subject: Singapore Math Books: The Most Respected Math in the Philippines [print this page] Singapore Math Books: The Most Respected Math in the Philippines
In the Philippines, it is only in the past two to three years that Singapore Math has been embraced and used by the country's top private schools such as Xavier School, Immaculate Conception Academy (ICA), Victory Christian International School, and other premiere learning institutions. Because of this, Singapore Math has earned the reputation of being the best math program in the country, or should we say, the most highly respected math course in the land.
The popularity of Singapore Math hails from the fact that Singaporeans are found to occupy top positions in different examinations and tests conducted around the world in measuring math proficiency. Moreover, Singaporeans have consistently remained in the top spot in the recent years. Educators around the world have recognized this obvious advantage. Americans have in fact used the Singapore Math program in some of their public schools and validated the pronounced improvement of their students in terms of performance in math proficiency tests from the use of Singapore Math as their math curriculum. Even homeschool curriculum providers such as Sonlight Curriculum and other homeschool resource centers such as Rainbow Resource Center have made Singapore Math readily available to homeschooling parents for use on their own children.
There are quite a number of types of Singapore Math books used in Singapore. The most widely used series for preschool levels K1 to K2 (kinder to prep) is the New Earlybird Kindergarten Mathematics series. For the primary levels or elementary levels, the most widely used Singapore Math is the My Pals Are Here series. These are the same math series used by top schools in the Philippines. The publishers have recently released the latest edition (second edition) of My Pals Are Here Math. This Singapore Math series comprises of primary or elementary levels one through six. Levels one through three consist of two textbooks and four workbooks. Levels four through six only have two textbooks and two workbooks but are thicker than the lower grades.
Singapore Math is designed for the student to learn and understand mathematics without memorizing a set of rules. It is arguably the "smart" math and challenges each student to think beyond a simple mathematical concept. It may not be easy nor cheap but after using the books, it truly is bang for every buck.
