Did anyone skip teaching vertical addition and subtraction until much later?

[Sarah0000]

I'm surprised to see it in Singapore 2 because I've heard its a good program for mental math. This is only for two digit addition and subtraction. It seems unnecessary to me to teach it for only two digits (unless of course your child needs it). I guess I'm wondering why teach it at that point? Seems like it might undermine the practice with mental math.

 

Makes more sense to me to teach it whenever your student starts to struggle holding the numbers in their head. Like maybe with three or four digit numbers that do not have multiple zeroes.

 

Anyway, thoughts? I'm thinking of skipping that section in Singapore 2 and waiting another year for that. We do math mostly orally right now. Also, does BA 3 use this method? Just curious as I hope to start my son in BA 2 when it comes out.

[luuknam]

I didn't, but I also didn't just teach 2-digit addition - kids seem to like adding big numbers, and adding 7-digit numbers isn't any harder than adding 2-digit numbers, so I let them have at it.

 

I sometimes ask them math questions waiting in the checkout line at the supermarket, or walking to the library, or w/e, so that's obviously mental math.

 

I think that vertical addition might reinforce kids' understanding of place value more than horizontal addition, but I could be wrong (place value never seemed to be an issue with my kids anyway).

[SorrelZG]

I did with my oldest. He had a natural conceptual understanding and strong mental math skills but when he hit that procedure in Math Mammoth, all that went out the window as he tried to learn and remember the backwards process of adding numbers vertically. He started trying to do THAT in his head ("writing" and working problems vertically on a mental white board) instead of the natural way he had always solved problems. I decided to put it off until the numbers got larger and he got a bit older.

[Cake and Pi]

We use Right Start, which teaches vertical addition early (level B/ 1st grade) but only for large numbers.  2 digit addition and subtraction are always done mentally unless there's several numbers to add or subtract.  So, yeah, my older two never did vertical addition for 2-digit numbers.  DS#3 isn't solid in 2-digit mental addition yet, but he's doing some 4-digit column addition now (with manipulatives) and next we'll loop back around to 2-digit mental addition.

 

BA does have some 2-digit column addition/subtraction as part of some demonstrations in the guide, but it's never the main point of the demonstrations.  They're just as likely, maybe more likely, to write equations horizontally or even move from one number to another with just an arrow and the sum/difference.  There's a very strong mental math component to the work.

 

As a side note, the first installment of BA2 isn't scheduled to come out until summer of next year, and it won't be finished until fall of 2018 (at the earliest -- they have a track record of running a little behind schedule), so your kiddo may be ready for BA3 before all of BA2 is available.