Does the child need to add completing the ten?

Question:
...have an other question about using your worksheets for my daughter. She is six years old - home schooled.
Currently, we are using Addition & Subtraction 2

She is able to add and subtract any numbers from 1 to 100 but when I try to explain "complete the ten" concept, she doesn't like thinking about it. She would rather solve 9+6 by counting on the finger 6 after 9 ... . She complains that I have to first subtract then add to make 10.

My question is: Should I let her complete the exercises without making her think in this manner?


It is important that she understands the IDEA in completing the ten. I gather that she does indeed understand the idea, but doesn't want to do it, since you'd have to both subtract and add, right? She just likes to do one operation, not two?

The adding though, is really easy, because you add 10 + 5 or 10 + 7 or something to ten. If she's counting with fingers, she's not yet seeing the easiness of this adding. It is also faster to do 9 + 6 by first subtracting one from 6 (getting 5), and then adding 10 + 5, because you can do 10 + 5 really easy: it is one ten and five, or we call that fifteen.

Of course she must understand place value to realize how easy that addition is.

Now, the goal is ALSO to eventually memorize the answers. You might let her know that she can't always count with fingers to find 9 + 6 but a quicker method is needed.

You can let her do some exercises "her way" for now as long as she also is able to understand and do the "complete the ten".

But come back to this idea how completing the ten makes the whole calculation easier and quicker. She WILL need to understand the idea when studying CARRYING in addition, (I mean to totally understand how it works. I realize kids can learn carrying mechanically as well.)

So you can say 1-3 months later reprint some pages and try again.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Hi,
I was a Math teacher. i search for someone to exchange Math with english. can you help me please? I need to improve my pity english!

Caio,
my email: moalem.ali@gmail.com
Anonymous said…
The child needs to learn how to add without using his or her fingers. There are numbers bigger than ten so she is going to have to learn how to borrow.
Anonymous said…
You are just the opposite of myself. Though I can do math up to Algebra it's not quite my favorite as far as teaching it goes. My favorite subject always has been and probably always will be English. I love to teach it and do it. I'll help you as much as I can with English

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