Singapore Math, as the curriculum has been dubbed, has received a great deal of attention from educators across the country. No fewer than 18 separate sessions at the 2010 National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics (NCSM) and National Council for Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) annual conferences, being held this month in San Diego, are devoted to Singapore Math concepts and methodology. In partnership with leading Asian publisher Marshall Cavendish, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has created a U.S. Edition of the most widely used math program in Singapore called Math in Focus.

“The curriculum is Singapore’s mathematics syllabus and framework combined with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s highly effective and engaging content delivery,” said Mike Lavelle, K–12 President, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. “We are thrilled to have such a unique program included in our already robust suite of trusted mathematics offerings.”

So what makes the Singapore Math curriculum so different and so effective? For one thing, it involves a unique pictorial approach, allowing students to look at problems in a visual way before they move to the abstract. Also distinctive is its consistent focus on problem solving, with specific problem-solving strategies taught in a carefully sequenced manner, and extensive use of word problems as a way to train students to connect different mathematical ideas.

Another key difference between Singapore Math and the majority of current U.S. approaches to math instruction is its focus on concept mastery. A limited number of topics are covered each year, allowing each to be covered in great detail and then reinforced even as a new concept is introduced — as compared to American curricula that tend to introduce dozens of topics each year, resulting in instruction that has been described as “a mile wide and an inch deep.”

“Singapore Math is a different way of thinking, the level is much higher — and even after just a few months, we saw clear improvements in the math assessment students take three times a year,” said Peggy McKee, Elementary Math Content Specialist for Fayette County schools in Lexington, Kentucky, which launched Math In Focus in nine elementary schools for 2009–10. “We love that the program teaches mastery. In other math curricula, when you’re teaching six concepts a day and none to mastery, students are never going to get it. But because Singapore Math builds each year and layers on what’s been taught before, even if a student gets stuck, the teacher can go back to earlier lessons until the student understands the concept and can get back up to level.

“It’s a very rigorous program and teachers can’t just walk in cold without studying the lessons first,” McKee continues. “But our teachers love it, and are excited that they’re not teaching ’to the test’ anymore; they’re actually teaching kids to be mathematicians. And the kids love it, too. One little girl who was in the program moved away and wrote to her teacher here, ’At my new school we don’t have cool math, we have boring math.’ So we can’t wait to see the results going forward.”

“Together with districts such as Fayette County, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is playing an active role in the nation’s movement toward mathematics excellence,” said Lavelle.

That movement has quickened as Singapore Math has spread to a sampling of schools and districts in all 50 states, and Math in Focus has even been approved for use statewide in Indiana and Oklahoma through their math adoption submission. It’s a response that is echoed in some 40 countries, as well, as educators around the world seek to recreate with their own students the dramatic improvements documented in Singaporean students’ math scores since the program was instituted there.

The original Singapore Math curriculum was actually launched in 1982, when the country was less than 20 years old and still charting a course for its place in the world. Students were not performing well in math, and the young nation recognized that underachieving or failing students would not contribute positively to the nation’s growth. So the Ministry of Education, which sets curriculum for the entire country, set out to establish new goals for math education, researching the best elements of instruction in other countries, including the United States.

The emphasis on problem solving became the focal point in a revised version of the math curriculum in 1992 — and just three years later, Singapore students jumped to first place in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), a survey conducted every four years to compare math and science achievement among different countries. They remained in first place in 1999 and 2003, and were in the top three in 2007. By comparison, U.S. students were at 19th place in 1999, 15th in 2003, and 9th place in 2007 (a year when five higher-scoring countries did not participate).

That excellent performance by Singaporean students caught the attention of educators from South Africa to Australia to the United States — and put Singapore Math into the world’s educational lexicon. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt became the exclusive distributor of Math in Focus, the U.S. Edition of My Pals are Here! Maths in 2009.

“The methodology is different from what most American teachers are used to. But with a school’s commitment to the curriculum, the Singapore Math model can be immensely effective — whether it’s a rural school in Bethel, Oklahoma, a suburban school in Scarsdale, New York, or an urban school in New Orleans,” says Ms. Duriya Aziz, Publisher and General Manager, Educational Publishing, for Marshall Cavendish International (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., publisher of the Singapore Math textbooks. “And perhaps the best part besides improved performance? Children in Singapore have one of the highest enjoyment levels for math in the world.”

Marshall Cavendish publishes two different series of textbooks for the Singapore Math curriculum. One of them, Math in Focus is available through Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. It is the U.S. Edition of the My Pals Are Here! series now used by more than 80 percent of students in Singapore.

More information is available at www.greatsource.com/singaporemath.