Kiddie Algebra

This from Ed Week (subscription), Photo by Larry Beckner:

...[T]eachers in a number of schools ... are attempting to nurture students’ algebraic-reasoning ability, as well as their basic number skills, in early elementary school, rather than waiting until middle or early high school. To accomplish that aim, [Melissa] Romano says, it’s not enough that she simply present pupils with a problem, collect their answers, correct their mistakes, and move on.

She takes relatively simple problems, then expands them, integrating algebraic thinking along the way. She changes the conditions and calls for class discussions. And she asks individual children to explain aloud: How do you know that? As that give and take unfolds in class, “they’re talking,” Ms. Romano said, and “it’s loud.”

That process was “a huge, huge change for me,” said the educator, who began using the algebraic reasoning and number-skill model in 2005. “The first two years were a big learning curve on my part.” When she was in elementary school herself, teachers gave her a math problem “and let me work on it,” she said. “And I didn’t understand half the math.” ...