15th August 2012 10:03
By Blue Tutors
Rote Learning for Maths - Back to the Old Days
In an article in this week’s TES helen Ward bemoans the return to rote learning. By 2014, she states, the proposed new curriculum will expect that all 9 year olds can do their 12 times tables.
Questioning the reasoning behind this is a study from the University of Oxford, which suggests that a refocus on traditional learning methods is misplaced. Learning arithmetic, it says, is not as important as learning how to think mathematically.
The findings from a study of more than 4,000 children concluded that learning mathematical reasoning is the key to improving mathematical ability as children get older. The reasoning tests contain simple arithmetic, but require children to work out which sums to calculate.
Professor Peter Bryant, one of four researchers on the project, says ‘Both arithmetic and maths reasoning are important and necessary, but we think there’s a danger of maths reasoning moving out...I am not trying to say don’t teach the times tables, it is important to have them...but it is possible to leave out maths reasoning and teach calculation, while you can’t teach reasoning without children being able to calculate’.
Last week, Nick Gibb, schools minister, made a speech championing rote learning but Bryant’s study found a much stronger link between 8 year olds who are good at maths reasoning and their performance in the subject at ages 11 and 14, than 8 year olds who are good at arithmetic.