Mental Sum

[loyhuieng]

I realised that my girl who had just completed P1 this year is still very weak in her mental calculation. She relies heavily on her fingers. For example if you ask her simple addition like 7 plus 3, she still needs to take out her hand and use her fingers to add. I am wondering whether is there any enrichment which is able to train her mental calcution? Please help. Thanks!

[smurf]

Go for abacus enrichment??

[Suee]

smurf:

Go for abacus enrichment??

kumon or enopi also can help.

[loyhuieng]

Is it too late to start abacus for 7-8 years old? Will learning abacus conflicts with the school syllabus?

[mrswongtuition]

loyhuieng:

Is it too late to start abacus for 7-8 years old? Will learning abacus conflicts with the school syllabus?

There are students who start abacus training at 10-12yo.
I started serious abacus training only this year!

Depending on which type of abacus system you are taking, the conflict with the school syllabus can be minimal.
You can read more about how I teach abacus here: http://mwtuition.blogspot.com/p/3g-abacus-problem-solving.html
Or the main HQ: http://www.3gabacus.com

Theirs is a 9 bead system which had close resemblence to the regrouping method used in school.

[mrswongtuition]

Forgot to mention, it is rather common for them to start at P1/2.

[loyhuieng]

Thanks for the information. I have gone through the website on 3G abacus. But your centre is too far away from me as I am staying in Sembawang. And the other centres under the HQ for 3G abacus are also not suitable accept for the centre under Edufarm. But I do not have good impression of Edufarm because of some bad experience with them.

[bbc]

loyhuieng:

Thanks for the information. I have gone through the website on 3G abacus. But your centre is too far away from me as I am staying in Sembawang. And the other centres under the HQ for 3G abacus are also not suitable accept for the centre under Edufarm. But I do not have good impression of Edufarm because of some bad experience with them.

The Jelutung community centre at Sembawang offers the 3G abacus and mental arithmetic course. You can check the schedule on the PA website.

[mrswongtuition]

loyhuieng:

Thanks for the information. I have gone through the website on 3G abacus. But your centre is too far away from me as I am staying in Sembawang. And the other centres under the HQ for 3G abacus are also not suitable accept for the centre under Edufarm. But I do not have good impression of Edufarm because of some bad experience with them.

My classes are all full
You try calling up HQ to ask for teachers in your area because some are home based like mine, they did not post it on their web.

[JonC]

I am just stating what my DS school teacher’s comment about maths and PSLE. A little difficult to explain in writing.


The school tried to get the student (but not all student follow, like my DS) to do the following when doing the exam paper so that students can score points on working marks (especially long question) even the final answer (which is 1 mark out of the question’s full mark) happens to be wrong,

1. Read the question and write (info only, not the whole question, as part of the working answer) at same time so as not to miss out info in questions, because after reading full questions and start writing may miss out info

2. Write down every working steps clearly as your brain thinks of the solution, because think (mental calculation) and didn’t write down (skip written working step), any miss calculation mentally, markers may not be able to see what’s in the brain when the PSLE paper is marked by examiner.

The teacher commented that even GEP students who are very strong in maths and mental calculation can get either full marks for a question or zero, because even strong mental calculation students tends to be lazy to write down all steps of working in paper and unable to visualise when mental calculate step went wrong and loses working marks.

This is not to dispute mental calculation, it has to work hand in hand with discipline writing what is thought mentally down on papers.