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DEAR MATH EDUCATION PROFESSORS
Please stop blocking simple sensible math education innovation
E.g. 90 80 70 60 5ty 4ty 3ty 2ty 1ty. At the moment, 19 counting sounds are needed to count to one hundred. Yet, to count 0 to 100 a more efficient way, a child only has to know 12 counting sounds!

Did you know that Chinese kids are much better at counting then English speaking kids? On average, North American four years-olds count to 15, while Chinese four year-olds count to 40. China's number words are super simple. For example, 13 is said ten three and 23 is said two ten three.

Sadly, too many English speaking kids get confused by the 'Old English' words eleven and twelve, which are followed by the even more confusing teen words.

Thirteen often gets written as 31, because the thir comes before the teen. Also, many people miss-hear thirteen as thirty and fourteen as forty and so on. Hey, what's a twen, what's a fif and what's a thir doing in our counting words.

THE BENEFIT OF BASE TEN IS THE ABILITY TO RECYCLE NUMBERS

Yet much of the benefit of base ten is lost if you don't also recycle the words associated with numbers. 

Take the test.

Ask a 5 year-old child what ten plus ten equals. It's likely she won't be able to work out the answer.

Now, ask the same child what onety plus onety equals. It's likely she will work out the answer twoty all by herself!

Ask a 6 year-old what eleven plus twelve equals. Again, it's likely she won't be able to work out the answer.

Yet ask the same child what onety-one plus onety-two equals and the child has a good chance of working out the answer by herself and replying twoty-three!

Mathematics is often promoted as a science of patterns.

So 90, 80, 70, 60 need fivety, fourty, threety, twoty and onety for the pattern to be made evident.

Ty is in the Oxford English dictionary is defined as:
"Denoting ‘ten’, forming the second element of the decade numerals from 20 to 90".

People have been asking for this change from the mathematics education professors responsible for what children get taught.

Yet all they do is reject such calls for a common sense. It's almost as if todays' mathematics education professors have closed mindsets are against growth and improvement.

SHAME ON THE MATH EDUCATION PROFESSORS BLOCKING THIS SIMPLE INNOVATION!

Kids already suffer significant stress and anxiety from their early years mathematics education. To refuse to approve such a simple quick win, making counting simpler, easier, more logical and more powerful is a scandal.

CHINA'S SECRET MATH WEAPON

China is the top performing country in the PISA international tests of mathematics education. China is also registering more patents than any other country. China's economic miracle has been empowered by better math education starting with a much simpler set of number words.

THE LAST WORD

To count 0 to 100 the most efficient way, a child only has to know these 12 counting sounds: zero one two three four five six seven eight nine ty hundred.

Yet, instead math education professors insist young children must master 19 counting sounds: zero one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thir teen fif ty twen hundred.

What do you think a child would enjoy more. Mastering 19 counting sounds to count to one hundred or 19 counting sounds to count to one billion! That's the sort of innovation todays' math education professors are blocking from our schools.

So please sign the petition. Take a moment to make your life count!

Thank you.
Jonathan J. Crabtree
Podometic™ Founder
(The world's free Arithmetic update)
FREE RESOURCES AT
www.podometic.in/count-to-100

P.S. Please share if you care...

BONUS QUOTES!

1852 "twenty means twoty or two tens thirty means threety..." Frances Verney 

1956 "Did you ever stop to think how much easier our teaching in the first grade would be if we could say, onety, twoty, threety, fourty and fivety as well as sixty and seventy? Children should practice with these new words & the numbers they indicate..." Rolland R. Smith

1969 "In counting ... we would say: onety twoty threety fourty fivety sixty ..." Jo McKeeby Phillips

EXTRACT FROM OUTLIERS THE STORY OF SUCCESS
by Malcolm Gladwell

Asian children learn to count much faster than American children. Four-year-old Chinese children can count, on average, to forty. American children at that age can count only to B-fteen, and most
don't reach forty until they're five.

By the age of five, in other words, American children are already a year behind their Asian counterparts in the most fundamental of math skills.

The regularity of their number system also means that Asian children can perform basic functions, such as addition, far more easily. Ask an English-speaking seven-year old to add thirty-seven plus twenty-two in her head, and she has to convert the words to numbers (37 + 22). Only then can she do the math: 2 plus 7 is 9 and 30 and 20 is 50, which makes 59.

Ask an Asian child to add three-tens seven and two-tens-two, and then the necessary equation is right there,  embedded in the sentence. No number translation is necessary: It's five-tens-nine.

"The Asian system is transparent," says Karen Fuson, a Northwestern University psychologist who has closely studied Asian-Western differences. "I think that it makes the whole attitude toward math different. Instead of being a rote learning thing, there's a pattern I can figure out. There is an expectation that I can do this. There is an expectation that it's sensible. 

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C'mon! Let's do this! Let's make counting simpler for little kids! Give them the early counting and addition confidence they need BEFORE introducing the adult words, eleven twelve thirteen and so on.