A number of parents I've talked to lately have told me that they struggle to understand the math their children are learning. For the most part, these are parents of children from kindergarten right through to high school. There is no doubt that what we teach in math has changed, for the better I might add.

To understand the math today, have a look at the grade by grade goals which are reflective of math courses of study for most educational jurisdictions. Most importantly, math from K-8 considers concepts in numeration, geometry, algebra (patterning), measurement and data management along with all the process type skills which will include a child's ability to reason, communicate their findings, make connections, use problem solving skills and represent their work.
For more information about math curriculum K-12, you may want to try the National Council for Teachers of MathematicsNCTM.

For most of us, being able to remember how we learned to count is a bit of a stretch. However, we think we can teach counting relatively easily. The truth of the matter is that learning to count addresses many concepts. It is much more difficult for young learners than one would think. For instance, learning to count involves:

• Remembering the sequence, 2 follows 1, 7 follows 6 etc.
• Any given number means that number of things. A child may recognize a number 6 but not know that it represents 6 things.
• Number can be associated with something concrete or something abstract. For instance, I can have 5 candies, 5 books, 5 ideas, 5 thoughts.
• Counting involves increasing or decreasing amounts regarding the direction we count (forwards or backwards).
• The meaning of a 1 or 2 or 3 can change as we begin grouping. In twenty the 2 now means 2 groups of ten, in 322 the 3 means 3 groups of 100.
• Remembering that the last number counted in a group of objects also represents the total of those objects.

So, although counting seems pretty basic, it can be very complex to young learners. Most of all, counting is not just a memory concept!

Here are a few Read more...