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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]5th grade is ideal if child has proper math education prior to then.   But the will require parent participation to accomplish. [/quote]

Lol[/quote]

Why [b]by 5th grade the kid has solid abstract thinking skills[/b] and can easily work to manipulate equations and solve for x.  Math is really just a different language and we all know the earlier you start with a language the easier it is.

It is why the rest of the world speaks English and are way ahead of American students in math.

Laugh if you want but it the reality of the situation, just look at where the US ranks worldwide in math. [/quote]

That's a generalization which is very optimistic. Are you sure you know what your talking about?

And kids doing well in algebra in 7th don't have to worry about the rest of the world. They'll be fine.
[/quote]

Yes, most people develop abstract thinking skills at 8 or 9 years of age.

No. Kids doing Algebra 1 in 7th grade are behind the rest of the world.

As other posters have touched on, the US concept of math branch based education of doing Algebra 1 - Geometry - Algebra 2 is stupid.   Math should be taught as an integrated whole.

Again it is just like a language.  Kids don’t take Spanish 1 - German 1 - Spanish 2.   But that is the equivalent of 
what the US does with math. [/quote]

I think the problem with American math is happening long before they get to HS.  In most other countries, [b]the early years in math are spent focusing on calculations exclusively[/b].  By the time they get to different math types in HS or college, they can already calculate really well and work with numbers.  In American math, the entire elementary time is spent with math that is maybe half to one third calcuation at best, and the rest is meaningless junk that doesn't even exist as math in other countries.  For example, there is a ton of vocabulary (that isn't necessary for calculating), writing paragraphs about how you solved a problem, coming up with your own way to solve a problem and then talking about it in a group, doing number trees and other weird exercises that only exist in elementary school, and so on.  Show this to a student from China and they will think we are nuts and say something like "that's not math."  Because it isn't math.  Americans don't even know what math is.[/quote]

Research suggests this is not true at all.  International comparisons of high performing math countries in Elementary school (e.g., Singapore, Japan, Finland) show that they do fewer calculations, more open-ended problem solving.  Americans do far more calculations in elementary school.  The problem is they are canned and sorted--you learn a problem type, you practice that problem type and you are told whether it is correct or not.  [/quote]

This is just a confusion of vocabulary. When I said calculations, I meant working with numbers as opposed to writing number sentences and paragraphs and demonstrating your thinking by coloring a piece of paper and talking about it with a friend.  You are just talking about, as you said, a different way of working with them.  But American elementary students do very little actually working with numbers - a huge amount of time is spent on non-numerical items, including things like estimating the height of a wall in human body lengths or something similar.  I know because I was a teacher, and while most kids couldn't solve an equation we still had to stop working on whatever equation it was and start teaching them how many potato sacks a car might weigh, or the definition of a bunch of math vocabulary words that would appear on an SOL test (but not how to actually use the words to solve an equation - just to choose the correct definition on a standardized test).[/quote]

I’ve been a math teacher for over 20 years, and I literally have no idea what you’re talking about “how many potato sacks a car would weigh?” [/quote]

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