Elementary math & reasoning skills
Someone recently sent me a VERY interesting link: The Story of an Experiment Photo by foundphotoslj This experiment in math teaching was done in the 1930s by by L. P. Benezet, and the main gist of it was that formal arithmetic studies were delayed until the latter half of 6th grade. Instead, the instruction concentrated on "teaching the children to read, to reason, and to recite - my new Three R's." They also were taught about numbers they encountered in their reading materials, about time, about measuring units, estimation, and coins. Finally in 5th and 6th grade they also learn skip-counting. Formal arithmetic, meaning paper-and pencil work with addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division using a textbook began in latter half of 6th grade and continued till 8th grade. The experiment was a huge success. Mr. Benezet compared the children's abilities in the experimental classroom to those of the traditional classrooms, and every time the "experimental&quo