Count on simple addition and subtraction

Mathematics is a word that often strikes fear into an adult, you only have to see the look on a game show contestants face who as just been given a simple math's problem to solve.

Young children find math's easy, as with learning to read you have to learn the building blocks first, with regards to the alphabet and the individual sounds of each letter. That is why a child must be taught to count and be allowed to build their knowledge and experience of numbers in their own time, this builds a solid platform and increases their confidence. Learning simple addition and subtraction with solid foundations in place is a very simple task for most children.

Make learning to count fun, children love playing dominoes, also a board game that uses two dice is a fun way to learn simple addition.

Build sums using dominoes and teach your child to count on. Ask the child to count the dots on the first domino and write the number down, then repeat the same with the second domino counting on from the total of the first domino to give the final total.

Once a child as mastered the ability to count on from any number they should encouraged to move onto slightly more difficult addition using larger numbers, these numbers can be represented with pencil dots which can easily be counted using the count on method. After a few weeks you will notice a dramatic increase in the child's confidence when dealing with numbers and the dot method will be discarded by the child and replaced by the child's growing mental math's skills.

Subtraction problems can also be represented with the above methods. Use counters, coins or any other easy to handle objects to make up the sum of the first number before the subtraction sign. Ask the child to remove the number of objects equal to the second number after the subtraction sign and count the remainder to give them the answer.

Download our free workbook with drag and drop math's examples and auto marking to show examples of the above methods and more.