Reply to math curriculum 2.0 -- explaining math strategies

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Is anyone else's elementary student having trouble with the required narrative explanations in math homework -- e.g., explaining the "strategies" used to solve the problem?  DC has no problem getting the right answer but is struggling to put the thinking/reasoning into words.  I've suggested just writing it out as DC would explain it to me (which has mixed results) but it's an ongoing issue.  Any advice?  (Fwiw, DC is a good writer in other subjects.)[/quote]

I would suggest contacting your child's school's math lead teacher, perhaps with some other parents in tow, or at a PTA meeting.   Ask for concrete example from grades k-3, for example, of what types of narrative explanations are expected and accepted, and for a rationale of why these and not others.

"Please show us exemplars of how kids should express in written narratives the following computations:

2+8

(I said the bigger number, 8, then counted on a number line 2 more times)
(I made a 10, because 8 is 5 and 3, and 3+2 is another 5 , and 5+5 = 10)
or my personal favorite
(I know 2+8 is ten because IT IS A LAW OF ARITHMETIC that I memorized)

8*3

(I counted by 8 three times)
(I counted by 3 eight times)
(8 is 5 and 3; so I multiplies 5x3 and got 15 and 3x3 and got 9 and I know 15+9 is 24)
(8 and 8 is sixteen and then I added another 8)
(I know 8x3 is 24 because IT IS A LAW OF ARITHMETIC that I memorized)

20*15

(I multiplied 15x2 tens and got 30 tens which is 300)

425 + 375

(I added 400 and 300 to get 700.   Then I added 25 and 75 to make another 100.   That gave me 800 total)

500 - 98

(I subtracted 100 from 500 to make 400.  Then I added back 2 (because 98 is 2 smaller than 100), and got 402.

700 - 23

(I subtracted 1 from both parts of this problem and turned it into 699 - 22.   Then I mentally subtracted and got 677.)[/quote]

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