Successful Ideas For Improving Your Teaching Of Addition Skills
By: Shawn Cox
Submitted: 2010-11-26 17:50:18 | Word Count: 823
Countless children find learning to add exceedingly hard. This article is intended to share useful ideas to help parents and teachers working with such children.
Learning addition facts by rote: typically, we use facts we have memorized to help us answer addition problems, particularly when working in our minds. To come to the point, we don't have to compute the answer to 7 and 2, we simply remember it. We can find the solution to maths tasks confidently because we have the ability to remember addition facts. Singing songs and rhymes that tell stories of number is a good way to help expand your child's knowledge of number facts. Participate in pelmanism (matching pairs) games with your student, where the object of the game is remember the location of a question (for example 0+5) and its answer from a small set of cards turned face down. Another idea is to play bingo with the student; however, instead of reading out a number as per the normal game, ask a question similar to: "The answer to 5 and 4". Making the exercise entertaining will prevent the child viewing maths as boring.
[ advertisement ]
Worksheets: teachers have known for years that practise makes perfect, and the correct kind of practice also generates greater confidence. You are able to greatly improve your student's ability with addition, both in their head and practically, by making use of worksheets and printables that have been written for the student's skill level. Although there are an abundance of websites that offer worksheets that help with addition, remember to select any addition worksheets you use with care. Make sure that the worksheets are brief enough to retain the child's interest, and are differentiated at the right level. You should really be presenting a handful of new questions, together with a greater number of problems that foster their recall of addition facts. On the occasions that your child gets the correct answer, use the opportunity to provide lots of praise. If they get a problem incorrect, don't give negative feedback, but explain how to solve the problem correctly. Although they will obviously need to learn from their mistakes, children succeed best when they feel strongly about maths. In other words, using maths worksheets carefully can really enhance your student's level of ability.
Board games: this activity can be both entertaining as well as being a useful tool for teaching maths. Games that ask the player to move pieces] around a board, like snakes and ladders, do a lot to encourage children to count on. If the board has numbers printed on it, the child is able to see that the process is similar to counting numbers aloud or using a number track. When using board games, always remember to draw attention to the relationship between this and adding up.
Counting on: this is a strategy that is related to your child's ability to recall number names. Once your child is able to count to 6, make a point of asking them questions like: which number is 1 more than... eg. when you are counting, what number follows one? This is, in actual fact, equivalent to solving an addition problem such as 1+1, but helps to forge links between the concepts of addition and counting, which is very powerful. This strategy helps gets your child ready to use number tracks and builds in them the confidence to solve problems in their mind. The method can also be extended, by asking, "what number is 2 more than..." When your child can answer such problems out loud, present them the written question, and tell them that this is the same as the problem you had been thinking about before. This should allow the child to comprehend that addition and counting are related concepts, and that the "new" problem is, in actuality, something they have come across before.
Handling money: allowing students to handle money is a fantastic way of helping the attainment of early addition skills. To start with, put out a few pennies and then ask your child to count up the coins, by touching the coins one at a time and saying the number name. For pennies, this is simple, because you only have to count up the number of coins. Now increase the difficulty of the activity, by adding two pennies, glued together. Explain to the student that when you get to this coin, we are going to have to count it twice, because it is a '2'. Visit each of the coins like you did before, tapping on each one as you go; however, touch the "two" twice. Include extra 2's, and repeat counting and tapping each one the right number of times. This simple activity should help your child add quite long chains of money without using any apparatus, improve their confidence when handling money, and help them see the connection between counting and addition.
