Bøker av Marty Epstein

COUNTING! It's not as easy as "1 - 2 - 3!" YIKES! Many young children who can "count" don't understand why we count (to find out a group's size) or how counting works to tell us a group's size (the Cardinal Principle). This book is designed to help! Informed by research and building on skills from Very Early Math SET 1, SET 2 provides tools to help your child understand the foundational math ideas of: Why we count (i.e., to find out a group's size), How counting tells us a group's size, How to count.This matters a lot!Arithmetic simply won't make sense to a child who can "count," but who doesn't understand the idea of a group, that numbers tell us the size of a group, and how counting tells us a group's size. That child might think 1 + 2 = 3 meansSomething named "1" (because it happened to be counted first) combined with Something named "2" (because it happened to be counted second) becomes Something named "3?" This simply makes no sense! It's not what 1 + 2 = 3 means mathematically.What does 1 + 2 = 3 mean mathematically? Here's an example of how it could be usedA group with 1 apple combined with a group with 2 apples equals a group with 3 apples.See how core (please excuse the pun when writing about apples) the idea of a "group" is to mathematics, even the most basic arithmetic? Understanding the idea of a group and how counting tells us the size of a group is a nonnegotiable, critical foundation to math.A child who doesn't yet have this understanding may be able to memorize 1 + 2 = 3, for example, but will not understand what 1 + 2 = 3 means. It's a bit like knowing how to pronounce and spell "cat" and "dog" without understanding what they mean.It turns out that many adults, caregivers, and early childhood educators assume a child understands the idea of a group and how counting tells us a group's size when the child, in fact, doesn't yet understand these ideas. And it turns out that many approaches we use to help a child learn these key ideas actually don't work as well as we think they do.That's why I made these books-to help children understand these core math ideas.

This book is about "subitizing." It's a critical, but almost universally overlooked, very early math skill. The author is a Harvard MBA who became so concerned about "what's happening" in early math education as she tutored her own children that she turned her attention to how children learn math (and what can go wrong) and earned a PhD in Math Ed. What's subitizing? Subitizing involves recognizing small quantities (like groups up to 3 or 4) without counting. It's an absolutely key, but rarely taught, foundational math skill. By starting with subitizing, Very Early Math - SET 1 helps your child build a strong math foundation. Subitizing isn't only important for its own sake, it's key to developing strong counting skills, especially learning why we count and how counting works. Perhaps you're thinking, "But, my child can already count to 10 or 20, so why subitize?" Here's why. Many children who are great at rote counting have no idea why they are counting. To them counting has no mathematical meaning, it's just a rhyme they say as they point to and touch things. For many of these children, they'll count a group, "one, two, three," and think "three is the name of the last item they counted, not the size of the group (of three). And if that view persists, what will 1 + 3 = 4 mean to that child? That an item named "1" + and item named "3" = an item named "4" because "that's the rule." YIKES! That doesn't work! Such children will be able to master rote counting and memorize math facts, but they won't understand the math they represent. Their math foundation will comprise unconnected memorized information lacking in mathematical meaning. Since all arithmetic, like 1 + 3 = 4 is based on the foundational idea that numbers tell us the size of groups, why not be sure we establish that understanding of numbers right away. Subitizing does this. Rote counting does not. But starting with subitizing isn't enough. It turns out that the way we teach a child to count matters, and a lot of what we think is helpful, isn't. That's where Very Early Math - SET 2 comes in. This book helps your little one to count in a way that has been shown to give children the understanding of numbers they'll need to understand math. (Studies find that small differences in how a child is taught to count can make a very big difference in their understanding of numbers.) Like early phonics books, these very early math books give you page after page of carefully designed and sequenced math materials to help your little one build key early math skills. So, be sure to check out Very Early Math - SET 1 & 2. Using them before you give your little ones counting books and workbooks can make a big difference!

Is your child struggling to memorize multiplication facts? Try this approach instead! Most multiplication facts can be learned by understanding multiplication, recognizing just a few fun patterns, noticing a few silly coincidences (e.g., 12 = 3 x 4 and 56 = 7 x 8 hmmm...notice that these are both sequential), and leveraging the math most children already know. That's what we do in this book! Young math students will not only master multiplication facts, but this approach will help them improve their number sense and set them up to understand division (even division by fractions!). A lot of practice opportunities are provided throughout the book as well as in a dedicated section at the end. This workbook is based on how Dr. Epstein (PhD Math Ed., MS Psychology, MBA) successfully helped many students with multiplication as well as how she taught her own children multiplication. And they went on to major in Math and Physics in college and are both now pursuing STEM PhDs.

The pairs of numbers that add up to 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 are the stars of this fun math adventure! These addition pairs (e.g., 1 + 1 = 2...1 + 8 = 9; 2 + 7 = 9; 3 + 6 = 9; 4 + 5 = 9) are key math building blocks. (Some refer to this approach as part-part-whole, and it's a really useful way to think of numbers.) This book makes mastering them fun! In the story, The NUMBERS, their dog, and 8's pet spider run away to join the circus. To convince the ringmaster to hire them, each number puts on a show that highlights what pairs of numbers combine to create that number. Will some of them get hired? All of them? Will they join the circus? Hmmm...there's only one way to find out . Read Circus Fun! Add Up To 9. In addition to the fun math story, the book includes lots of coloring and practice pages to help little ones master their "add-up-to-nine" addition facts. Why doesn't the book include "add-up-to-10" addition facts? Because in our base-10 number system, the pairs of numbers that add to 10 are super important. They, therefore, have their own story: Ten Friends Save The Day: Add to 10. Find out more about these and other Smiling Dog(R) Math books at the www.SmilingDogMath.com website. The books are authored by Dr. Marty Epstein, MS psychology. PhD Math Ed.