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Here is an article from Psychology Today by Peter Gray, a specialist in developmental psychology and research professor of psychology at Boston College, that supports one of our foundational premises here at LearningSuccess™ Institute--students need to mature into skills such as math (and reading), without formal instruction and grades, until they are at least 10-years old.

Early formal instruction and grading of skills actually complicates and decreases learning. By the time kids are 10 or 11-years old they have already had many experiences adding things together, subtracting, even multiplying and dividing things up. Guided by their innate curiosity and their endless experimenting that we call play, they have "matured" into understanding how mathematical functions work in the world. They have a practical understanding of what they mean. When they are given the algorithms for them in 5^th or 6^th grade, they have a backlog of experience to apply them to. The algorithms are another piece to an emerging puzzle they have already been putting together for years. However, when they are given algorithms before they understand the function of addition and subtraction in the world, the algorithms are just mysterious strings of codes and procedures to memorize. Students don't know what they apply to or mean; no wonder they can't remember them.

The sad truth is that most teachers, educated in schools where the algorithm came before understanding, teach strictly by rote, relying primarily on a continual stream of worksheets and drills to do the teaching. Beyond basic addition and subtraction, they don't actually know why the algorithms work or what they are for. Woe be to those Inventing and Thinking/Creating students who ask "Why do we do it this way?" "What is this for?" and worse yet have a different way to work a problem.

We hope you enjoy this article! 

When Less is More: The Case for Teaching Less Math in Schools by Peter Gray in Freedom to Learn, Psychology Today, 3-18-10

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