Reply to Do kids need to understand "borrow and pay back" subtraction (vs regrouping)?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Please do not teach this nonsense of “borrowing & paying back.” What’s best for your kid is to develop a solid conceptual understanding of regrouping in a base ten system. What’s best is for your kid to be a flexible thinker and to pick which strategy is the most efficient to solve the problem in front of them.

For example: If presented with 1002-997=___, the most efficient strategy is NOT to set it up vertically and regroup. The most efficient way to solve this subtraction problem is to simply “add up.” 998-999-1000-1001-1002. The answer is 5.

[/quote]

NP. So what I end up doing for a problem like that is to say, in my head “ok 997 to 1,000 is 3 and then 1,000 to 1,002 is 2, so 3+2=5.” I don’t have a school-aged kid, so I don’t know if that’s how they’re teaching it to kids these days, but it’s definitely how I think about it. [/quote]

I just quickly recognize that they’re only a few digits apart, and subtract 7 from 12. The answer is 5. It takes two seconds. Maybe less. [/quote]

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