General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Why Would a Math Teacher Punish a Child for Saying 5 x 3 = 15? [View all]Ms. Toad
(34,423 posts)You are misunderstanding the difference between making sure the child understanding mathematical language, and understanding what it is equivalent to.
If you asked a child to write the expression eleven minus seven, would you accept the answer 4?
They are equivalent, as you can easily show:
11-7 = (4 + 7) - 7 = 4 +(7 - 7) = 4
11 - 7 is understanding how to represent eleven minus seven on paper.
4 is understanding & applying the associative property to get an equivalent expression.
4 can represent a much more sophisticated reasoning, but it can also mean the child did not understand that the task was to write the expression, not just get the answer. And marking it wrong doesn't imply that there's no such thing as the associative property - just that applying it wasn't what the question asked for.