Soroban (Japanese abacus) training for third grader?
September 19, 2018 11:16 AM Subscribe
If you are familiar with soroban training for kids - popular in the southeast Asian community - or if you are an elementary teacher, can you please tell me if you think it's worthwhile as a method to teach a child who is struggling a bit with simple adding and subtracting (what her third grade teacher calls the math facts?
I let a friend convince to enroll my daughter in one of those mental math classes that uses the abacus teaching method, which I am completely unfamiliar with. Yesterday my husband and I watched some you tube videos to figure out how addition and subtraction were done. I thought it would be pretty easy, but we were both utterly confused and now I feel awful for making her do this. It seems just way more complicated than other math learning methods. But, perhaps I just think that because the abacus us so foreign to me as an Anglo-Saxon westerner? Any thoughts in whether we should continue with it? She hates it, but of course she does - it's doing math outside of school! And she doesn't get it, but then she's only been to two classes.
I let a friend convince to enroll my daughter in one of those mental math classes that uses the abacus teaching method, which I am completely unfamiliar with. Yesterday my husband and I watched some you tube videos to figure out how addition and subtraction were done. I thought it would be pretty easy, but we were both utterly confused and now I feel awful for making her do this. It seems just way more complicated than other math learning methods. But, perhaps I just think that because the abacus us so foreign to me as an Anglo-Saxon westerner? Any thoughts in whether we should continue with it? She hates it, but of course she does - it's doing math outside of school! And she doesn't get it, but then she's only been to two classes.
Best answer: I'm a 2nd generation Chinese American and went to school with kids who did abacus classes. From what I know, it's a pretty effective method for those with weaker short term memories or executive function skills and find it difficult to hold all the math in their heads. It's also very kinesthetic and helpful for those who are both very physically and visually oriented - can your daughter articulate where her weaknesses with mental math are located?
posted by yueliang at 1:32 PM on September 19, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by yueliang at 1:32 PM on September 19, 2018 [2 favorites]
I'll also have to come back later, but it is also worth examining how Chinese and US ways of teaching math differ. US prioritized arithmetic but zero math abstraction which makes it really hard for students to feel connected to math or knowing how to problem solve. Chinese students spend a lot of time learning math abstraction and then rote practice to understand the mechanical principles of putting those onto practice, which includes arithmetic. I'm guessing the abacus is an ancient but probably very easy way to demonstrate those concepts and do continuous practice. I need to find the article that discusses that in more depth though!
posted by yueliang at 1:37 PM on September 19, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by yueliang at 1:37 PM on September 19, 2018 [2 favorites]
Serious question: has anyone shown her how to count using her fingers? If not, I'd start there before starting classes she'll resist, introducing a technique she won't be allowed to use at school and potentially turning her against math.
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 1:43 PM on September 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 1:43 PM on September 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Since I'm not on my phone, I'll link the video we watched. This isn't the 'linear' looking abacus I picture when I think of an abacus. I watched the lady demonstrate counting to 20 about 4 times and I still couldn't quite make sense of it - so I'd say it's definitely not easy, but it is certainly very visual and also kinesthetic as yueliang articulated above. I really like that comment and it makes me want to give this maybe another month. But I'm still concerned that it's more of a hype than a good way to help kids understand arithmetic...
link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lgfj8CcvZPs
Counting to 20 is at 1:08
posted by kitcat at 2:06 PM on September 19, 2018
link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lgfj8CcvZPs
Counting to 20 is at 1:08
posted by kitcat at 2:06 PM on September 19, 2018
Best answer: I just watched that video and man, that's easy for me and now I wish I learned that in school, because that's how I always processed math in school as a visual medium, but I had to make do with trying to hold numbers in my head.
That's not even a classical abacus, it's a modernized one where the top bed represents 5 because a lot of numbers are very evenly spaced in large numbers, like 5, 10, etc.
Does your daughter have any interest in Chinese or Japanese history and why the abacus itself is ingenious? It is a part of history and it was before calculators, so you need a systematic way to make sure that your calculations are correct and reproducible quickly if you had a series of instructions and paths to follow. Like a computer program that will run. It also makes sense because Chinese characters require a lot of visual and kinesthetic memories, so it's part of a whole history of language and engagement.
I'm guessing that your daughter has some difficulty connecting with the abacus and it may be too abstract for her to understand how difficult it is for numbers to gain consistent results and why some rules are amazing and how hard it is to do it, depending on what her level of understanding of numbers is. This is putting the cart before the horse but not engaging with the horse for why their part in pulling is important, because it gets somewhere!
Like does she have a sense of wonder about numbers and why arithmetic even exists? How is her number sense? Does she like playing with numbers? Has she had enough times about arithmetic approaches to understand all the novel ways of getting to the same answer? Is she already in danger of a fixed mindset vs growth mindset? What does she find uncomfortable or confusing about it? Was she like me and hated the fact that math even had rules and wanted to rebel? (And now I'm an adult and am now amazed that there are such things as reproducible results?)
The comment before where I talk about number sense and the difference between US and Chinese pedagogy talks about that wonder, and here is a good medium article about comparing it to kids who don't understand the algorithm yet. https://medium.com/q-e-d/arithmetic-is-no-longer-the-gatekeeper-of-mathematics-but-arithmetic-is-fun-138a1ea5451b
It also would be cool to figure out why exactly you find that difficult to understand and how you get to your arithmetic understanding, since everyone has different learning styles. The book Mind Over Numbers also gets into that swimmingly well.
posted by yueliang at 4:08 PM on September 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
That's not even a classical abacus, it's a modernized one where the top bed represents 5 because a lot of numbers are very evenly spaced in large numbers, like 5, 10, etc.
Does your daughter have any interest in Chinese or Japanese history and why the abacus itself is ingenious? It is a part of history and it was before calculators, so you need a systematic way to make sure that your calculations are correct and reproducible quickly if you had a series of instructions and paths to follow. Like a computer program that will run. It also makes sense because Chinese characters require a lot of visual and kinesthetic memories, so it's part of a whole history of language and engagement.
I'm guessing that your daughter has some difficulty connecting with the abacus and it may be too abstract for her to understand how difficult it is for numbers to gain consistent results and why some rules are amazing and how hard it is to do it, depending on what her level of understanding of numbers is. This is putting the cart before the horse but not engaging with the horse for why their part in pulling is important, because it gets somewhere!
Like does she have a sense of wonder about numbers and why arithmetic even exists? How is her number sense? Does she like playing with numbers? Has she had enough times about arithmetic approaches to understand all the novel ways of getting to the same answer? Is she already in danger of a fixed mindset vs growth mindset? What does she find uncomfortable or confusing about it? Was she like me and hated the fact that math even had rules and wanted to rebel? (And now I'm an adult and am now amazed that there are such things as reproducible results?)
The comment before where I talk about number sense and the difference between US and Chinese pedagogy talks about that wonder, and here is a good medium article about comparing it to kids who don't understand the algorithm yet. https://medium.com/q-e-d/arithmetic-is-no-longer-the-gatekeeper-of-mathematics-but-arithmetic-is-fun-138a1ea5451b
It also would be cool to figure out why exactly you find that difficult to understand and how you get to your arithmetic understanding, since everyone has different learning styles. The book Mind Over Numbers also gets into that swimmingly well.
posted by yueliang at 4:08 PM on September 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
My spouse is an abacus teacher. Her students' parents are very enthusiastic about this training. They would all encourage your daughter to continue. Most of the kids seem to like it... however, note that the usual age range of her students seems to be between 5 and 8 years old.
Your video is confusing because the narrator is weirdly ignoring her first (right-most) column of beads. Maybe the original's been cropped? You can put your decimal point anywhere but she should mention this. I'd be curious what your mental math class teacher thinks of this video.
posted by Rash at 4:18 PM on September 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
Your video is confusing because the narrator is weirdly ignoring her first (right-most) column of beads. Maybe the original's been cropped? You can put your decimal point anywhere but she should mention this. I'd be curious what your mental math class teacher thinks of this video.
posted by Rash at 4:18 PM on September 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
This might be one of those times where I may recommend joining your daughter's class if possible just to see what is going on.
posted by yueliang at 4:22 PM on September 19, 2018
posted by yueliang at 4:22 PM on September 19, 2018
I watched the lady demonstrate counting to 20 about 4 times and I still couldn't quite make sense of it - so I'd say it's definitely not easy
It's roman numerals, except with IIII instead of IV and VIIII instead of IX (and so on).
I, II, III, IIII, V, VI, VII, VIII, VIIII, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIIII, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XVIIII, XX.
The lower beads are I, X, C, ... and the upper beads are V, L, D, ...
posted by hoyland at 5:35 PM on September 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
It's roman numerals, except with IIII instead of IV and VIIII instead of IX (and so on).
I, II, III, IIII, V, VI, VII, VIII, VIIII, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIIII, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XVIIII, XX.
The lower beads are I, X, C, ... and the upper beads are V, L, D, ...
posted by hoyland at 5:35 PM on September 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
My kids did abacus, although they were younger. Neither my husband nor I had any experience with it. For both of them it gave them a sense of competence in basic calculations and has been a real plus.
posted by warriorqueen at 5:46 PM on September 19, 2018
posted by warriorqueen at 5:46 PM on September 19, 2018
Best answer: I did this when I was a kid and I loved it so much. (To the point where I was staying up late and waking up early just to drill myself in soroban math.) The syllabus I learnt emphasized finger counting for the first level/grade in addition to the actual abacus, and then from the second level/grade onwards it was mental (we were encouraged to visualize the abacus and move our fingers on the "invisible" abacus; the abacus and finger-counting were basically training wheels for the real mental math stuff).
IMO... your video-link kinda sucks. It makes abacus-counting unnecessarily complicated; she seems to over-explain and make it harder than it actually is. And she doesn't teach systematically.
Like she randomly introduces bits and pieces of the number-swapping principles you need for addition/subtraction without teaching them separately first. Surely there are better youtube videos out there that teach soroban? If I were a beginner and watched that video I would be very confused. Even the Youtube commenters on this lady's videos are saying she isn't explaining clearly lol.
For finger-counting (which is based on soroban), the fingers are the 1s and the thumb is a 5. For some reason I can't find a clear Youtube video that shows this (there are some videos that demonstrate this but they are kinda longwinded). I found this guy but I feel like this could still be better explained.
Have you sat in on your daughter's classes, or looked at her textbooks/classroom materials? What syllabus are they using?
Also wondering if you've considered Singapore math for your daughter. It helps a lot in grasping and visualizing math concepts. Apparently it's a pretty popular supplementary/homeschool curriculum in the US. I went to school in both Singapore and the US - there was a huge difference in math teaching and the way both teachers and students approached math. Math was relatively easy to grasp when I learnt it in Singapore; in the US, not so much.
posted by aielen at 2:17 AM on September 20, 2018 [1 favorite]
IMO... your video-link kinda sucks. It makes abacus-counting unnecessarily complicated; she seems to over-explain and make it harder than it actually is. And she doesn't teach systematically.
Like she randomly introduces bits and pieces of the number-swapping principles you need for addition/subtraction without teaching them separately first. Surely there are better youtube videos out there that teach soroban? If I were a beginner and watched that video I would be very confused. Even the Youtube commenters on this lady's videos are saying she isn't explaining clearly lol.
For finger-counting (which is based on soroban), the fingers are the 1s and the thumb is a 5. For some reason I can't find a clear Youtube video that shows this (there are some videos that demonstrate this but they are kinda longwinded). I found this guy but I feel like this could still be better explained.
Have you sat in on your daughter's classes, or looked at her textbooks/classroom materials? What syllabus are they using?
Also wondering if you've considered Singapore math for your daughter. It helps a lot in grasping and visualizing math concepts. Apparently it's a pretty popular supplementary/homeschool curriculum in the US. I went to school in both Singapore and the US - there was a huge difference in math teaching and the way both teachers and students approached math. Math was relatively easy to grasp when I learnt it in Singapore; in the US, not so much.
posted by aielen at 2:17 AM on September 20, 2018 [1 favorite]
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posted by yhlee at 12:12 PM on September 19, 2018