Reply to FYI: Indiana withdrawing from Common Core standards

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

1.OA.6: Add and subtract within 20, demonstrating fluency for addition and subtraction within 10. Use strategies such as counting on; making ten (e.g., 8 + 6 = 8 + 2 + 4 = 10 + 4 = 14); decomposing a number leading to a ten (e.g., 13 – 4 = 13 – 3 – 1 = 10 – 1 = 9); using the relationship between addition and subtraction (e.g., knowing that 8 + 4 = 12, one knows 12 – 8 = 4); and creating equivalent but easier or known sums (e.g., adding 6 + 7 by creating the known equivalent 6 + 6 + 1 = 12 + 1 = 13).

Were this a true content standard, it would have simply stopped after its first sentence: Add and subtract within 20, demonstrating fluency for addition and subtraction within 10. Yet the standard continues and lists at least four different ways students must use to show … what? Can’t they simply show they can add and subtract, correctly and fluently?[/quote]

Because depending on the math fact, some strategies are more efficient (use less mental energy) than others.

When I was a child, I only learned the "counting on" strategy.   I learned it well, and I could do it quickly.   But to add 9 + 7, I said the # 9, and then "counted on" 7 more times.

That's a lot of things to "say"  -- 9 - 10- 11-12-13-14-15-16.

It would have been much better for me to have learned that I should just move a one from the 7 to make a 10 with the 9, and then quickly say "16".  It uses up much less mental energy, leaving more working memory for performing other mental computation tasks.

The above ways of adding and subtracting are very good mathematical instruction, for the early years.[quote]

And lest you think this is just a fluke, here is essentially the same standard in the second and third grades:

2.NBT.5: Fluently add and subtract within 100 using strategies based on place value, properties of operations, and/or the relationship between addition and subtraction.

3.NBT.2: Fluently add and subtract within 1000 using strategies and algorithms based on place value, properties of operations, and/or the relationship between addition and subtraction.
[/quote]

Those are very good standards.  Using place value to add 76 and 52, for example, means you don't use the "counting on" strategy.  You don't say the number 76, and then count on 52 times.

You use place value.   You add 6 ones and 2 ones, and get 8 ones.   You add 7 10s and 5 tens, and get 12 tens, or 120.   You add 120 and 8 to get 128.

Are you saying you think place value is a BAD way to add???

[/quote]

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