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Dear Teacher Addition and Subtraction Concepts
Experienced educators and authors Peggy Gisler and Marge Eberts give solid advice about everything school and education-related. Parents should send questions and comments to dearteacher@dearteacher.com
QUESTION: My third grader was still having problems with basic addition and subtraction at the end of second grade even though he had extra assistance at school. Is there any way I can help him now? – Math Problem ANSWER: Children need to be able to recall basic facts quickly and automatically. Usually by the end of second grade, most students have automatic recall of not only the addition facts but also the subtraction facts that they are expected to know. Mastery of a fact means giving the response in less than 3 seconds or 30 correct per minute. However, this is for an oral response, and more-time may be needed by young children. Being able to complete 50 problems in 3 minutes is definitely a reasonable goal. Fortunately, you can help your child adopt strategies to help him learn the basic facts fairly easily. Work on this now whether he is in regular or online school. Before you begin teaching number strategies, observe which
numbers your child cannot add automatically. These are the ones you want to help him learn. Don’t confine teaching a strategy to just flash cards; use dice, spinners, coins, markers and simple games. Move slowly. Begin by working with the “one-more-than” (3+1). Then go on to (2 +2) and (3+3). For example, for the problem (3+1), he can lay out three items and then add a fourth. Having him use a strategy like this ensures that he is solving the problem. Doing this repeatedly will help him learn each fact rather than telling him or showing him an answer. Here’s another way for you to help your child learn the basic facts, it is enjoyable because it involves playing games. Since ten is the basis of our number system, it is very important for children to become familiar with all the number combinations that make ten when added together (5+5, 8+2, and so on). Our “Bean Game” will help them do this. Color one side of ten beans (coins or counters) with marking pens, nail polish, or
24 December 2020 • siparent.com
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11/23/20 6:12 PM
