Number and Operations

If you are looking at your child’s report card you will notices some differences from what your report card looked like when you were a child. For many school systems, this means that not only will you see “scores” and quarterly “grades,” but you will also be seeing words like, “Standards-based Report Cards” and achievement levels reported such as, “Meeting the standard,” or, “Making Adequate Progress Toward the Standard.”

What are these “standards?” Good question. Rhode Island requires that all children achieve mastery of the Grade Level Expectations, or “GLE’s.” These GLE’s are, for the most part, “standards.” The terms can be used synonymously. The GLE’s show school systems what each child should be able to do by the end of the year. Currently, we have GLE’s in Reading, Writing and Mathematics.

The GLE’s for Mathematics are broken down into areas (called “strands”) of:

· Number and Operation

· Geometry and Measurement

· Function and Algebra

· Data, Statistics and Probability

· Problem Solving and Communication

To make an analogy; math is composed of MANY systems, just like your body. Your body has the circulatory system, the digestive system, and the neurological system, to name a few. These systems all work together and couldn’t function without the efforts of the other system. Same with mathematics! It used to be that people thought of math as merely numbers with plus signs or minus sign (in other words, computation). Today, students, teachers, and parents are becoming more sophisticated in understanding that mathematics involve many of the strands simultaneously.

Our first area is Number and Operation. This means how well a child understands the use of numbers. This includes,

· Counting

· Reading, writing and putting numbers in order

· Place value

· Quantity

· Adding and subtracting

· Multiplying and dividing

· Estimating

· Fractions, decimals and percents

· Money

· Equivalency (just what does that ‘equal sign’ mean?)

If you would like to see the specific GLE’s for your children, visit http://www.ridoe.net/instruction/gle.aspx.

Hopefully, you will develop a better understanding of our standards and will be able to see mathematics coming home that incorporates all of the mathematical strands.