Loyal readers will know that I have little to no respect for the Go Math! program, including it’s instructions to tell students that the fraction 3/1 is pronounced “three ones.”
A correspondent writes that her principal criticized a lesson she did because she referred to fractions and whole numbers, as in 1 1/2, as “mixed numbers,” when he/she insisted it was “mixed fractions.” Sounds like this principal was a bit mixed up: when you have a whole number and a fraction together, they have to be mixed numbers, because they both belong to that supercategory. The only way they could be mixed fractions is if they were both fractions.
But don’t take my word for it: here’s the definition in a wonderful textbook by Open Court called “Real Math.” It’s about 30 years old….
Case closed. Score one for my correspondent, the principal gets 1/1,000.
