practice, practice, practice

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Home : 2004 : September : 15

practice, practice, practice
By Tanya

Karen,
This is my third year teaching 4th and the kids arrive shaky with subtraction. These are a few things I do:

First post a rhyme--More on the top, no need to stop. More on the floor, go next door.

Next walk
them through 2-digit with regrouping until you feel that most are comfortable.
Then introduce three digit, but beware of a 0 on the top--that's another story.
When you have those last few who still aren't correctly subtracting then give them a subtraction folder bound nicely so they can look at all the stars/stickers they're going to get. Mine are 10 pages that go from easy to hard.

There are several pages that include no regrouping. I have the kids bring them back to me once a week or whenever a page is done. I make sure I give them stickers, etc. Keep those parents in the loop too. Make a big deal of them doing these correctly.

Oh, and I big help is to have them check their work by adding back. This is especially useful when your kids are subtracting across zeros. I'm delighted that by the end of 4th the majority of my kids subtract quite well. However it's always practice, practice, practice.