You may be
wondering what Singapore math is all about, and with good reason. What
you may not know is that Singapore has led the world in math mastery for
over a decade; its students become competent and proficient
mathematicians at very early ages. Even better, they grow at to be
capable problem solvers who think mathematically with ease. Wouldn't it
be nice if your child could enjoy the same success with math?
First, you need
to know that Singapore Math takes a slightly different mathematical
approach than what you may be used to. It revolved around several key
number-sense strategies:
(1) building number sense through part-whole thinking, (2) understanding place value, and (3) breaking numbers into decomposed parts
or friendlier numbers, ones that are easier to work with in the four
operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division).
Second, Singapore Math does something dramatically different when it
comes to word problems. It relies on model drawing,
which uses units to visually represent a word problem. Students learn
to visualize what a word problem is saying so they can understand the
meaning and thus how to solve the problem.Third, we have mental math, which teaches students to calculate in their heads to memory, but mental math will teach him or her to do calculations without using paper and pencil. Sure, your child will still need to commit facts strategies that don't require paper and pencil.
Fourth, the strategies taught in Singapore are layered upon one another. One strategy is the foundation for another one. For example, students need prior knowledge of bonding in order to be successful at strategies they will learn later on (like vertical addition) beginning with concrete (using manipulatives such as counters, number disks, dice, and so on), then moving to pictorial (solving problems where pictures are involved), and finally
Last Singapore Math teaches students to understand math in stages working in the abstract process, students learn numerous strategies to work with numbers and build (where numbers represent symbolic values) through the conceptual understanding.