Prealgebra Strategies- Math 1510

This week one of the topics we discussed was prealgebra strategies. We watched a video with young students working with different strategies such as solving word problems and coming up with their own language in order to understand the math problem at hand. Prealgebra strategies can be helpful for very young students because they are being introduced to reasoning skills early on and have more opportunities to practice them before they encounter more complex math problems.

While I was watching the video on prealgebra strategies I found myself thinking back on my days in elementary school math classrooms and my feelings towards math. When I think back on the things that I learned during math class I can remember solving word problems that were similar to the word problems in the video. I can remember solving word problems from 1st grade on up to 11th grade. Each year the problems became harder and harder. In 1st grade we would solve word problems using small numbers such as adding 3 and 2 to make 5. Once I reached the upper elementary grades word problems involved adding three digit numbers or more and multiplication and division. By the time I reached high school the word problems were very complex and involved various formulas and procedures. As I moved through the grades math became more of a struggle for me until I grew to hate math. I am realizing now that everything that I had learned was simply a continuation on everything that I had previously learned. In my mind I was learning something new every year. As a 1st grade I never realized that I was actually doing a form of algebra and as an 11th grader I never realized that the algebra that I was learning was something that I had experience with already. As I thought about my experience more my mind drifted to something that the class had discussed before and that is having a coherent curriculum. Many times my teachers would use different names for the same things or alter steps in solving the same problem. This was beyond confusing for me. I think my relationship with math would have been very different if my teachers based their lessons off of a coherent curriculum.

Should we be using prealgebra strategies in elementary classrooms? I believe that we should. Prealgebra strategies enhance a student’s ability to reason and use their logic skills. If they are able to develop those skills starting from an early age and be stronger problem solvers later, why shouldn’t they be used? If students are able to write and solve their own word problems they can be more confident when they come across a word problem that they didn’t create. Teaching these strategies early on can help create more confident math students and more confident math students means less negative relationships with math.

I found an interesting website for word problems. This website generates word problems based on the season. If your classroom wanted Spring time word problems, simply click on the Spring link under the appropraite grade level and it will generate problems for you.