- Bob Hazen
Mortensen Math trainer Bob Hazen owns and operates SAI: the Summer Algebra Institute for Kids. SAI is a half-day, week-long program for students entering grades 3-6. Since 1995, about 4,000 students have attended SAI. “We use color, shape, size, texture, music, manipulatives, and hands-on activities and games to teach some very substantive algebra – in ways that connect algebra with the arithmetic they already know,” Bob says. “We have kids as young as 3rd-grade doing algebra that I’ve seen my high school students struggle with.”
What makes SAI so powerful is that Bob has identified math principles – broad, connecting ideas – that reveal the unity of math across grades and topics. In this way, what students learn about algebra in SAI also helps them with fractions, place value, decimals, trigonometry, and measurement units.
Bob also runs Algebra For Breakfast, an online version of SAI. He can be contacted at info@AlgebraForKids.com.
