when did 'sums' become 'number sentences'?

[mintyneb]

Just before Christmas my DD (aged 5, yr 1) brought home a pile of papers she'd been working on at school. One of the pages included some numbers and a series of questions relating to them.

the first question asked 'how many number sentences can you make with the numbers above?' Now I could make an educated guess as to what the question meant, but really, why do sums have to be called number sentences?? It was the first time I had ever seen the phrase.

If anyone can provide any logic as to why a perfectly reasonable word (well it did me now harm when I was at school!) needs to be replaced with something else, I would be grateful. Oh and at the same time, also explain why 'insects' now have to be taught as 'mini beasts' instead. I've still not got my head around that one!

(It's obvious, of course, that you can't call everything that might be studied in a 'minibeasts' topic 'insects', as that is scientifically incorrect. A worm is an invertebrate, but it is not an insect - and to artificially remove worms from a topic which might well cover e.g. millipedes and caterpillars just so that you can correctly call it 'insects' would be perverse)

Hi mrscog, thanks very much for your encouraging remarks and I am glad you agree.

I quite like number sentences

you start at the left and move to the right, just like reading!

it's a concept they are familiar with

both my dds are in primary and have grown up with number sentences, number lines, chunking and they are much better at maths than I was at the same age and I've got an A level in the subject!

I could follow a process but I didn't understand why that process worked, I just knew it did

they understand why

a number sentence is an equation or inequality.It is a statement in numerical terms.
It isn't true my junior maths text book in the 1970s talked about number sentences.

It isn't new not true LOL

I was always taught that the sum is the answer, not the question.

To be fair to the OP she only asked when did it happen. If the answer is 1945 then that's still OK.

I quite like number sentence. I'd be a bit horrified if teaching was exactly the same as it was when I was at school tbh - the idea that noone had had a good idea about how to make it better in 30 years is rather scary!

I'm naturally quite good at Maths and it strikes me that a lot of modern Maths teaching is explaining good strategies to children (for making mental calculations for example) that are a close approximation of what I used to do in my head. Teaching less able students the tricks that more able students might be using sounds like a good plan to me. I don't remember it being as explicit when I was at school.

OK guys, so it looks like I'm the one who's getting the nomenclature wrong in my head! I'll just try and keep quiet when it comes to what DD is coming home telling me

I learned maths by some awful method called Fletcher Mathemathics which used to frustrate the hell out of me by taking a whole page to do one sum! I guess the 'sums' did include sentences as we had to draw copious amounts of arrows and label them as 'can be written as'.... I can safely say its a learning method that has stayed with me all these years although for completely the wrong reasons.

All I can say is that until 2 years ago I had never heard the term mini beast (depsite having been educated at the same time as some of the other posters on the thread) and until a month ago had never seen the phrase 'number sentence'. You live and learn!

'Number sentence' makes much more sense than 'sum' (which as others have mentioned suggests addition only.)

A mathematician might use the word 'expression' rather than 'number sentence' but it means the same thing, and there are a lot of analogues with a word sentence: it needs to be well-formed according to a predefined syntax, you need to identify the different parts (operators and operands, nouns and verbs) and you interpret it according to a known grammar (e.g. BODMAS)

chicaguapa Wed 09-Jan-13 12:41:29

I was always taught that the sum is the answer, not the question.

The sum is only the answer to an addition calculation

I couldn't remember when I was taught that but it was when I did my Montessori training. But, yes it's only the answer in addition but it is never the question.

Can't the word sum just have more than one definition?

It does have a number of definitions but in maths it means the result of adding two or more numbers/quantities.

'Hara-kiri should be introduced to some sectors of local government et al. '

I think you'll find that the correct term is seppuku, Rollmops.

If you think it's hard as a parent, imagine being a really old teacher who has to constantly unlearn and relearn what the latest, correct terminology is.
Yesterday's word bad, today's word good, tomorrow who knows?

Are number sentences and number stories the same thing ?

Number stories are word problems here, so you might have a number story, have to write the relevant number sentence and then solve it.

Are number sentences and number stories the same thing ?
no... A number story is a description to help the child visualise the number sentence (you would start with the sentence -so something like 3+6=)

and you might create the number story -

Ava had 3 apples and Oliver had 6 apples. How many apples did they have altogether?

It's a bit like a word problem in reverse