Abacus class and for how long?

[Anonymous]

I have heard that abacus class is great for young kids, and am thinking of signing my 5 year old rising kindergartner up for one. For those of you with kids in abacus class, do you think it was really beneficial and how so? Until what grade do kids take abacus? It sounds pretty awesome, but 99% of kids don’t take abacus, and plenty of them do fine in math (including my older kids), so that makes me hesitate.

[Anonymous]

A friend tried to convince us to join their soroban class when my kids were little, but I didn’t think it was a good use of time.

It does increase calculation speed and accuracy, but if you think of math as a mix between computation skills (522-93=429) and reasoning/problem solving skills (what is the ideal pen shape for a cow if you have x lengths of fence and want to maximize area), then computation skills are much less important. I don’t think fast arithmetic is as worth practicing as good problem solving skills, persistence, and being able to set up the right math question. I do think that being good at arithmetic is helpful because it leaves more brain space for reasoning, but I don’t like soroban because it excludes all the reasoning and just concentrates on arithmetic speed.

It also requires a narrow view of calculation. When my kid sees “18x5”, I want them to see “50 + 40” or “9x10” and “100 - 10” as possible ways to solve, because that type of number sense will help them be flexible when they see binomials and other algebraic expressions.

[Anonymous]

I...have not heard that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A friend tried to convince us to join their soroban class when my kids were little, but I didn’t think it was a good use of time.

It does increase calculation speed and accuracy, but if you think of math as a mix between computation skills (522-93=429) and reasoning/problem solving skills (what is the ideal pen shape for a cow if you have x lengths of fence and want to maximize area), then computation skills are much less important. I don’t think fast arithmetic is as worth practicing as good problem solving skills, persistence, and being able to set up the right math question. I do think that being good at arithmetic is helpful because it leaves more brain space for reasoning, but I don’t like soroban because it excludes all the reasoning and just concentrates on arithmetic speed.

It also requires a narrow view of calculation. When my kid sees “18x5”, I want them to see “50 + 40” or “9x10” and “100 - 10” as possible ways to solve, because that type of number sense will help them be flexible when they see binomials and other algebraic expressions.

This is OP. Thank you for sharing your perspective!! I agree with everything you said about what’s more vs less important. I have a 5th grader who is overall solid at math, but when he makes mistakes, they’re mostly calculation errors, such as “48 divided by 8 is 9” or “102 minus 30 is 62”. Then he beats himself up for his “silly mistake” and shuts off. He didn’t do abacus and I wonder if he would’ve benefited, which is in part why I’m considering this class for my 5 year old. I 100% agree that problem solving skills are more important than computational skills, but that being good at the latter gives you more space to focus on the former.

I’m thinking maybe my 5 yo can do abacus for just a few years, say, until 2nd grade? Kindergarten & 1st grade math are mostly about developing number sense and basic arithmetic skills, anyway.

[Anonymous]

I would just work with math manipulatives at home. You can teach this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A friend tried to convince us to join their soroban class when my kids were little, but I didn’t think it was a good use of time.

It does increase calculation speed and accuracy, but if you think of math as a mix between computation skills (522-93=429) and reasoning/problem solving skills (what is the ideal pen shape for a cow if you have x lengths of fence and want to maximize area), then computation skills are much less important. I don’t think fast arithmetic is as worth practicing as good problem solving skills, persistence, and being able to set up the right math question. I do think that being good at arithmetic is helpful because it leaves more brain space for reasoning, but I don’t like soroban because it excludes all the reasoning and just concentrates on arithmetic speed.

It also requires a narrow view of calculation. When my kid sees “18x5”, I want them to see “50 + 40” or “9x10” and “100 - 10” as possible ways to solve, because that type of number sense will help them be flexible when they see binomials and other algebraic expressions.

This is OP. Thank you for sharing your perspective!! I agree with everything you said about what’s more vs less important. I have a 5th grader who is overall solid at math, but when he makes mistakes, they’re mostly calculation errors, such as “48 divided by 8 is 9” or “102 minus 30 is 62”. Then he beats himself up for his “silly mistake” and shuts off. He didn’t do abacus and I wonder if he would’ve benefited, which is in part why I’m considering this class for my 5 year old. I 100% agree that problem solving skills are more important than computational skills, but that being good at the latter gives you more space to focus on the former.

I’m thinking maybe my 5 yo can do abacus for just a few years, say, until 2nd grade? Kindergarten & 1st grade math are mostly about developing number sense and basic arithmetic skills, anyway.

PP. Sure, sounds like you are interested, so go ahead. I’m sure the people who teach the class will disagree, but I think the abacus constrains future number sense. Richard Feynman has an amusing anecdote about this in “Surely you’re joking, Mr Feynman”.

https://www.ee.torontomu.ca/~elf/abacus/feynman.html

The point of abacus classes to have kids develop a mental abacus that stays with them forever, but that prevents them from thinking about arithmetic in other ways.

For example, kids will think of 93-68=25 on an abacus like this: set up 93, subtract 8 ones units from 3, take one tens unit from 90 and make 13 ones units. Subtract 8 from 13, add 2 to ones column to make 5 ones, subtract 6 tens from the 8 tens remaining, see that it is 25. Every time they encounter 93-68, they will solve it the same way. They are doing advanced counting, because that is what an abacus does.

But when kids learn number sense, they will see that 93-68 = 95-70. They will see that 93-68 = 2+20+3. They will see that 93-68 = 93-63-5.

By the way, for your 5th grader, number sense can help him out. The best way for kids to remember math facts is if they have anchors to work from and the flexibility to break numbers down and up. For 48/8, kids can remember that they know 40/5 = 8, so 48/8 = 40/8 + 8/8, or 24/8 =3, so 48/8 must be 6. For 102-30, they can think of it as 100-30-2 or 70 + 2. I think “adding up” is a very useful strategy for kids.

In an extreme example, you can google “touch math” to see the effect of one well meant math curriculum on number sense. Of course abacus is not anything like touch math, but thought you might find it interesting.

[Anonymous]

As an Asian, I have heard of abacus, but I have never seen an abacus or heard of abacus class offered in person here. Any link? Lol, I am curious to hear more about it.