early Math Counts — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 19:00:37 +0000

In yesterday’s New York Times magazine, author Tara Parker-Pope argues that “play is the key to academic success”. Aaaah! a like-minded writer who understands what teachers of young children have known all along. She asserts that game play encourages higher order thinking skills, improved executive functioning, and self-control. I love it when we hear research that supports what we know – and debunks the myths surrounding early learning.

Click here to access the article.