Singapore question

[Cadam]

I have read a couple of times now that "Singapore math is not a spiral". Someone explain to me how that is please. It's not a leveled mastery approach like MUS. As far as I can tell it coves multiple topics in a year getting progressively harder each year. Isn't that a spiral or am I missing something?

[Karin]

Quite frankly, I don't quite know why it's not spiral, either. I do know that I like it far better than Saxon, but that has to do with both my teaching style and my dc's learning style's (well, my ds would probably do fine with Saxon.) We do use SM along with MUS, though, for both the mastery of MUS and the different approach. Could I afford it we might do 3 or 4 math programs. Sometimes I have to teach my 9 yo a third way from those 2 so she can understand it. My goal is that my kids can do both the thinking and the computation math requires, but not that they do it one particular way because not everyone's brain is wired quite the same way.

[nmoira]

It depends how you define "spiral." Singapore only spirals once per year, and some define a spiral curriculum as one that spirals during the year. Personally, I would characterize as spiral with mastery (i.e. mastery is expected at each stage, as opposed to some of the newer math programs in public schools)... it's a distinction I picked up from one of the discussions at the Kitchen Table Math blog.

[Myrtle]

I asked a commercial math textbook editor about this and he said that in his industry "spiral" means that the topic is partially taught and revisited within the same academic year.

If you don't define it this way then almost every program could be defined as spiral by the defintion of "It revisits the topic in more depth the following year" For example, kindergartners learn how to add to ten, addition is revisited in the first grade when they learn to add to 18, second grader then go into more depth by learning how to regroup and add double digit numbers, etc.

There was a video on youtube in which some school was promoting Saxon math and there were at least three teachers that said that Saxon was spiral! It's clearly labeled INCREMENTAL on the front my text. It seems that words such as spiral, incremental, rote, distributed practice, constructivist get tossed around by more and more people until they have lost the original meaning intended by the marketing guy that wrote up the adverts for the product.


The irony is that the actual subject of math is all about rigorous definitions.

[Jenny in Atl]

Saxon is very spiral.. a little of all that you have covered is presented each time you do problems at the end of that day's lesson. Singapore goes over something for a week or two and then moves on. You may see it again in the second half of the year or in a review question but not as much as you would in a Saxon text bk.

hth's

[Karin]

Thanks for the education. The loss of meaning seems to be quite typical these days (perhaps always once something is bandied about enough?).

[Colleen in SEVA]

It seems that words such as spiral, incremental, rote, distributed practice, constructivist get tossed around by more and more people until they have lost the original meaning intended by the marketing guy that wrote up the adverts for the product.


OH MY!!! This gave me flashbacks to my days as an elementary ed undergrad where I had different professors using different meanings -- even in the same department in the same semester! Don't even get me started on defining progressivism in schools, exactly WHICH educational philosophers were considered "pragmatic", and how a student is classified as "gifted". LOL!!

FWIW -- I have always thought of Singapore as a very large spiral -- so a lot is covered in each year, but it only makes it all the way around once per year or so. I envision an exit from a 5-level parking deck, whereas some programs are more like the spiral in a notebook.