Scarsdale looks to Singapore for the new math
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- October
- 9
By Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy
SCARSDALE—Dylan Cadalzo’s third-graders watched intently as he placed brightly colored number discs under four 
columns marked 1,000s, 100s, 10s and 1s on the classroom’s whiteboard.
“How much does that make?” Cadalzo quizzed the Edgewood School class, and almost immediately several hands competed for his attention.
The answer: 6,342.
“Now, how much more do you have to add to make it 6,442?” the teacher asked.
“Hundred,” answered Hannah Dong, as she proceeded to add a red disc to the 100s column.
Though using math manipulatives – concrete objects that can be moved and used to represent abstract concepts – is not new to the class, it will increase in emphasis this year, as the Scarsdale school district adopts Singapore math in kindergarden through fifth grade, replacing Trailblazers, used in the district for a decade.
The textbook series, written by the Ministry of Education of Singapore, is called Primary Mathematics, and Scarsdale is the first public school district to use it in New York as its core curriculum.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, October 9th, 2008 at 10:50 am by Diana Costello.
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