Author and mathematician Rick Fisher recently announced that many of his popular core-math educational materials are now available in Spanish-language editions — ranging from grade three all the way through high school algebra. The overarching Math Essentials program covers all foundational skills, including algebra, needed to succeed and pass various college-entrance exam tests, while being accessible by parents and struggling minority students.
Three Math-Skill Clusters All Students Must Know
The Math Essentials material addresses three foundational skills that gradually lead grade-school children into an understanding of algebra. These include:
- Whole numbers.
- Fractions and decimals
;including percentages, integers and positive/negative fractions and decimals.
- Certain aspects of measurement and geometry.
Without a strong background in these areas, students are unprepared to tackle later algebra classes. Algebra is the gateway subject that equips students to take all the advanced math courses needed to succeed in science and technical fields. Without these skills, students cannot perform well enough to achieve scores on the ACT and SAT tests needed to enter colleges of their choice. Success in algebra ultimately prepares students for a wide variety of rewarding science and engineering careers.
ESL and Minority Students: STEM Education Requirements
Studies undertaken1 to explore the reasons minority and ESL students perform demonstrably lower in math skills
generally point to several culprits: lack of diversity in how math problems
are solved and answers achieved, lack of real-world social applications for the math problems used, and student self-esteem issues. Math Essentials uses a variety of approaches to arrive at the correct answer for each math problem, offers a wide range of social and real-world-applicable problems that are à propos to kids' lives, and the problems
are designed to be fun for kids to solve.
Math Essentials' Algebra volume
was voted the third most popular algebra textbook by a recent comprehensive Wiki poll that surveyed hundreds of similar textbooks.
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