Teaching Missing Addends, an Article on Child Development

Brief Summary

The authors of article Instead of Teaching Missing Addends state their purpose “is to present evidence showing that if children’s numerical reasoning is strong, then formal instruction of missing addends is unnecessary” (Kamii 458). The article presents a Paiget constructivist point of view which is instruction in missing addends problem is no longer necessary when children master reversibility of thought development.

Personal Reaction

This article was really very interesting to me in the fact that educators and parents alike are always eager to teach children even when they may not always have the ability to comprehend what we are trying to teach them.

The study done for this article demonstrates that at times we are better served to wait until the child has more mental maturity when attempting to teach about missing addends. If fact, based solely upon the information given in this article we may not need to teach them at all. If the children are given the chance to develop thought reversibility then teaching missing addends becomes obsolete.

What we should be concentrating upon is teaching skills that will help the children develop these thought processes.

Use Of The Ideas Suggested

In The Article In A Specific Grade Level In The Elementary School. One of the main ideas suggested in the article were a number of mathematical games that encourage thought reversibility and as such eliminate the need for formal instruction in missing addends. These games were presented for 1st and 2nd grade and included “piggy bank” where the object of the game was to make a total of five cents using two cards.

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Also mentioned was a variation of the old television game show “Concentration” that required students to flip over cards to make a specific total thereby using memory and thought reversibility skills in conjunction.

I was very intrigued with the numerical games mentioned and as I plan to teach 1st to 3rd grade I will find them very useful in the future.