Singapore Math (Math in Focus) Practice

About Singapore Math (Math in Focus)

Singapore Math is a methodology rather than a single textbook. The U.S. version most parents encounter is Math in Focus (published by Marshall Cavendish in partnership with HMH), which is built directly on the Singapore Ministry of Education's curriculum. The signature pedagogical move is the concrete-pictorial-abstract progression: every new idea is taught first with manipulatives, then with bar models or pictures, then with abstract notation. Bar modeling — drawing rectangles to represent quantities and parts — is the program's most-imitated visual strategy and shows up in nearly every word problem.

Math in Focus organizes each grade into 12-14 chapters in K-5 and 10-12 chapters in 6-8. Compared to enVision or Go Math!, the chapters are unusually deep, and the program assumes students will master each chapter completely before moving on, with relatively less cumulative review. Briveli's chapter-level mapping follows the Math in Focus structure; the program's emphasis on bar modeling means that the word-problems and problem-solving Briveli ladders are unusually well aligned with this curriculum.

Official site: https://www.hmhco.com/programs/math-in-focus-singapore-math