Dear Parents and Guardians:
The Tyrone Area School District began implementing the PA Core Standards during the 2014-15 school year, as required by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. These standards outline new expectations for student knowledge and skills in mathematics. As such, it was necessary for district staff to revise its Kindergarten through 8th grade math curriculum to align to these new standards.
Throughout the 2014-15 school year, a group of teachers and administrators reviewed various mathematics programs and resources from a variety of publishing companies to support the new curriculum. While reviewing the resources, the committee used a number of criteria to evaluate the alignment to the PA Core Standards, in addition to each program’s features and design of materials, teacher support materials, assessments, and student and family resources. After completing the materials review, it was determined by the committee that the best fit for the new math curriculum framework was the Go Math! series, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
The 2015 Go Math! materials emphasize the critical areas and depth of understanding required by the PA Core Standards through interactive lessons, research based instructional approaches, and differentiated instructional resources to help teachers ensure the success of all students. Instead of traditional hardbound student textbooks, the Go Math! series utilizes consumable work texts, which allow students to record, represent, solve problems, and explain as they discover and build new understandings. The Go Math! series also includes a variety of online resources for teachers, students, and parents, including online access to the student text, animated math models, and virtual manipulatives.
Sincerely,
Kristen Pinter
Director of Curriculum and Instruction PreK-12