Learning addition tables off by heart?

[RCOR]

hi everyone. I'm looking a little advice. My son is given addition tables every evening as part of homework. I'm unsure how to go about 'learning' these. So far ive been asking him verbally but he just rhymes off the remaining numbers without thinking ie 2+0=2 2+1=3 2+2=4 so he's spotted the answer to the next will be 5,then 6 and so on. Whereas if I ask the addition out of order he has to think about the answer and do the sum on his head.

I don't rem learning addition tables but I do rem learning the times tables off by heart. So what do I do with additions?? Make him write them out? Or should they be learned off.

I hope this makes sense.
Thanks in advance for any advice

[learnandsay]

Apparently addition has got weird since we were in school back in the bad old days. You used to get asked questions like what is six add four? And you replied ten.

Now you have to remember that
0+10=10
1+9=10
2+8=10
...
..
.
10+0=10
and somebody somewhere calls it a number bond (don't ask me why)
Presumably
1+999999=1000000
this is a very, very, very long number bond so excuse me if I don't write the whole thing out tonight. Why they do this I'm not sure.

[mrz]

How is that weird?

The term Number bonds have been around since the 1960s

[mrz]

RCOR he needs to learn them so he has instant recall

[learnandsay]

I saw a lesson where these patterns were called "the story of 10"
and "the story of -insert number here-"

Perhaps it doesn't matter too much what teachers call the patterns. Children get used to playing with numbers and that's good. But when the Italian cruise liner is on its side and my son is the first mate I want him to know that if there were 3287 passengers on board and now there are only 3200 there are 87 passengers missing because he can subtract, not because he's trying to remember some number bond.

[mrz]

If he knows his number bonds he won't have to try because he will have instant recall

[RCOR]

Many thanks. I feel he needs to have instant recall too... You just know that 6+4=10

I childmind a 10yr old after school and it frustrates me no end at homework time when she gets stuck on a simple multiplication like 4x4. She would sit and count up in fours before trying to recall the tables. As a result I vowed my own would know them off pit pat once the times tables were started. But seems I should do the same with additions too.

My poor son is going to love me tomorrow when we start that.
Thanks again.

[mrz]

He also needs to understand that if

6+4=10 then 4+6=10 and
10-6 =4 and 10-4=6

[PastSellByDate]

Hi RCOR

Agree with mrz this is about learning number bonds or number patterns.

I'm not sure if your son is learning adding 2 to numbers (say up to 10) - so learning to count 2 on. The rhyming may also help predict the next answer.

0 + 2 = 2
1 + 2 = 3
2 + 2 = 4
etc...

Basically - what seems to be happening is that children are playing with numbers more - exploring patterns (or sequences) and through practice gaining facility with quick mental maths.

As my nickname implies - 40 was a while ago - but horizontal sums, songs, rhymes are all now part of improving mental recall of math facts. mrz is quite correct - the point is to understand in addition that the sum can be written either way - 0 + 2 = 2 or 2 + 0 = 2. And that should be explained & practiced. Either way around an addition sum always has the same answer.

However - it's important to understand that's not the case for subtraction. 5 - 3 = 2 but that won't work the other way around 3 - 5 is definitely not 2 (it's negative 2 - but that's another thing entirely).