Math level in Int'l schools here in Thailand

[Nepal4me]

My son is in G2 in an American school system here in BKK. This school follows the US "core curriculum" standard.

My concern is the very low level of math being taught. I wonder if this is standard in other US curriculums or in Y3 British based systems.

An example of a G2 homework assignment:

count by 2's and color red

count by 5's and color green

count by 10's and color blue.

<deleted>??? This? For a 7/8 year olds??? Every kid in the class can do it easily. They don't teach multiplication until G3. This seems bizarre. My son started learning multiplication 2 years ago in a British system and even at 6 at the end of the year could get the gist of multiplying. At least at a preliminary level.

I wonder, is the level this low at say ISB for G2 or at Bangkok Pattana for Y3?

Are there any teachers of G2/Y3 out there that can comment if teaching multiplication is or should be taught by this time.

[Phatcharanan]

When you say the school follows the US 'core curriculum' do you actually mean the standards of the recently introduced 'Common Core'?

By Grade 2/Year 3, (Semester 1, Term 1) students should already be able to understand the multiplication/division facts for 2x, 3x, 5x, 10x

They would also be learning about 4x, 3 digit multiples of 100 etc etc.

It will differ from school to school of course but the students should have these basic facts already understood.

I have worked in Primary in the UK and Elementary in MA, USA.

[Nepal4me]

When you say the school follows the US 'core curriculum' do you actually mean the standards of the recently introduced 'Common Core'?

By Grade 2/Year 3, (Semester 1, Term 1) students should already be able to understand the multiplication/division facts for 2x, 3x, 5x, 10x

They would also be learning about 4x, 3 digit multiples of 100 etc etc.

It will differ from school to school of course but the students should have these basic facts already understood.

I have worked in Primary in the UK and Elementary in MA, USA.

Thanks for your comments. You're right, I did mean "Common Core".

We are half way through the year and 4x and 3 digit multiplication is not even being done in G3 in my kids school. I know that because I monitor my son's G3 buddy's homework.

Is there a site which displays what should be taught at what level in Common Core? I guess I could google it.

[culicine]

When you say the school follows the US 'core curriculum' do you actually mean the standards of the recently introduced 'Common Core'?

By Grade 2/Year 3, (Semester 1, Term 1) students should already be able to understand the multiplication/division facts for 2x, 3x, 5x, 10x

They would also be learning about 4x, 3 digit multiples of 100 etc etc.

It will differ from school to school of course but the students should have these basic facts already understood.

I have worked in Primary in the UK and Elementary in MA, USA.

Thanks for your comments. You're right, I did mean "Common Core".

We are half way through the year and 4x and 3 digit multiplication is not even being done in G3 in my kids school. I know that because I monitor my son's G3 buddy's homework.

Is there a site which displays what should be taught at what level in Common Core? I guess I could google it.

Yes it sounds a little slow to me. My son is in an EP, and by third grade they had covered the times tables to 10. That is for 8/9 year olds. He was 9 at the time. It would be a good idea to do a google search and see what the students are supposed to be doing at that level. The school could be slow for several reasons. I would hope the school is spending more time on understanding the concepts and critical thinking skills, hence the learning of the times tables is slowed down. I think that's a fair trade off if it is the case. A lot of kids are great at arithmetic but have no idea how or when it is applied. maybe have a chat to the teacher and see what is going on. They should surely have a copy of the standard curriculum.

[Scott]

In our bilingual school, the students start multiplication at G. 1. I spoke with the mathematics teacher, who said that the students do not have a comprehension of what it is really about though. Even in grade 2, they have trouble using multiplication. By G. 3 they seem to be fairly comfortable with the concept and being able to use it. These are generalizations, and individual students will be faster or slow depending on a number of factors.

The school is Thai, so the emphasis is on being able to memorize all of the multiplication tables up through 12. If you give them a word problem such as 'Somchai buys 3 candies for 4 baht each, how much does he pay altogether?' they will tend to add 4 + 4 + 4 = 12 baht. If the teacher wants them to use multiplication then they have to start the solution such as:

4 X ____ = 12 baht.

Check with the school and see what they are doing in math and why and what their goal is.

We have classes that as they are marching to lunch they repeat the times table '....3 x 2 = 6, 3 x 3 = 9, 3 x 4 = 12.... etc.

They do not, however, know to solve a written problem without very specific instructions. I will say this for the system, however, when they get older, if they have a good math teacher who can give them some problem solving skills, they know the basic operations extremely well.

[Phatcharanan]

This link will take you to the math Common Core standards for Grades KG through to High School.

http://www.corestandards.org/math/content/3/introduction

However, whilst the standards are still rolling out across the USA, the Fed government does not stipulate how states should arrive at those standards. That is still a decision for the individual state.

[Nepal4me]

This link will take you to the math Common Core standards for Grades KG through to High School.

http://www.corestandards.org/math/content/3/introduction

However, whilst the standards are still rolling out across the USA, the Fed government does not stipulate how states should arrive at those standards. That is still a decision for the individual state.

Sorry, I think I misspoke(typed), in the G3 class they are memorizing times tables up to 12. They also are heavily into doing word problems, which clearly are much more difficult.

I just clicked on the link above and went through the entire G2 program and would agree that it is pretty much exactly what is being taught in my son's G2 class. I can also say that he knew virtually 100% of everything in that link by the end of G1. I check his homework every day so I'm very in tune with his level.

This in fact could be the problem. First, my son is good at math, that is quite obvious so maybe it's not too fair to compare. He did MAP testing and scored 193 in G1 at the beginning of last year, highest in the class and 208 this year in G2, 2nd highest in the class and slightly above average for G4. So in a way, maybe I'm being unreasonable. I'm not sure that it's just that he's better at math than most and therefore the level is actually appropriate for G2 or is it that all the kids find this level easy? My sense is that most of the kids find it quite easy. I've talked to his teacher and she talked around my question but the gist seemed to be that it was pretty easy for most kids... but not for all.

I understand ISB has a high level of education. Would ISB for example teach "common core" or do they teach another system?

[Thai at Heart]

My 12 year old just went into the uk system having done the thai curriculum in a bilingual school and is instantly into the top sets.

What u describe sounds a little behind. The thai curriculum for up to 13 year olds is actually ok.

[Phatcharanan]

This link will take you to the math Common Core standards for Grades KG through to High School.

http://www.corestandards.org/math/content/3/introduction

However, whilst the standards are still rolling out across the USA, the Fed government does not stipulate how states should arrive at those standards. That is still a decision for the individual state.

I understand ISB has a high level of education. Would ISB for example teach "common core" or do they teach another system?

ISB has an outstanding reputation and rightly so.

Please bear in mind that with regards to the Common Core, these are minimum standards that are set by the Fed government, Quite a few states have signed up to the Common Core but the full results of the success (or not) of these standards will not be fully realised until the 2014-2015 academic year has concluded.

I seriously doubt that ISB has agreed to the Common Core as they would probably view themselves as having higher minimum expectations for their students.

ISB is of course an IB Diploma school.

[Nepal4me]

Anybody know if ISB uses Common Core or not?

[Phatcharanan]

Anybody know if ISB uses Common Core or not?

Email them and ask.