Other signs that are used in the same way are.
Brackets [4 – 3]

The vinculum 4−2+3

It is very important that boys and girls learn early to add quickly and correctly. Slow and faulty adding is the first great trouble with most boys and girls who leave school to work at anything where even the simplest computations are required. Business men complain of them everywhere.

There is no one operation in all arithmetic that is half so valuable to you as a business man or woman, as to be able to add rapidly and accurately.

Practice half an hour each day and in a short while you will be surprised at your own proficiency.

BE CORRECT.

Impress upon the child that one figure wrong in an answer makes a failure. Lead him to realize that unless he gets his results absolutely correct he is worthless as an accountant or bookkeeper.

Illustrate the importance of accuracy by the use of a few problems like this:

$414

326

6

Show him that by making a mistake of one in adding the units' column someone may lose a dollar; that a mistake of one in the tens' column means ten dollars; while a mistake of one in the hundreds' column means a hundred dollars. Let him illustrate it to you.

Impress accuracy at the outset.

DEFINITIONS.

In addition and other subjects of arithmetic it is not desirable, in many cases, to pay any attention to definitions at first. Explain processes and lead the child to perform them. When the time comes for definitions let the child give one of his own if he If he cannot, help him make one.

can.

His arithmetic will say something like this:— “ADDITION is the process of finding the sum of two or more like numbers."

When he is to learn it, explain as far as you can what is meant by process.

The process is not the sum you get, but the thing done in getting it.

If he has learned numbers to ten he knows all he needs to know of the definition of addition now. It makes little difference to him in actual life, if he never knows more about it than he knows now, if he has been rightly taught thus far.

Sometime in the study of addition the teacher tells the pupil that the numbers in an addition are called addends. For instance, if you are to add four, six, and ten, each one of these is an addend.

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The SUM is the name of the number he gets when he has finished.

Drill him on these names until he has them memorized. Let him call the addends and sum by their

proper names in the same way that he calls the parts of an animal head, feet, etc.

THE WAY.

Probably when you went to school there was not much made of the "forty-five facts of addition" as given on this page. But if you ever learned to add quickly and correctly it was because you learned these facts in some way, perhaps each by itself from meeting it frequently.

When the teacher is teaching these facts of addition you can help drill the child on them until you know they are thoroughly learned. After that drill is the great help to make boys and girls rapid and accurate.

NOTE.- Be sure that the nine facts underscored are thor

oughly learned. They give most trouble.

To Add Numbers They Must be of the
Same Kind.

Give the pupil, say 6 buttons and 3 pins, and ask him what he has. Teach him to know that he can add only numbers of the same name.

Use many illustrations here, as, "3 cows and 4 sheep make how many?"-what? They cannot be added.

Teach also that the sum is always of the same name as the addends.

If the addends are dollars the sum will be dollars; if the addends are books the sum will be books. Think of other illustrations and use them.

DEVICES.

TALK:

Never tire the child by keeping him at work for a long time on the combinations given in the table. Get variety of ways for calling out the practice. Here are a few ways. You can think of others equally good.

1. How many days in 1 week and 6 days?

2. If you sleep 8 hours to-night and 7 hours tomorrow night, how many hours will you sleep in both nights ?

3. One hen had 9 chickens and another hen had 7. How many chickens did both have?

4. If you had 7 dollars and your brother had 9, how many dollars would you both have?

5. Sam ate 6 cherries in the forenoon, and 9 in the afternoon. How many did he eat that day?

Counting out of Place in Addition.

Be careful to keep the habit of counting down. Perhaps you were allowed to count until you found the sum, but you can readily see that if you know that 9 and 7 are 16 just as you know two 2's are 4, you can add more quickly. So you must drill the children to think the sum at once when they see any or these combinations.

DRILLS.

Draw on a sheet of paper a large square and a circle. Divide them like these. Put, say the figure 8, in the center with the other numbers around it.

Write any figure where the 8 is in the center. Then drill, by pointing to the figures around it, while the child names at once the sum of the center figure and the one pointed at.

Use exercises like this frequently, and give many problems, using the combinations you find the child has difficulty with.

Exercises in which the child counts by 2's, by 3's, etc.. to 100 are valuable.