Why Some Teachers See Real Benefits to Teaching Common Core Math Exclusively
At the back table in my third-grade classroom, Maya finished explaining how she got 28 for 46 minus 18. “I started at 46. I jumped back 20, so that’s 26. But wait, that’s too much, so I added 2 back. Twenty-eight.” She looked up at the parent volunteer who was helping with math stations. The parent smiled tightly and looked over at me. “So we don’t teach borrowing anymore?” “Not yet,” I said. “Right now, I’m asking them to understand what subtraction is.”
I’ve been teaching for over a decade. I grew up on “borrow from the tens place.” When our district adopted a Common Core-aligned curriculum and announced we would use it as our primary math approach, I was one of the skeptics. I assumed it meant longer lessons, more confusion, and parents who would be annoyed at homework. I was half right. The lessons are longer, and some parents have been annoyed. But now that I’m several years into teaching exclusively with these strategies, I notice some real benefits I didn’t expect.
The biggest shift was in how kids talk about numbers. Under the old way, I could show a child the standard algorithm and they’d say, “I know how to subtract.” But if I asked why they crossed out the 3 and wrote a 2, they’d look at me like I’d asked about quantum physics. The steps worked, but the meaning wasn’t there. Now students can say things like, “I made 43 into 30 and 13 because I needed ten more ones.” That’s not just cute language. It means they understand place value. It means they can catch their own errors because they can estimate before they compute.
I remember one child, Darius, who used to “borrow” incorrectly every time. He would cross out the 2, turn it into 1, subtract something like 7 from 3, and get an answer that was nowhere close. When I asked, “Does that make sense?” he’d shrug. The old algorithm gave him no way to check. After a year of number bonds and open number lines, Darius started saying, “Wait, that can’t be right because 32 minus 18 has to be under 20.” He didn’t always get the right answer, but he got closer, and he knew when he was lost. That’s progress.
There’s another benefit that’s easy to miss: consistency. Because our school teaches Common Core methods across every grade, the same phrases come up year after year. A student who learns “making a ten” in first grade hears it again in third grade when she’s adding 8 plus 5. When a child transfers from another school, there’s a gap, but at least the language is predictable. Math department meetings no longer start with “What do your kids already know?” because everyone is working from the same visual models. That consistency matters more than I expected.
But I want to be honest. Teaching Common Core math exclusively is not a magic solution. There are days when I look at a student who can solve double-digit multiplication with a tape diagram but still doesn’t know 6 times 7 instantly. The standards emphasize sense-making, but automaticity with basic facts can fall behind. Some educators are right to worry about that. If a child relies too heavily on drawings and breaking numbers apart, they may reach fifth grade still counting by fives to multiply.
That’s why I think the real answer is a bit more complicated. Do teachers see benefits to teaching exclusively Common Core math? Yes—if “exclusively” means making conceptual understanding the first and primary path. The standard algorithm is still a tool, but it should be introduced later, as a faster way to do something that already makes sense. When I do teach the “regular” method in the spring, my students tend to pick it up quickly because they’re not memorizing meaningless steps. They see it as a shortcut they can choose, not the only way.
For parents, the best thing you can do when your child brings home one of those unusual solutions is to say one sentence: “Show me how you solved it.” It sounds small, but it changes everything. Instead of correcting them against the old method, you invite them to think aloud. You’ll often hear something like, “I used a number line and jumped by tens.” You might think it’s inefficient. But that inefficiency is how kids build number sense. It’s the practice phase. It has to happen before the shortcut makes sense.
If you want to help further, ask them to prove it another way. Say, “Can you show me with a drawing?” or “Can you add 2 to both numbers and see if the answer is the same?” These prompts work better than “That’s not how I learned it.” Also, try using the same vocabulary at home: decompose, make a ten, place value. It feels awkward at first, but it helps your child connect school thinking to home thinking.
There are definitely struggles. Parents have looked at me with crossed arms and asked, “Why are you making this so hard?” I understand. When I saw my own child grinding through a number bond worksheet, I wanted to just show her the shortcut too. But I’ve also seen what happens after the struggle. Last week, a fourth grader solved 34 minus 18 by adding 2 to both numbers: 36 minus 20 equals 16. That little trick is actually a formal strategy called equal addition, and he discovered it on his own. He wasn’t brilliant because he memorized a rule. He was brilliant because the tools let him think.
So do educators see benefits to exclusively teaching Common Core math? Some do, and the benefits are quieter than the promotional posters. A child who can say why. A student who catches her own mistake. A class that can solve one problem three ways and argue about which is more efficient. The costs are real too—fluency gaps, frustrated parents, and the extra time it takes for kids to explain what a quicker workbook answer could skip.
I still teach the standard algorithm. I want kids to have fast, efficient tools. But I’ve stopped apologizing for teaching something else first. There’s no neat answer that fits every child, and I’m not sure there ever will be. What I know is that when a student like Maya raises her hand and says, “I did it a different way,” I listen. That’s a benefit I don’t want to lose, even if the answer takes a little longer.
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