Why We Don’t Use Grade Levels
One of the more frequent questions we’re asked sounds something like this. “Why don’t you organize your site by grade levels?” Or, “Which worksheets should I use for fourth grade?”
There are several reasons why The Math Worksheet Site is not organized by grade levels.
Many of our selection pages offer a broad enough range of options that a particular type of worksheet could span two or three grade levels. So we can’t say a particular worksheet title is a certain grade level, because it would depend on the selections chosen.
Different schools, different curricula, different U.S. state standards and different countries place certain math skills in different grade levels. So some concepts taught in “first grade” in one curriculum may be taught in “kindergarten” in another curriculum. Some countries don’t even have “kindergarten,” they begin school with “Grade 1.”
Many math concepts are taught more than once. They’re re-taught for reinforcement at several grade levels. Therefore a particular type of worksheet is useful at several grade levels.
One of the reasons The Math Worksheet Site isn’t organized by grade levels is that the creator of the site is a homeschool dad who doesn’t think in terms of grade levels. 
We want children to master, say, the multiplication tables. But whether the students are attending “second grade,” “third grade,” “fourth grade” or “Resource” when they learn those multiplication tables, we’re just glad they’ve learned them. Our goal is to provide a tool to help the teachers to teach and the students to learn those multiplication tables.
We feel that it’s an asset to have the site organized by topic. No matter where your student is with respect to the local grade level, you don’t have to guess where to find what you need. You don’t have to think, “He’s actually in 3rd grade, but he’s advanced. Should I look in the 4th grade category, or is this topic in the end-of-3rd grade materials?” You know the topic he’s working with, so you can find the practice he needs.
We organize The Math Worksheet Site by topic and trust that the teachers and parents can find what they need by topic.
–Denise
September 20th, 2006 at 6:36 am
Wonderful! A lot of people don’t realize that grade levels are somewhat arbitrary, anyway. Even a cursory look at the contents pages of several different math books for the same grade will show that they agree on many things, but not everything, to include and often suggest teaching the skills a different way.
Grade levels actually can slow down some students who can & should go past the arbitrary level set by a text book, or who feel that they’re “dumb” at math. It’s good to slow down to thoroughly learn something when you need extra practice or when you want to explore at greater depth, and then to speed up when you’re competent but not as interested.
I’ve found that the level-less system piques the curiosity of my children, who sometimes get to pick an extra worksheet in an area that grabs their attention. We have a math “program”, but like everyone, they learn best what they’re curious about, and this site is wonderful for exploring new topics and stretching, as well as strengthening major skills.