Math differentiation in elementary and middle schools

[Anonymous]

What are your experiences with Math differentiation at an earlier stage at your school? DD is advanced in Math at a public elementary school and we want to continue progression at a private school. Which major private schools in the area can offer that at the LS and MS levels? Thanks

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What are your experiences with Math differentiation at an earlier stage at your school? DD is advanced in Math at a public elementary school and we want to continue progression at a private school. Which major private schools in the area can offer that at the LS and MS levels? Thanks

By middle school I expect most privates can differentiate by choosing different classes. For most schools, this all tracks backwards from when the student will take a real high school quality Algebra I class. For most students at St. Andrew's, for example, that is 8th grade, but some students will be ready sooner by 7th a some not until 9th.

Publics are almost always appear to be ahead of privates in lower grades, but I am sure DCUM could be filled with stories of "advanced" MCPS elementary school students who were "lost" by 8th or 9th grade -- not all, of course, but too many.

[Anonymous]

Thank you, PP, that seems to be my feeling too. Anyone has "accelerated" Math experience early on, say in 4-5th grades?

[Anonymous]

Our Catholic school has 2 levels of math starting in 4th and expands to 3 levels in 6th.

[Anonymous]

At Sidwell, formal math grouping to match each child's needs with the teaching approach occurs in 5th grade. In earlier grades, the teachers subdivide the class into small bands to achieve a sort of proto-grouping.

[Anonymous]

Look to the publics if your priority is acceleration in math in elementary school. Arithmetic is simple and it doesn't matter whether your child memorizes the multiplication table in 2nd or 3rd grade - they're still not capable of sophisticated reasoning yet. The math teachers at the independents have very strong opinions about the preparation of most students taking algebra in 5th and 6th grade. They think those students are learning by rote and that most don't have the developmental maturity for a robust math foundation at that age. Truly out of the park students are easy to spot and address. But, when the majority of upper middle class students are taking algebra "too early" the teachers feel the holes in their understanding drag down the entire school's program.

[Anonymous]

Depends on how "advanced" your child is. At GDS, unusually advanced children are able to take classes with older grades, but this is rare. Your kid can't just be in the normal range of advanced. I have found DD's math to be quite advanced--learning pre-algebra concepts starting in 4th grade and allowing for students to do more challenging work (e.g., Continental Math League questions).

[Anonymous]

Thanks, PP, that what I was looking for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Look to the publics if your priority is acceleration in math in elementary school. Arithmetic is simple and it doesn't matter whether your child memorizes the multiplication table in 2nd or 3rd grade - they're still not capable of sophisticated reasoning yet. The math teachers at the independents have very strong opinions about the preparation of most students taking algebra in 5th and 6th grade. They think those students are learning by rote and that most don't have the developmental maturity for a robust math foundation at that age. Truly out of the park students are easy to spot and address. But, when the majority of upper middle class students are taking algebra "too early" the teachers feel the holes in their understanding drag down the entire school's program.

I think this may have been true and probably recently, but not with the new Common Core 2.0 Math standards. There is sophisticated reasoning and a lot deeper understanding with this curriculum. I do think you're better placed in Math in the publics, and this is because I have children in both private and public schools and can compare the teaching and the standards, side by side.

[Anonymous]

At some privates there are "Math Counts" teams by the start of middle school. These are extracurricular activities where kids do more advanced work and actually participate in competitions.

[Anonymous]

The 19.15 poster - would be great to have a chat about your experiences, albeit not sure how to do it via this forum.

[Anonymous]

Barnesville provides differentiation in the lower grades -- there is even some mixing of the 3rd/4th/5th grade classes during the math rotation so that all the kids get a curriculum that works well for them.

[Anonymous]

Our experience has been lots of differentiation, even if it isn't via official math groups. One of our children had math differentiation in 2nd grade, although they didn't break out into separate classes until 5th. They did this in most of the subjects, not just math.

[Anonymous]

I think a lot of people want "acceleration" in math simply because the rest of the world's math curriculum is accelerated one year above the standard US curriculum. This is why so many people felt math was so easy growing up in the US and why our PISA math scores lag so much behind other countries. To them "US accelerated math curriculum" is just a standard math progression.