>I have a master's degree in engineering and I found some of those word problems to be ambiguous. I faced a similar problem when my son was in 3rd grade (I als

>I have a master's degree in engineering and I found some of those word problems to be ambiguous. I faced a similar problem when my son was in 3rd grade (I also have an M.S. in Engineering). All of the work seemed to be geared to helping kids develop an intuitive understanding of math and numbers, which is a great goal, but the way it was taught was to teach the same "intuitive" methods to all kids. We all intuit things differently and my humble opinion is that parents and teachers aren't fully prepared to understand and teach math this way. Attempts to promote intuition simply become methods that are different than the ones we learned. I was able to work around those things and help my son, and he was able to develop a fairly good intuitive understanding of numbers. Where the approach falls down (again, in my opinion) is where structured approaches are required, such as in long division. By the time 5th and 6th grade came around, my son didn't have the reps at doing it and had some struggles.