Singapore Maths

For many parents in Singapore, Maths has been a challenge these past years because the syllabus has changed much, and the methods of solving have evolved too. More critically, the standards have been raised. Ask any Primary 6 student doing the national Primary School Leaving Exam, and you'll know.

It's no wonder that the US apparently regards Singapore Maths as a benchmark of sort. So, you can have American Math for a subject, and be further challenged by Singapore Maths. That is according to Hub's American boss who has an eight-year-old girl. My Hawaiian friend came to S'pore last year and bought all the assessment books on Maths in the infamous Popular Bookshop, well-known for selling assessment and guide books.

Well, Mother Superior has been drowned in Maths and Grammar last week and this, to guide her precious two for the exams, which incidentally, ends tomorrow - yay! So far, she is familiar with a particular Andrew Er:

...and a particular Dr Fong Ho Kheong, who's the author of most Singapore Maths books. He's so complicated that he published a guide for parents. How thoughtful. I bought two books last year, accidentally.

Dr Fong prides on his number bond method that enables kids to calculate mentally by 'rounding up' to the nearest tens or hundreds. Quite good, except that the questions can be tricky, and when parents are just so used to calculating vertically and not horizontally.

That brings me to Andrew Er, whom I hope, my kids will never have to be taught by him. Consider this question in his P2 book for eight-year-olds, which MS has modified a little due to lack of memory:

Question 1

Mother Superior bought 40 sweets to be shared with her two kids. Faith has 10 more than Grace. How many sweets does Grace have? How many sweets does Faith have?

Now, it looks simple on the surface, but for little girls, that can be pretty heavy, considering I first solved it using Algebra. I, who never did well in Maths, of course. Here's a simpler one that was on Grace's paper for P1, seven-year-olds:

Question 2

Tim shares 36 sweets equally with 5 of his friends. How many does each person get?

Much simpler, but fairly tricky for kids. So many of Grace's friends kept knocking their heads wondering how 36 can be divided by 5.

At 10am now, as I write, they would have finished their paper. Let's really hope they can manage.

But for now, what would your answers be for Questions 1 and 2? ,-)