A few questions about Soroban

Early Learning Teaching Your Child Math
1

I’ve just enrolled my 5 years old to UCMAS. It’s a Soroban school closed to my house. He’s gone to the class twice and I already see progress.
After 2 classes, my son can do simple math in his head (without using Big & Little Friend formula as the teacher hasn’t teach him yet). He does not need an abacus as long as there are enough beads for him to move. He simply looks at the problems, moves his fingers, and gives me the answers right away.

BUT…he gets frustrated during finger movement training. He begged me to just let him write down the answer without moving the beads. I thought finger training was very important but he seems to find it too slow and takes too much time. :unsure:

I am not sure what to do. Should I just let him write down the answers or just keep reminding him to use the abacus every time we do the worksheet?

Any advice?

2

My advice is ask his instructor. lol Sounds like he is doing FABULOUS already! Good job!

3

Thanks. TeachingMyToddlers. :slight_smile:

Just a little update. His instructor insisted that he has to use abacus because it’s the basic that he needs to master before moving onto complicated operations.
I guess the abacus moves too slow for him and he’s trying to find a shortcut by using his brain. lol

After 4 weeks in the class, I really am happy with soroban and UCMAS. Highly recommended!

4

By “using his brain” he might be doing mental calculations. Normally, the idea is to perform the operations in a mechanical way, which means he is obliged to do everything on the soroban. That’s the point of using a soroban.