Carolyn Hamilton, an Orem mother who is also chairwoman of the math department at Utah Valley State College, said she worked with her children at home because she did not think they were learning much with Investigations math.

In the fall, she pulled her two youngest children out of the district and enrolled them at a charter school that uses Saxon Math.

"They don't learn their times tables" with Investigations math, Hamilton said. "They'll make tally marks instead. Instead of having timed drills on the times tables, they show them how to rework the problem every single time. So if they do eight times three, they'll draw three sets of eight tally marks and count them back up."

Damon Bahr, an elementary math education professor at Brigham Young University whose wife is a kindergartner teacher in the Alpine District, advocates the "balanced approach" of traditional and standards-based math, citing research that shows students with deep understanding learn math faster and remember it longer.

"So here's the deal: People criticized the previous versions of Investigations because it was sort of heavy on the why part of math — that's the conceptual part — but (was) a little week on the how part — the algorithms and the basic facts," Bahr said. "And they also criticized it because parents couldn't help the kids ... The new version, the 2006 version, has addressed all of those issues."

Ken Mayer, a spokesman for TERC, the research and development group based in Cambridge, Mass., that authors Investigations math, is disappointed that the state does not recommend Investigations.

The new edition of Investigations math features a student handbook "that is for students and families," Mayer said. "This is a reference book that's carefully referenced so when you're doing your activities and your homework, you have the student handbook that will refer (to the lesson)."

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E-mail: lhancock@desnews.com