Re:2+2=What? Parents rail against Common Core math
by hga on Thursday May 15, 2014 @11:35AM
(#7750034)
That's good, not to mention better than I expected ^_^.
But I'm replying to all those who denounce rote memorization in whatever context, and claim this is not necessary to be good at math (or for a very large fraction of children, phonics, in order to later read well).
(It's something I've recently gotten really focused on, after a sister-in-law asked for help: one of her kids is great with numbers (even deduced negative numbers on his own, and asked her what they meant), but the eldest just cannot memorize the math tables, and we're despairing about what to do.)
Common Core includes memorization of tables. For instance, it explicitly calls for knowing from memory all products of two one-digit numbers by the end of Grade 3. By the time the students get to algebra, they'll be ready for simplifying 2x=4y.
What is covered in each grade is given here: http://www.corestandards.org/Math/
A lot of the criticism I've read of it seems to be from people who have been comparing grade X of CC (where X is the grade their kid is in) to what they remember learning in grade X when they were a kid, and conclude that CC does not teach the things they learned in grade X. In fact, it often does teach those things--just in a different grade, or later in the grade X year.
Note that I'm NOT saying CC is better than prior K-12 math programs. I'm just saying that comparisons should be done between CC and prior programs by comparing them as K-12 programs, not by comparing them for specific grades.