'column' addition method

[basildonbond]

just posting as I remember a mammoth thread about 'modern' maths teaching methods in primary a while back and I thought it might be interesting to get a child's perspective rather than us all griping about it being different from the way we were taught

anyway .. ds (y5) has just been officially taught how to do addition using the column method (I've been sitting on my hands watching him do his homework for the last couple of years )

He 'got it' instantly, and to quote him "Why do they teach any other method when this one is soooo much easier!"

[maverick]

I agree.
Watch this video clip

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXx2VVSWDMo&feature=related

[MathsMadMummy]

love the video clip.

basildonbond I totally agree with your DS!

[maverick]

This is good too:
www.societyforqualityeducation.org/stairway2math/MATHSHEET06,_Easier_Subtraction.pdf

[loumum3]

Ooh the arguments I had with my son's school over this !

[Berrie]

OP, you are confident then that he would have found it that easy two years ago, that his place value was secure enough, that the earlier methods did not help him prepare for this moment?

[FernieB]

Loved the youtube clip. Berrie, I am fairly certain that most kids would cope better if the schools just taught one method of addition/subtraction and stuck to it. I taught my DD's to do column addition/subtraction when they were 5. The schools then persisted in teaching all these other more complicated and time-consuming methods which only confused them (and other children in the class). Consequently an awful lot of maths time is devoted to learning these methods which could be spent learning other things. Now the school allows them to pick their own method they all use columns - it's just quicker.

Had a nice discussion with their teacher about this last year. He's not British and had not come across some of the methods before. I asked him if after the maths test on that subject the kids would ever have to use all 4 methods again and his response was "I never have, have you?"

[maverick]

Ok, another video clip:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr1qee-bTZI
Video: Maths Education -an inconvenient truth
This is from the USA but I suspect (I don't work in a school) that much the same sort of stuff is happening in UK schools -am I correct?

[claig]

thanks for the very interesting video "Maths Education - an inconvenient truth"

[basildonbond]

Berrie = er, yes. He's never ever had a problem understanding units, tens, hundreds etc

He is, however, prone to making silly mistakes and the more calculations he has to do the more likely he is to get the end answer wrong

[witchwithallthetrimmings]

but isn't the point of maths teaching to get them to understand addition as well as being able to add up numbers? Any numpty can be trained in the column addition method but understanding that 367 + 125 = 300+60+7+100+20+5 is a good training for stuff like algebra and equations that they will come across at secondary school

[MathsMadMummy]

watching that video reminded me that I can't count how many methods my DSDs have been forcefed taught. Seems like every week when they stayed here they'd have a different one to get upset and confused about do homework on.

they're in yr7 now and are really struggling with the basics. Course it doesn't help that they do all maths hw online with no teacher feedback but that's another thread

[ChippyMinton]

Haven't watched the clips, but recently my DC's school held a maths evening for parents to explain the various teaching methods. It was enlightening, as the teachers explained why they used lots of different methods to help with understanding and to reinforce mental maths strategies. The traditional written methods are still valid, but the children understand why the methods work, whereas I was taught by rote.

[westender]

Agree with withwithallthetrimmings -

Also, if you were adding 367 + 125, in your head, then you would probably not use the column method but would use another method. (At least I would).

[Over40]

The "different" methods in fact build upon one another. They should not be taught in isolation but as a progression, allowing children to both understand (thereby building mental maths skiils) and perfect more compact and efficient written methods.

If you teach it as "here's a different way to lay out addition" then of course the children get confused! I always show them how what they already know can be simplified and refined until we get to column method etc. Works every time and they feel they are on a learning journey!

The one exception I would make is teaching x and / using a numberline..... We have just agreed to scrap that in the whole school as it does confuse!

[paisleyleaf]

Im going to need some convincing about the way they are learning now.
I'm not really happy about my DD learning this way, and like the OP I think I'll be sitting on my hands.
I feel it explains why Kumon are doing so well at the moment.

[JohnnylovesJazz]

Interesting Video - on Maths an inconvenient truth. Interesting that someone would make observations in a Maths class and decide on that basis that we should abandon a teaching method - it's hardly a scientific means of investigation into causal relationships. To observe a lack of independent working in Maths class and blame it directly on team work within the class is poor scientific practice....I can think of a few reasons why kids are less independent now and none of them relate to team working - try over-protective, over controlling parents for a start - but that is just my hypothesis and I would want that hypothesis fully investigated before suggesting that approaches to child rearing should be changed because of it.
As for her arguments against new style maths and the colomn method - I wasn't convinced. Long division & multiplication are not things we do on paper - ever, except in primary school! We use a calculator. Learning the column method and not understanding how it works is the equivilent of being a human calculator - you put a couple of numbers in you get one out - not much thinking involved and it's factory thinking and very, very dull.

A child who can play with numbers using these new methods - really understands and has a feel for the value of numbers, whereas a child who can only do the column method is just learning a process - it's memory, not maths and given that they'll always have a calculator to hand - your really not adding much value to their education.

Where we can add value is in getting kids to memorise times tables and small additions and substractions - it's quicker to do these kind of small problems in your head than stop to use a calculator but it will never be quicker to scribble out long division/multiplication, so might as well accept & use the new technology to the best of our advantage.

[lizzylloyd]

has anyone heard of ocean maths its a homework that involves playing maths games in partners. iv heard its good.

[MIFLAW]

"Any numpty can be trained in the column addition method but understanding that 367 + 125 = 300+60+7+100+20+5 is a good training for stuff like algebra and equations that they will come across at secondary school" - can anyone explain to me WHY this is such good training for "stuff like algebra and equations"? Algebra is surely about finding a missing number and so can be done equally well by the column method, if the concept is sound in the head.

I would have done this sum in my head from quite an early age TBH so don't know which method I would conceptually be using anyway ...

[MIFLAW]

"it will never be quicker to scribble out long division/multiplication" - I assure you it IS quicker if, as probably happens to most of us, most of the day, you don't have an easy-to-use calculator to hand. There is a lot to be said for being able to crunch numbers armed only with the proverbial fag packet and bookie's pencil.

[JohnnylovesJazz]

If I was doing calculations involving long multiplication and division frequently during the day I'd ensure either my mobile had a calulator function or I'd buy a very cheap basic calculator insisting on using the comb method when we do have easy access to calculators is a waste of time. In fact I'm more likely to have a calculator to hand when I'm out (through my mobile) than a piece of paper and a pencil!

[MIFLAW]

Well, of course you would, in the same way that if you have a lot of letters or reports to write you probably have a PC on your desk. But that doesn't mean that there will never come a time when you have to write a note by hand and, in such situations, it is very useful to know how to do so. Same with calculations.

It is also much easier to beg or borrow a pen and paper than the loan of a calculator or a mobile phone; and it is also useful to be able to check a surprising answer (which could, for example, be down to a misplaced decimal point when using a calculator in haste.) I also find that, as mobile phones are not calculators, the calculator function is often quite counter-intuitive in terms of which keys to press in which order.

I sense that a huge number of people get shafted every day by sellers because they are over-reliant on calculators and Excel and cannot tell a good deal from a mug's deal. The old formula, GIGO - Garbage In, Garbage Out - springs to mind.

[JohnnylovesJazz]

Completely agree that you should mentally check an answer given by a calculator but the same goes for an answer given by the column method. There is a chance of making a careless mistake using either method. And if you only need to use a pencil an paper a very rare occasion, then I wouldn't suggest spending a large amount of time developing a high degree of efficiency using the column method - better to spend the time developing a better understanding of the numbers.

[MIFLAW]

I agree with you - if a better understanding of the numbers is indeed gained. But I worry that an early reliance on the calculator - early as in, before the social ramifications of getting maths wrong has properly sunk in - means that that better understanding will be the goal of a rare few. Of course, the same can be said of the column method (or any other pen and paper method) - but calculators make the whole thing SO quick that the temptation is not to reflect at all on WHY the answer is what it is and just to accept it.

There is also a growing tendency to view a computer as automatically "right" and I am in favour of anything which mitigates this understanding in children.

[MathsMadMummy]

I agree MIFLAW, and not just with maths. The whole "Google it" culture is a similar thing. "Copy and Paste" is another mantra of the young student I fear

[JohnnylovesJazz]

Google is a useful tool but it needs to be used with caution, then again books have been known to be inaccurate and spin lies too. I think children need to be more media savvy. They need to be taught critical thinking skills... they need their eyes opened to the manipulation of the press, the advertisers and sponsors and part of this is learning good mathematical skill so they can understand when stats are being used to hoodwink them too. So many people just accept what they are told without question, whether the information comes from books, the TV or Google.