Singapore Expats

I'm an American parent living in the U.S. who is eager to incorporate aspects of Singaporean education, particularly math, into my children's education. (My children are P1 and P2 in terms of age and attend a U.S. public school.) Although I have found recommendations on the internet for workbooks, I'd like to find out which textbooks are frequently used among top Singapore schools. My goal is to be able to create a math curriculum that is similar to what is being used in Singapore so that my children can be taught it at home. Any links or information you can share would be greatly appreciated.

elaton wrote:I'm an American parent living in the U.S. who is eager to incorporate aspects of Singaporean education, particularly math, into my children's education. (My children are P1 and P2 in terms of age and attend a U.S. public school.) Although I have found recommendations on the internet for workbooks, I'd like to find out which textbooks are frequently used among top Singapore schools. My goal is to be able to create a math curriculum that is similar to what is being used in Singapore so that my children can be taught it at home. Any links or information you can share would be greatly appreciated.

On top of school send your kid for 2 or 3 hrs extra tuition a day ....

The system here is pretty straight forward ... Tuition til the pips squeak

I've noticed that many schools use My Pals are Here!, Shaping Maths, or Targeting Maths as their textbook. Which one would you recommend?

My daughter here in Singapore use the My Pals are Here series. She has a textbook and something called a pupil's workbook.

Note that the 'Singapore maths' doesn't really get going until around P3/P4 and then it really appears to ramp up in P5/P6.

Thank you, Singapore Eagle. I was able to find the Ministry of Education's syllabi for P1 and P2 so that was helpful, too. Is it really the case that in P1 students memorize all of their <20 subtraction facts? (I am impressed.)

The P1 syllabus goes up to addition and subtraction within 100. So a child is expected to be able to to subtract any two digit number from any other two digit number, provided that the answer > 0.

I wouldn't say that my daughter was ever "taught" to memorise anything. But, through practice/worksheets etc., she's comfortable adding any two single digit numbers just from memory, and in reverse, she knows how to subtract within 20 from memory.

elaton wrote:Thank you, Singapore Eagle. I was able to find the Ministry of Education's syllabi for P1 and P2 so that was helpful, too. Is it really the case that in P1 students memorize all of their <20 subtraction facts? (I am impressed.)

I would not say they "memorise" the facts. We teach number bonds in the lower grades, so the kids are very used to how numbers bond with each other to make 10, for instance. That becomes useful for both addition and subtraction.