Jug­gling the many math­e­mat­ic’s cur­ric­u­la choic­es is near­ly impos­si­ble.  It is no won­der that many par­ents and teach­ers strug­gle to find the “per­fect” math for their stu­dent.  The truth is that there are many won­der­ful choic­es for the study of math­e­mat­ics.  One of my per­son­al favorites is Sin­ga­pore Math. 

Why I like the Sin­ga­pore math program:

Sin­ga­pore math is a time test­ed, clear, mas­tery focused, work­sheet based, ele­men­tary lev­el math­e­mat­ics cur­ricu­lum.  Each lev­el, with the excep­tion of kinder­garten, con­tains 2 reusable text­books and 2 cor­re­spond­ing work­books.  The text­books con­tain tra­di­tion­al instruc­tion for each con­cept as well as prac­tice prob­lems to be com­plet­ed on a sep­a­rate sheet of paper, while the work­book pro­vides ample prac­tice prob­lems to be com­plet­ed along­side each sec­tion.  There are built in reviews through­out the work­books, but each new sec­tion does not con­tain a review of pre­vi­ous sec­tions.  This pos­es a prob­lem for some par­ents who pre­fer a more spi­ral approach to mathematics. 

Sin­ga­pore gets the job done, and does it well.  The for­mat is clear.  The prac­tice prob­lems are plen­ti­ful.  The con­cepts are sound. 

The Sin­ga­pore pro­gram begins with their kinder­garten work­books, of which there are two.  The work­books focus on teach­ing basic num­ber con­cepts, place val­ue, and sim­ple oper­a­tions.  There is a huge empha­sis on place val­ue in Sin­ga­pore that I have yet to see in many ele­men­tary pro­grams.  For a math book, Sin­ga­pore con­tains quite a bit of read­ing start­ing in lev­el 1, which can pose a bit of a dif­fi­cul­ty for late read­ers.  This is fur­ther dri­ven by the  for­eign names often used in the pro­gram, most first graders that I know don’t know how to read names like “Mei­hua”.  This prob­lem is all but elim­i­nat­ed if you help your strug­gling read­er with the direc­tions.  The Sin­ga­pore pro­gram is com­plet­ed with lev­el 6, which can be used in either 6 or 7^th grade.  Once the stu­dent has com­plet­ed lev­el 6 of Sin­ga­pore, he is ready for pre algebra. 

Every lev­el starts with num­bers and place val­ue, then moves through the oper­a­tions, basic arith­metic, and ends the year with mea­sure­ment and sim­ple geom­e­try.  Each lev­el goes fur­ther into depth with these con­cepts than the pre­vi­ous lev­el.  I’ve found it help­ful to know that the begin­ning of each year starts with the same con­cept and the end of each year is geom­e­try.  If you are teach­ing mul­ti­ple age stu­dents then adding some group math cov­er­ing the same con­cept togeth­er in dif­fer­ent depths becomes easy when using this program. 

Reviews are sprin­kled through­out each lev­el.  The reviews con­tain not only con­cepts from the unit cov­ered, but also from pre­vi­ous units.  Reviews are longer than typ­i­cal lessons so bud­get­ing more time for math on review days is a good prac­tice.  Also, not all lessons are the same length.  This can pose a dif­fi­cul­ty in plan­ning which les­son to cov­er.  My stu­dents are instruct­ed to cov­er two lessons a day.  This allows the lighter lessons to some­times be grouped with longer ones, and pre­pares my stu­dents for review days.  The review days are not per­cep­tive­ly long to the stu­dent when he is already com­plet­ing sim­i­lar length work­sheets on a reg­u­lar day.  This is just my way of deal­ing with the les­son length vari­a­tions. It may not work for you or your stu­dent, and that is fine. 

In order to give you an idea of what the books in this pro­gram look like, I’ve cre­at­ed a short video that you can view on the right of this screen.  If you have any ques­tions, please don’t hes­i­tate to com­ment below or ask them in our forum.