"Benny counts on his fingers to do his arithmetic," the learning center monitor told me. Benny had just learned to read, and had begun the self-teaching first grade curriculum from Accelerated Christian Education (A.C.E.)
Teachers everywhere "know" that students who count on their fingers to do simple addition and subtraction will run into problems with math later. Should I tell the monitors to watch Benny and discourage his finger counting?
Then again Benny's approach to simple arithmetic may have come to us as an opportunity in disguise.
I had seen young Korean children on television using their fingers like an abacus. They competed against experts with calculators, and invariably, the children won. In fact, the longer and more complex the column of numbers they had to add, subtract, multiply and divide, the greater their advantage over electronic devices.
A Korean mathematician had devised the method and named it chisanbop. The process fascinated me, so when we found an introductory book on sale, I snapped it up.
After the monitor told me about Benny, I made hasty preparations by tracing my hands on a large piece of cardboard, and then I appropriately labeled the fingers with numerals. When I was ready, I called a general meeting in our one-room school.
"It has come to my attention that some of you have been counting on your fingers to do math problems. If you want to use your fingers, that's fine, but you should learn how to do it quickly and efficiently so that you can use your fingers on bigger and harder problems."
After a few days of instruction in elementary chisanbop, my wife told me that Benny was now using it to do his arithmetic problems. Some of the older children had begun to use it as well.
A.C.E produces a wonderful core curriculum from a Biblical perspective. Its self-teaching features and built-in controls allow a small Christian school to effectively and efficiently educate grades one through twelve in a single room.
Critics who say that the curriculum is limited and that students need more are correct. What they do not realize is that A.C.E. has said the same thing: students need supplementary instruction and enrichment beyond the core curriculum.
Helping Benny count on his fingers in a better way showed me one way to do that.
The video below will give you some idea of how it works, and how a kindergarten student uses it to add, subtract, multiply and divide.
Teachers everywhere "know" that students who count on their fingers to do simple addition and subtraction will run into problems with math later. Should I tell the monitors to watch Benny and discourage his finger counting?
Then again Benny's approach to simple arithmetic may have come to us as an opportunity in disguise.
I had seen young Korean children on television using their fingers like an abacus. They competed against experts with calculators, and invariably, the children won. In fact, the longer and more complex the column of numbers they had to add, subtract, multiply and divide, the greater their advantage over electronic devices.
A Korean mathematician had devised the method and named it chisanbop. The process fascinated me, so when we found an introductory book on sale, I snapped it up.
After the monitor told me about Benny, I made hasty preparations by tracing my hands on a large piece of cardboard, and then I appropriately labeled the fingers with numerals. When I was ready, I called a general meeting in our one-room school.
"It has come to my attention that some of you have been counting on your fingers to do math problems. If you want to use your fingers, that's fine, but you should learn how to do it quickly and efficiently so that you can use your fingers on bigger and harder problems."
After a few days of instruction in elementary chisanbop, my wife told me that Benny was now using it to do his arithmetic problems. Some of the older children had begun to use it as well.
A.C.E produces a wonderful core curriculum from a Biblical perspective. Its self-teaching features and built-in controls allow a small Christian school to effectively and efficiently educate grades one through twelve in a single room.
Critics who say that the curriculum is limited and that students need more are correct. What they do not realize is that A.C.E. has said the same thing: students need supplementary instruction and enrichment beyond the core curriculum.
Helping Benny count on his fingers in a better way showed me one way to do that.
The video below will give you some idea of how it works, and how a kindergarten student uses it to add, subtract, multiply and divide.
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