new maths methods are driving me mad..anyone else?

[wheelsonthebus]

dc are not at all bad at maths, but the new methods are slowing down their entire learning IM0. Goodness knows what will happen when we get to 'chunking' (dh went to a maths workshop at the school and even the teacher demonstrating it said to parents - 'er this is where it all goes wrong' - as she was doing it ). Whoever thought up these new methods is bonkers. For example, a simple sum like 58 + 29. By far and away, the easiest method is adding vertically like this.
58
29+
-
This is how the sum still appears in many traditional 7+ papers
But no, we are now told:
58 + 29 = difficult
58 + 30 - 1 or 58 + 2 + 27 = easier
It's rubbish!

The new theory being - changing a number to a round number or one which creates a round number when added to or subtracted from the other (e.g. 29 to 30 or 28) and then compensating makes the calculation much easier. For instance (33 + 99) is much easier when thought of as (33 + 100 -1).

I'm sorry - but it is NOT easier and millions of children will be worse off for it...

I feel your pain, I hate hate hate chunking. DD brought it home from primary school where there was no parent workshop and I was baffled to begin with.

It came as a bit of a shock to me too but it seems to help my son be quite quick at mental arithmetic. Think it's going to come unstuck a bit when he begins (as he is) to work with 3 and 4 digit numbers and I find myself itching to teach him the column method. My DS is at a state primary, however, and they seem only to teach columns in year 5 or so.

It isn't great for doing maths on paper but it does help with mental maths in the future.
Children get more freedom as they move through the school years to use whichever method suits them.

I would automatically do 58+29 as 58+30-1 if I were doing it mentally. Probably if it were written down I would do it as a column addition but it makes me think about whether my answer is sensible to do it as 58+30-1.

DS is 7 and in year 2 and seems to be able to use both methods.

I mean DS can do both in a 58+30-1 way whether mentally or written down and also written down in a column way.

do they badkitten? - i don't like doing it, but am honestly thinking of saying to dc 'forget what they teach you in school - just do it this way'

Unless you understand the difference between units, tens, hundreds, thousands etc there is not much hope of progressing with maths. Adding up in columns installs this idea and it can be used to build up to harder stuff

Can we extend the rant to multiplication? DS has been taught by school that to know a times table you only have to be able to recite the totals eg the 3 times table said aloud is 3,6,9,12,15... not 1x3=3, 2x3=6
Ask him how many 3s in 27 though and he looks blank. I know that's division but it's the other side of the coin. Learn your times tables properly & the answer would be rapidly recalled.

aagh, me too

Is it taught differently in the private sector? Because if so will be one of my major reasons for moving dd1.

munstersmum - yes, come and join us! Sounds mad to teach multiplication the way you describe, because as you say, multiplication should help with division. (FWIW our school doesn't call it multiplication (or use the division sign . Its 3 lots of 3 equals 9 ....

Wait till you get to Division and do the 'bus stop' method.

I can't stop myself - what do they use instead of a division sign ?!!

drives me nuts too. ds1 is year 5 and they still keep teaching 'alternate' methods of doing things which are totally confusing. in the end i spoke to the teacher about it, she agreed entirely but said she has to teach it. we spoke to ds1 and agreed that he should continue to use the 'traditional' method, even if the text book suggests otherwise, and he's been fine with that

My DD1 has been struggling with that for ages, and I sat down and explained to her the "column" method you talk about and she was off. She got it straight away.

I think it is confusing for a lot of children.

Isn't the bus shelter method the 'old' way? Or have I got it wrong? That seems to make more sense to me. Chunking appears to me to be rather arbitrary?
I have several books at home claiming to be in line with the NC but none use chunking as their method of teaching. Maybe it isn't done in all primary schools?

My concern is that teaching various methods will only lead to confusion, and then a child won't have a firm understanding of any way to master the four basic operations. I know rote learning is a dirty word, but there has to be something said for learning one way and then doing 100 examples so it is imprinted on the brain.

oh i hate some of the new methods. The bus stop thing i couldn't cope with. One of my students I supported was able to do the long multiplication in the old fashioned way. thank goodness and he could divide as well.

I couldn't believe how many children in Y9 struggled so much with things like tables, division, mulitiplication etc. I think the old fashioned methods do work best.

i can see breaking down can help sometimes but sometimes things are over complicated.

But the "write it in collmns and then add each up, carrying as you go method" (ie mechanical) doesn't work for mental maths at all, and allows children who don't really understand what is going on to trudge away without every "getting it". If they do chunking first, it means they can really understand the concepts and then use mechanical methods later for longer sums where it gets too tricky to remember all your chunks. The mental chunking method is far faster too, albeit that people who really don't get maths may only ever be able to do mechanical methods. It means they can tackle problems much more imaginatively too.

I agree it is a problem for 7/8+ which is more traditional and wants them to be able to do 4 column mechanical methods much earlier than the general curriculum gets there.

Are you really saying that if you were adding 58 + 29 in your head you would have an internal dialogue on the lines of "8 plus 9 is 17, so carry the 10 and 5 plus 2 plus 1 is etc" rather than "58 plus 30 is 80 and down one"? If find that really unlikely.

But column adding and subtracting has the problem of forgetting to "carry" numbers and , as others have said, is not as easy for mental maths. I am amazed at how good my DS (6) mental maths is and he gets "chunking" - which is actually what a lot of us have taught ourselves to do to work things out in out heads.

My Step-mother is a maths teacher and will tell you that one of her biggest probelms is parents thinking they know a better way and teaching their child in a different way to school. That is what leads to confusion. If suppporting your child at howe surely it is your responsibility to understand how they are being taught at school and re-enforce it?

michaelahpurple - no, I am saying that the total emphasis on mental maths is delaying children's learning. There's nothing wrong with using a pencil and paper. When it matters (ie in exams), you HAVE a pencil and paper and it's quicker to write sums down than juggle numbers in your head, esp if you are nervous and working against the clock.

melrose - i can't support a method i (and dh) think is inferior (and most people on this thread seem to support that view).

do private schools teach this (new) maths method?

I think the new methods are excellent. I think the children end up with a real sense of numbers.

My father taught me all those techniques as a child and they have served me very well. Both he and I have very often in the workplace said to people "that can't possibly be right" when presented with figures.

If you know that 19 x 19 is roughly the same as 20 x 20, so nearly 400, you are not going to accept an answer that looks more like 40 or 4000, for example. This is very useful in life.

I taught DD column adding up within 10 mins. Didn't do anything for her mental maths. To be honest chunking has helped us both

If i were writing it I'd always do column addition but mentally I round up and down as well and I think most people do.

We don't do it that way in school over here (AFAIK anyway, no sign of it yet!) but i think it probably would help children become more proficient at mental arithmatic.