Finally…

One of my students, Mannie, had a problem getting the concept and recognizing the symbols for addition and subtraction. I tried and tried to get the concept across to him without success. This frustrated me so, I even cried on a couple of occasions.

Well, yesterday, he finally got it. Since the previous approaches I was using weren’t working, I decided that I had to try a different one. So this is what I did: I explained to him what a symbol was. I told him that it was a thing that stands for something else. I then made the connection to the concepts of addition and subtraction. I told him that whenever he sees that particular symbol (- & +), that he would know what to do. I showed him the symbol over and over, asking questions and making sure that he really understood. I then went over and over what the symbol was. Finally, I then showed him different ways to write the problem.

3 + 4 = 7 and

3
+ 4
____
7

“Is this the same problem?” I asked.
Why?

I told him that as long as the same numbers are used in addition, it doesn’t matter which way we write it. I also told him that when adding, the numbers get bigger; and while subtracting, the numbers get smaller.

Finally, I wrote the problem 3 + 3 on the board. I asked for 3 volunteers. The next question I posed to him and the rest of the group was:

Is this problem going to get bigger or smaller?

Mannie said bigger, so I called up three more people, then we counted. Of course, we came up with 6. I asked Mannie if 6 was bigger than 3. Blah, blah, blah… Long story short (too late), he and the rest of the group got it.