Horizontal addition...I'm confused!

[tigermeow]

The other day DD saw a friend's son completing his maths homework. He had a set of maths problems to work through involving 3 digits e.g 234+532= He drew out his very neat columns, labelled the columns H T U (hundreds, tens and units) and then added up his sum. This is how I remember it from school. My friend said 'ooo, you'd best check with DD's school to see if they do it the same way'.
DD comes home and proceeds to write her own sums on her white board and do them correctly (not carry the ten over though).

I spoke to DD maths teacher today and mentioned that she had enjoyed adding last night and should I let her continue as i heard schools do addition in different ways. The teacher explained that they do 'horizontal' addition and they wont do the HTU colums way until the Juniors. OK, I am very confused...anyone want to give me a lesson in how to add 234+532 in a horizontal way! Also, now that DD is keen, should I just say 'no more sums' or show her the other way?
Many thanks.

"Children were still encouraged to use the method they found the quickest and easiest for any given calculation."

Phew, I am just thinking that if DD understands the column method and can apparently 'see' the columns in her head for simple 34+42 type sums, then she will have to forget what she knows and learn a whole new method. I don't really want to say to her 'by the way, your adding/subtracting method has to wait until you are in Y4/5'! lol

If she has that level of understanding already I'm sure she'll have no problems and will be able to switch between a variety of methods easily.

From the inside , the aim of horizontal addition is to get the children to 'see' their mental processes. It was found that many children (not all) were learning the column addition but couldn't add mentally or spot when they had miscalculated.

So, we teach children to spot when different strategies will suit different situations.
E.g.

Adding 12 and 8 - use knowledge of number bonds to 20.
Adding 14 and 9 or 11 - knowing that you can add 10 and adjust by another 1.
Adding 13 and 27 - knowing that you can partition into 10s and units, 10+20 (30) and 3+7 (10) = 40.
Adding 26 and 16 - knowing that you can partition and use doubling, 20+10 (30) double 6 (12), 30+10+2=42
Adding 35 and 28 - using 'blank' number line, 35+20=55 then 55+8=63

And so on, building up strategies instead of saying (as in my day), here are a list of sums, learn the method and just do it . Column addition is a very useful tool, but it's one of a range of strategies and children often use ones which suit their brain style and discard others which don't.

I must say that I don't envy parents who are suddenly faced with unfamiliar homework and schools should do more to communicate to parents the 'why' and 'how' of current mathematical teaching.

Sorry for the long post .

Hi

my dd has just learnt column addition and subtraction in year1.

My DS learned the horizontal way from the start and it has helped him become absolutely PHENOMENAL in mental maths. He can add up anything in his head (I still need a pen and paper for simple sums ). It allows them to visualise numbers and be able to manipulate them in their heads. He is nearly 9 is at the end of Grade 3 (Australia) and has this year learned the columns system (the old fashioned way) and romps through sums like a warm knife through butter

type inn leicestershire mathsweb nd look at parenting sectiojn

or search my nane on maths threads

and as a slight hijack - hellooooo zoec

Ooh hello popsy