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How Education Enrichment Programs Based in Singapore Math Improve Students’ Math Skills

By A+ Staff on 24 September 16 Blog
Elementary school student learning Singapore Math

For many students, no subject causes them more trouble than mathematics.  In fact, it’s so common for certain students to struggle with math that it’s led to a widespread perception in American classrooms that some students just can’t do math.

Education Enrichment ProgramsWhat a self-defeating idea that is!  A student told that they “just can’t do math” is very likely to take it to heart, harming their own performance further, and potentially causing great trouble when it comes time to take major tests such as the ISEE, SAT, or ACT.  Because those highly important tests all have significant math components, a student who has come to believe they “just can’t do math” is going to be at a severe disadvantage.

But what if there was a better way?  What if education enrichment programs existed that were designed specifically to help any student improve their fundamental math skills?

Introducing Singapore Math

In the 1980s, the tiny Asian city-state of Singapore decided to create an entirely new math curriculum program for school children, one designed to teach universal mathematic principles in a way any child could grasp.  The results were overwhelming.  Within a couple decades, Singapore’s students had shot upwards in global rankings of math ability, and they now consistently score near or at the top of worldwide math rankings year after year.

Now, educators in the west are looking closely at Singapore Math, and building education enrichment programs around it.

Singapore Math is about teaching students how do to mathematics in general, rather than teaching to specific tests.  Students receive intensive focus on the mathematical concepts most necessary for doing problems, and these concepts are built upon, layer-by-layer.  Unlike western methods, there’s no need to keep re-teaching old concepts.

The Singapore math system is designed so that once a concept is learned, it becomes part of the foundation of the next step.  Because this system consistently self-reinforces, students of the Singapore Math style gain greater independence, as well as the ability to handle problems in a wide variety of forms.  Even complicated word problems become simple, because students taught Singapore Math understand the core concepts necessary to do the work.

In turn, this translates into success in both standardized tests and any real-life situations where they need to deploy mathematics.

Choose the Best In Mathematics Education Enrichment Programs

ASC A+ is the only Boston enrichment to offer Singapore Math-based instruction.  As a result, our students routinely see far higher scores on their SAT and other major tests – often by hundreds of points!

If your student is struggling with mathematics, give us a call and let’s talk about how to show them that anyone can do math.