Supplementing math is becoming the norm now?

[Anonymous]

I was caught off guard also. One DC was below on math level and had LDs, so we arranged for a math tutor. Another DC was well above math per teacher and a straight A student. We did not have her tutored only to find out in MS that many other families had tutors for high achievers also.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We're in public but I've always known it's up to me as the parent to is till the work ethic. Kids do the daily hw and I check into make sure it's correct and they understand what they did and they redo the incorrect parts. They turn it in fridays but my kids say not everyone turns in. I don't care, in my hour we do the homework and learn. The tests that come home are close to the homework so relevance is fine. We haven't supplemented formally but do a lot of math games at home for fun.

lol OK good luck when they transition to all online and no homework when they are no longer that young. Stop being so smug. My kid hasn’t had paper homework to do at home in years and years, and forget about tests coming home!

My kid went to public school for 6th grade. Not a single scrap of paper came home. No homework, no tests, no textbooks, nothing. All math work was done on Zearn and apps. Luckily my child already knew all the content and we left after that year, but if a kid did struggle it would very hard for a parent to see what is going on. There was nothing tangible to see. You’d have to start giving your kid your own worksheets to see what was going on

+100000. It makes it impossible to help your kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^Adding that I COULD take her to a 2 hour math class, but that's more driving around and more time having her sit and work on academic work when I feel like she already does enough for her age. I'd rather she veg out and read a book than do another structured class.

A 2 hour math class you are commuting to is a total waste. Seriously. You could teach an entire year’s math curriculum in 30 min per day. If you think your kid needs extra, just commit to 20 min per night every night. Or 2-3 week nights then maybe a bit longer on weekends

But what is the point? Acceleration beyond grade level or what? DD is already doing 10 minutes of math a night through school.

The point is to accelerate them to whatever level they are capable of learning

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Check the grade level math curriculum on IXL. The teacher is probably not covering all of the material and giving students decent grades anyway.

The American math curriculum is typically one year behind the British math curriculum, and two years behind the East Asian math curriculums. We are doing badly even with such low expectations.

Exactly! It took me a while to catch on to this about the curriculum. I figured it out when I just got blank stares when I asked: “Ok, so what is the pre-algebra curriculum my kid needs to get through to be prepared for algebra?” and algebra is no better- it is “self paced” which apparently means “we will see whatever the kids manage to do on their own then scramble frantically to doctor the grades so they don’t all get Fs.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not the norm unless you're in public. DD attends private and goes to math class outside of school. Most of her classmates don't. I've noticed the kids at enrichment math are mostly public school kids, with a few kids from magnet schools and specialized privates.

This is not our experience at all. I have two kids at two different privates and a LOT of their classmates either have a math tutor or do something like Mathnasium, RSM, etc.

How do you find the time? Our private gives plenty of homework beginning in 3rd grade. At minimum they get daily math homework, reading and grammar homework several times a week, and spelling and vocab work. Homework is assigned every day but Friday, which is reserved for occasional project work. Between homework and extracurriculars, I don’t know how parents and kids would find the time.

How much homework are they getting. My 10th grader in AP calc doesn’t even get homework. Everything gets done in class. I’m not saying elementary kids should get none, but how much are you talking about?

For us it depended on the grade. In 2nd they got a math worksheet, single sided, and sometimes English work. In 3rd the homework ramped up with daily math (20-25 problems every night), study guides for tests, spelling and vocab tests weekly, and projects like book dioramas. Add in a hobby (like mine does 30 minutes of music practice, Saturday activity, and a sport) and there isn't a whole lot of time. I don't see how I would be taking her to a 2 hour math class every week.

Every year after that it got more challenging in elementary, but the biggest jump was 2nd to 3rd. And of course sport and activity expectations ramp up as the kids get older. Instead of once a week practice for a sport, it might be 3-4x per week. I'm surprised that your 10th grader in Calc doesn't get homework. I always had homework in AP Calc because we needed the daily practice and we were always prepping for the AP exam. In class, we were reviewing and also learning new material, not doing practice problems.

Where is your child in school and how old?

I also noticed that in the grades where teachers seemed to understand the task as learning fundamentals of reading, writing and math, the curriculum seemed more systematic and focused. But by 4th grade the wheels seemed to come off and there seemed to be no standards for content kids should learn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^Adding that I COULD take her to a 2 hour math class, but that's more driving around and more time having her sit and work on academic work when I feel like she already does enough for her age. I'd rather she veg out and read a book than do another structured class.

A 2 hour math class you are commuting to is a total waste. Seriously. You could teach an entire year’s math curriculum in 30 min per day. If you think your kid needs extra, just commit to 20 min per night every night. Or 2-3 week nights then maybe a bit longer on weekends

But what is the point? Acceleration beyond grade level or what? DD is already doing 10 minutes of math a night through school.

The point is to internalize foundational math skills so that, later, more complex mathematical processes and mathematical problem solving are easy. Even if a child can get A's in class, if the child is thinking through steps one-by-one and has not internalized the mathematical relationships, that child will be worse at mathematical problem solving than a child whose grasp of math is more intuitive and relational.

Think of it like reading. A young child who can read, but does not read often, will spend more cognitive brain power thinking through how to decode or how to interpret words they are less familiar with. A child of the same age, who reads daily and has built up effortless decoding, whose consistent exposure to written language has grown their vocabulary, is going to have an easier time connecting with the text. When reading is intuitive, there is more time for the more complex tasks of comprehension.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not the norm unless you're in public. DD attends private and goes to math class outside of school. Most of her classmates don't. I've noticed the kids at enrichment math are mostly public school kids, with a few kids from magnet schools and specialized privates.

This is another thing for OP to be aware of. The advanced math opportunities (and the parents encouraging it) are by and large in public schools, not private.

Yes, and the few in private schools pushing math enrichment are usually immigrant families - Russian, Indian, Chinese. If you go to a wealthy, selective, white/black private, you're not going to see that kind of math push from families.

The Asian families keep the after school math places in business. We have a large Asian population.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^Adding that I COULD take her to a 2 hour math class, but that's more driving around and more time having her sit and work on academic work when I feel like she already does enough for her age. I'd rather she veg out and read a book than do another structured class.

A 2 hour math class you are commuting to is a total waste. Seriously. You could teach an entire year’s math curriculum in 30 min per day. If you think your kid needs extra, just commit to 20 min per night every night. Or 2-3 week nights then maybe a bit longer on weekends

But what is the point? Acceleration beyond grade level or what? DD is already doing 10 minutes of math a night through school.

The point is to internalize foundational math skills so that, later, more complex mathematical processes and mathematical problem solving are easy. Even if a child can get A's in class, if the child is thinking through steps one-by-one and has not internalized the mathematical relationships, that child will be worse at mathematical problem solving than a child whose grasp of math is more intuitive and relational.

Think of it like reading. A young child who can read, but does not read often, will spend more cognitive brain power thinking through how to decode or how to interpret words they are less familiar with. A child of the same age, who reads daily and has built up effortless decoding, whose consistent exposure to written language has grown their vocabulary, is going to have an easier time connecting with the text. When reading is intuitive, there is more time for the more complex tasks of comprehension.

Yes but several PPs are saying their school assigns regular or even nightly math homework. OP says it's not sufficient and not checked closely, but I don't know what that means. Do they only get 10 problems that they check together in class, and it's graded on completion? Or they get daily math but it's only graded weekly? I don't know. In any case, it seems like that regular math isn't enough for OP's child and in her case, yes supplementation might be the way to go. Sounds like other parents in her child's grade have caught on to that, but I'm saying that's not necessarily the case in most schools.

[Anonymous]

What are they working on in 5th grade? I'm assuming they are doing the last bit of shoring up foundational math before moving to prealgebra next year? If you do supplement, I guess this year and next year or two would be the time, so you can make sure algebra is solid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not the norm unless you're in public. DD attends private and goes to math class outside of school. Most of her classmates don't. I've noticed the kids at enrichment math are mostly public school kids, with a few kids from magnet schools and specialized privates.

This is another thing for OP to be aware of. The advanced math opportunities (and the parents encouraging it) are by and large in public schools, not private.

Yes, and the few in private schools pushing math enrichment are usually immigrant families - Russian, Indian, Chinese. If you go to a wealthy, selective, white/black private, you're not going to see that kind of math push from families.

The Asian families keep the after school math places in business. We have a large Asian population.

People attending the math after school places near me appear to be about 10-15% Asian ancestry and about 70% European ancestry. YMMV.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not the norm unless you're in public. DD attends private and goes to math class outside of school. Most of her classmates don't. I've noticed the kids at enrichment math are mostly public school kids, with a few kids from magnet schools and specialized privates.

This is another thing for OP to be aware of. The advanced math opportunities (and the parents encouraging it) are by and large in public schools, not private.

Yes, and the few in private schools pushing math enrichment are usually immigrant families - Russian, Indian, Chinese. If you go to a wealthy, selective, white/black private, you're not going to see that kind of math push from families.

The Asian families keep the after school math places in business. We have a large Asian population.

People attending the math after school places near me appear to be about 10-15% Asian ancestry and about 70% European ancestry. YMMV.

The middle school is where it’s pretty much Asian kids. They are almost the only ones who maintain their advancement in math. It’s easy enough to be a couple of grades ahead in elementary school. By 8th grade it’s only the truly committed who continue to excel and attend classes and math club.

And it depends on the population in your area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not the norm unless you're in public. DD attends private and goes to math class outside of school. Most of her classmates don't. I've noticed the kids at enrichment math are mostly public school kids, with a few kids from magnet schools and specialized privates.

This is another thing for OP to be aware of. The advanced math opportunities (and the parents encouraging it) are by and large in public schools, not private.

Yes, and the few in private schools pushing math enrichment are usually immigrant families - Russian, Indian, Chinese. If you go to a wealthy, selective, white/black private, you're not going to see that kind of math push from families.

The Asian families keep the after school math places in business. We have a large Asian population.

People attending the math after school places near me appear to be about 10-15% Asian ancestry and about 70% European ancestry. YMMV.

Where’s that

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not the norm unless you're in public. DD attends private and goes to math class outside of school. Most of her classmates don't. I've noticed the kids at enrichment math are mostly public school kids, with a few kids from magnet schools and specialized privates.

This is another thing for OP to be aware of. The advanced math opportunities (and the parents encouraging it) are by and large in public schools, not private.

Yes, and the few in private schools pushing math enrichment are usually immigrant families - Russian, Indian, Chinese. If you go to a wealthy, selective, white/black private, you're not going to see that kind of math push from families.

The Asian families keep the after school math places in business. We have a large Asian population.

People attending the math after school places near me appear to be about 10-15% Asian ancestry and about 70% European ancestry. YMMV.

Do you live in an area full of Russian immigrants? Russians and Ukranians are the only ones of visible "european ancestry" that I know who regularly supplement at Russian Math. A couple of 2nd gen Jewish and "mixed euro white" familes too, but the vast majority of the "european ancestry" math accelerators by us are slav.

[Anonymous]

I live in DC and my DC attends private. The kids in our school who have supplemental classes and the ones I see at those learning centers are mostly non- Asian. The point is that this is not an Asian thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^Adding that I COULD take her to a 2 hour math class, but that's more driving around and more time having her sit and work on academic work when I feel like she already does enough for her age. I'd rather she veg out and read a book than do another structured class.

A 2 hour math class you are commuting to is a total waste. Seriously. You could teach an entire year’s math curriculum in 30 min per day. If you think your kid needs extra, just commit to 20 min per night every night. Or 2-3 week nights then maybe a bit longer on weekends

But what is the point? Acceleration beyond grade level or what? DD is already doing 10 minutes of math a night through school.

The point is to internalize foundational math skills so that, later, more complex mathematical processes and mathematical problem solving are easy. Even if a child can get A's in class, if the child is thinking through steps one-by-one and has not internalized the mathematical relationships, that child will be worse at mathematical problem solving than a child whose grasp of math is more intuitive and relational.

Think of it like reading. A young child who can read, but does not read often, will spend more cognitive brain power thinking through how to decode or how to interpret words they are less familiar with. A child of the same age, who reads daily and has built up effortless decoding, whose consistent exposure to written language has grown their vocabulary, is going to have an easier time connecting with the text. When reading is intuitive, there is more time for the more complex tasks of comprehension.

So well said.