Return to story

Teaching math that counts to children

January 22, 2008 12:15 am

A kindergarten teacher holds up two playing cards, say the 6 of diamonds and the 4 of spades. "What do I have?" she asks her students. After a little silence, a small voice pipes up: "Nine!" The teacher doesn't say the child is wrong. What she does say is, "Let's count the spots."

"1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10" later, with the class chiming in, everybody has the answer. This is how today's teachers teach mathematics. It's called Everyday Math and is designed to replace traditional math, which was based on algorithms, or systematic repetitive solutions to a single type of problem.

The first math specialist came to Stafford schools five years ago. Widewater Elementary School got its first one this year. She is Judy Schneider, and last week she organized the school's first parents-pupils meeting to demonstrate recent techniques and explain them to everybody.

"This is an opportunity to tell the parents about how math is taught differently from their day," Schneider said. "It teaches them how to work with their children at home, how to play the games." Twelve of Stafford's 17 elementary schools have mathematics specialists, as does one middle school.

During an evening learning how their children learn, parents of kindergartners and first-graders often found that they, too, have to catch up with the new teaching methods. Both young students and their parents, in separate rooms, played the games, with the parents then getting a tutorial on how the games teach.

Back to the deck of cards--which has no cards above 10, by the way. Teacher Bonnie Patishnock deals five cards facedown (the hole cards). Then she puts a card face-up on each one. The object is to have a pair that adds up to 10. Bonnie points to a face-up card. It is a 7 of spades. "What number are you hoping for?" she asks a student.

"Three!" the 6-year-old says. The teacher turns the hole card over. It is a 5 of hearts.

So the game continues. With the 5 of hearts and the 7 of spades, what total do you have? This requires more number recognition or counting ability by the student. Is the total below 10, 10, or above 10? And by how much? All the solutions are reached by addition and/or subtraction in the student's head (no pencil or paper here).

The young student has to grasp a number of things to play this game, one of a dozen or so that the teachers use. What number do you see? Do you recognize the 7 as such or do you count the spots to get 7? Either works and, eventually, learning one way leads to learning the other. How many different numbers will total 10?

The teacher moves to the next pair and the hole card results in a 10. The delighted student gets to keep the cards. At the end of the game, the one with the most cards wins. It is a game of chance, but one that teaches beginners how to read and relate numbers. It uses everyday objects, and it's fun.

In addition to the card game, children spun an arrow to win or lose pennies, nickels, dimes or quarters, adding and subtracting to keep track of their take (all money went back to the "bank"). They removed plastic apples and oranges from a paper tree, responding to the roll of a die, keeping count of how many fruits were left. A bingo-type game had students cover called-out numbers on a card until they had a finished row.

Why is this early introduction to math important? Cindy Patishnock, 13 years a teacher, said: "Kindergarten is a lot more academic than it used to be. Kids who start school now are more socially developed. They play soccer, attend preschool classes, are exposed to so many more things than when I was a child.

"And when they first come to school in the fall, there are a lot fewer tears."