Everyday Math

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Home : 2002 : April : 7

Everyday Math
By Julianne

I use Everyday Math and Investigations. This is my second year using EM. We added two chapters of Investigations this year to make the program more closely align with our core curriculum. Like every math program there
are good and bad things about EM.
The good:
EM does align its concepts to our core curriculum which is, in turn, aligned to NCTM standards. The rep that sold the program to our school district even printed up stickers to place in our teachers' manuals listing the core concept for each section of the text.
EM follows a careful spiral of instruction so that students build on what they

have learned, both within a grade level and between grades. For instance, addition was covered earlier in the year, we left that subject for a time, now we are covering it again using higher numbers and new strategies.

EM has a very large inventory of materials to use in the classroom. We purchased the student workbooks, student texts, and manipulatives. We may not be allowed to have the student texts every year as they are consumable in first grade. But even without them there are enough usable materials to teach the program effectively.

EM provides a CD with materials in Spanish - a bonus for me because about half of my class is native Spanish speaking. While I use English materials in class, I can send homework pages home in Spanish so parents have a better chance of helping their children.

The teacher's manual is comprehensive and self-explanatory. It gives plenty of information on how to introduce each topic.

The bad:

The student texts are HUGE! The books have over 400 pages and are about 10 X 12". They weigh a ton. I chose to pull out the pages and give them to the kids one page at a time.

The student pages are colorful - TOO colorful for many learners. And they include way too much text for non-readers. An average kid in an average school might cope with this information overload, but my ESL students and ADHD kids have trouble with it.