DMI chapter 4

After reading this chapter it amazed me that these 2nd graders thought the traditional algorithm was challenging. I remember when I was in elementary school this was the only way to solve a problem. I remember finding other ways to be more challenging, which proves that each student learns best in different ways. I have spent that last couple of weeks wondering how students think and after I read chapter 4, I took time to think back to how I used to think about math. When it came to the traditional algorithm it was very simple 49
+ 58 _______
107
For me it was easy to regognize that you start with the ones and add 9+8 which equals 17. I had learned that when the ones number equaled greater than 10 you "carried" the tens to the tens. So I would carry the 1 over to the tens and add 4, 5, and 1 together to get 107. For me, these types of algorithms were easy, where as solving it like these second graders liked best (40+50=90) (9+8+17) (90+17+107) was more challenging. For me, solving a problem like this took more thinking and more time. I have noticed in my placement that the students solve problems in the traditional way, but problems that don't require regrouping, which makes me wonder if they have even been exposed to such problems. After reading this chapter I started thinking about which way I think is the best and I came up with all of these ways shown on page 64 are important for students to be exposed to, practice and understand. Like I said previously I was great at traditional algorithms, but I never understood regrouping and still sometimes have a hard time wrapping my mind around it. I think it is important for teachers to give their students opportunities to experiment with different addition algorithms like Lynn did in this chapter, because all students do think and understand things differently.