Homeschool Math Without the Stress: Discover the MEP Approach
Math, Homeschooling, and MEP
While browsing the Homeschool Connections grade school offerings, you may have noticed MEP 3 and MEP 4 Math and wondered, “What is that?” As a homeschooling mom, I know I would have been asking myself the same questions:
- Who developed it?
- What is its track record?
- Is there really NO textbook to purchase?
- How can there be no homework?
- And will this work well with my kids and our homeschool?
Today’s article answers these questions and looks at MEP in the broader context of math learning.
What Is MEP and Where Did It Come From?
The Centre for Innovation in Mathematics Teaching (CIMT) at the prestigious University of Exeter developed the Mathematics Enhancement Programme (MEP) in 1995 for schools in the UK, as you can guess by the spelling. They based it primarily on teaching strategies used in Hungary, given the country’s high mathematics performance ranking (even today it ranks 5th). In the 30 years since the CIMT first made MEP freely available to the schools in its pilot trial, it has undergone only one revision in 2013 when the UK introduced its new national curriculum. The only change I see is the elimination of the optional day 5 revision (ie, review). While not widely used across the UK, 30 years of use in hundreds of schools is an impressive track record.
I came across MEP through my online homeschooling network in 2008, when my sons were 5, 7, and 9. I had used Math-U-See before that and was unimpressed. (My apologies to MUS fans, yet I did not find any other program to be much better.) As a Charlotte Mason homeschooler, I deeply believe in the Science of Relation in learning and education. Students must form a connection with what they are learning, or they will learn nothing. Through the Living Math forum, I discovered Knowing and Teaching Mathematics by Liping Ma and Math: Facing an American Phobia by Marilyn Burns. What they had to say about math education truly resonated with my homeschooling philosophy. Through that same forum, I learned about MEP. The program epitomizes what those two brilliant and insightful mathematics educators are still trying to tell us today, and institutional education is still not getting it.
Why MEP Stands Out from Standard Math Programs
The core of MEP is teaching math through collaborative exploration—students work together to figure out how to solve problems. Standard math programs, on the other hand, typically begin by showing students how to solve a problem and then having them repeat the same method over and over until they “master” it. In my view, this approach sets students up for later difficulties because it sends the implicit message that they must first be told the type of problem it is before they can apply “the method” to get the answer.
In contrast, MEP’s underlying message is that every math problem is a puzzle to be solved—and there’s often more than one way to solve it. Some methods work better for certain problems, while others work better for different ones.
The ability to assess a problem and choose the best method is what institutional math education calls “math fluency.” While schools talk about building fluency and even emphasize it in curriculum frameworks, students continue to struggle, largely because traditional teaching methods haven’t changed. A telling sign of this is the rise of workbooks and worksheets labeled “fluency practice,” which are usually just more drills that reinforce standard algorithms rather than encouraging true problem-solving skills.
How MEP Works in a Homeschool Setting
It is unlikely that MEP resembles any math program you’ve tried. One key feature is that students learn collaboratively in the classroom while remaining teacher-led. Taking the Homeschool Connections live course will give that additional learning dimension.
However, close to half of the problems in each daily lesson are completed individually during class and then reviewed together. I successfully implemented MEP in my homeschool without the benefit of a live class by leading each child through their math lessons four days a week, then assigning the individual problems – conveniently separated by MEP into a student Practice Book – as their homework. This is why MEP does not need any further homework. Math homework does not build fluency. It merely encourages memorization of a method that has been explained, not truly learned. Far more math learning goes on in an MEP lesson than in any standard program’s homework.
MEP is interactive by design, enabling students to figure out how to solve problems. Mistakes will be made in this process, and that just becomes part of the learning process. Getting the wrong answer is a signal to try something different rather than indicating you don’t know how to do the algorithm to get the correct answer.
The Results: Confidence Over Perfection
How did MEP work out in my homeschool? Well, my sons are not even close to being math geniuses, but they are all confident in math. Might that really be our goal for all our children’s education? My sons all attended an institutional high school and had no difficulties with math at all.
Here are some excerpts from what I wrote in 2010 on my Science of Relations blog back when my boys were little. I engaged in a great discussion with another blogger about an article by Zig Engelmann, which I had long forgotten, on the debate between spiral and mastery math programs. They took the side of mastery, and I clearly disagreed. I hope you find these insights helpful. The precise blog entry with my full comments can be found here: Math, MEP, Charlotte Mason, and Mastery. It is interesting to note that my recent doctoral work has confirmed the contents of this article.
Why I Prefer Mastery of Concepts Over Algorithms
My oldest is in Y4 of MEP; we switched from Math U See last year. He has not done any large or complex multiplications. He continues to master the regrouping and distributive property, though he does not call them that, by breaking larger numbers into smaller numbers and then multiplying or dividing those. He learned division through place value and no longer gets confused by “bringing down the next number.” He can multiply and divide large numbers because he figured it out based on his mastery of small numbers. That is the genius of MEP.
Compare this to Math U See. By the end of Gamma, my son was multiplying these large numbers because he had learned the mechanical process, but he didn’t truly grasp the underlying concepts or their significance. Englemann calls that Mastery. I call that Mastery of the Algorithms, while I call MEP Mastery of the Concepts. This difference is why Liping Ma got the results she did.
He is right, though, especially in math, that by knowing these methods hard and fast, a child will do better in school–but that’s because school assessments are designed to reward those who do! And that is why, according to Marilyn Burns, vast numbers of people have Math Phobia. For some people, memorizing the algorithm simply does not work, and Englemann’s answer seems to be, “Well, they just didn’t master it.”
Final Thoughts on Choosing MEP for Your Homeschool
Memorizing an algorithm doesn’t seem to work for many children, based on current estimates that around 20% to 30% of students experience math anxiety. Nearly 1 in 5 US adults report severe math anxiety, and a majority report some level of discomfort with the subject. I believe this drove the change of focus in the frameworks to math fluency.
I hope this explanation has helped you to consider more carefully math education in your homeschool. MEP is not for everyone; no math program is. Consider how this fits in with your educational philosophy and goals, and your experience with math thus far. Then pray. I suggest praying in silence, simply being in the Lord’s presence, and letting the Holy Spirit fill and guide you.
May God bless your homeschooling endeavor abundantly!
Editor’s Note: To learn more or to register for Homeschool Connections’ new MEP offerings, visit our Caravel website. We hope to add more levels of MEP Math in future years.
This article contains affiliate links.
