Developing Computation in the Early Years

Posted by: adyfendy on: August 24, 2010

In: Topic 2 - Numbers
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Mental Computation Strategies

What is mental computation

When people hear the term “mental computation” many think of the mental arithmetic problems they did at school. Mental arithmetic focuses on producing correct answers quickly. While not neglecting the correctness of the answer, mental computation emphasises the mental processes used to achieve the answer. To develop mental computation in the classroom, teachers can encourage students to explain how they arrived at their answers and to compare their strategies with those of other students.

(NSW Department of Education and Training, 2010)

What is subitizing?

From what I understand from EAB023 class, subitizing is the sudden describe or recognizing certain patterns in mathematics calculation.

“Subitizing is way of manipulating numbers. It is not counting items individually for example, but in groups. Utilizing visualization, it is recognizing an amount rather than counting it”

(Caroline Post, 2010)

Below are several techniques and activities that i have done in tutorial regarding to mathematical computation including subitizing.

Number line

number line

Number line can be use in addition and subtraction. In primary school, students may have difficulties on how to use the number line. There are tehniques and method in using number line effectively.

I have found a video that demonstrates how to use a number line for the children: