GC Elementary School Educators, I need your help. . .

[miss priss]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by btb87
[B]Need a little help from GC Educators. . .

At grade 2, she should know how to do simple addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. She should be able to count money and have a basic understanding of fractions (particularly fractional parts). Also, at this grade she should be introduced to basic algebraic concepts such as using variables. For example, if 5+2=7, then 5+ x=7 what is x?. Seems like a lot huh? But this is what ALL elementary teachers everywhere should be exposing to the children (as best as they can) in the math curricula.
Statistics shows that most elementary teachers spend very little time on the subjects of math and science, usually because they hate those areas or have a weakness in it.

But what bothers me most about your post is,"they focus a lot on reading. Most of the homework that she has is vocabulary and the like, but she doesn't really bring home much math or science homework (she did have multiplication tables for homework one day last week). I've seen some of her classroom work where they are doing some science, but no homework in these other subject areas." This is something that we as secondary math teachers see as one of the failures in the American math curricula which is there is just not enough time spent on the (mathematical) sciences.
There seems to be a overzealous approach, in all school curricula, that focuses solely on reading. I think reading is a great tool. However, how we teach reading does not effectively address the issues such as comprehension and vocabulary to name a few. Most teachers read to the students and not with the students. (This happens in both public and private school settings. ) Why? Because we don't have enough parents reinforcing reading with their children. Keyword: parents. You are the key. If you think she is not recieving enough more than likely she probably isn't. Your husband is right work with her more---both you and your child will reap the benefits later.

Sidebar: There are some elementary teachers (certified and uncertified) that work very hard. Thumbs up to you!