Math Essentials, Elementary School Level: Lessons and Activities for Test Preparation, Grades 3-5

Math Essentials, Elementary School Level gives elementary school teachers the tools they need to help prepare all types of students for mathematics testing in grades 3 through 5. Math Essentials highlights Dr. Thompson's proven approach to teaching math and covers 40 key objectives correlated to the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) standards, including rounding whole numbers, finding equivalent fractions, multiplying two-digit whole numbers, solving word problems, interpreting line graphs, identifying polygons, estimating length and volume, and understanding time.

Math Essentials, Elementary School Level gives elementary school teachers the tools they need to help prepare all types of students for mathematics testing in grades 3 through 5. Math Essentials highlights Dr. Thompson's proven approach to teaching math and covers 40 key objectives correlated to the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) standards, including rounding whole numbers, finding equivalent fractions, multiplying two-digit whole numbers, solving word problems, interpreting line graphs, identifying polygons, estimating length and volume, and understanding time.

Children's Literature

I found this book impossible to read. Part of the reason is the prose, as exemplified by this passage: "Some multistepped problems require students to actually compute to find the answer, whereas other multistepped problems focus on notation and require the students to set up the series of equations needed or to find a single equation that combines all the steps together." That is English. I can take it apart, but if I do, it is a lot less important than it sounds and suggests an ominous absence of careful editing. Part of the reason for this lack of oversight is the book's purpose. It seems to have been designed to help teachers prepare their students for standardized tests. For those of us who think elementary teachers should focus on helping their students prepare for algebra, that is disturbing. Part of the reason is the author's notion of math itself as a collection of ever more complex and arbitrary algorithms one memorizes with the help of diagrams that are (to a child, anyway) as complex as the notion they are supposed to illustrate. That mistake, while common among educators, is one no mathematician would make. There is no better demonstration of the split between the practice and teaching of mathematics that has served American children so badly. Reviewer: Michael Chabin

Frances McBroom Thompson, Ed.D. has taught mathematics at the junior and senior high school levels and has served as a K-12 mathematics specialist. She holds a B.S. in mathematics education from Abilene Christian University (Texas), a master's degree in mathematics from the University of Texas in Austin, and a doctoral degree in mathematics education from the University of Georgia at Athens. Dr. Thompson has published numerous articles and conducts workshops for teachers at the elementary and secondary levels.