When teachers talk about students struggling at the higher levels of math (like high school) they often refer to these students having trouble with fundamentals, like having trouble with number sense.
Number sense is the ability to break numbers apart and see them as being put together from pieces. This is fundamental to improved speed with calculations, accuracy, factoring, and solving.
- Calculation issues, but stemmed from the fact that they didn’t really know what numbers are. We address this issue in our freebie: Place Value Charts.
- Then this is the next step in the process – number bonds.
Why? In math, students can’t just do things in one direction. They need to take everything that they have learned and apply it.
This is the next step because it helps them to see that composition of number is a forwards and backwards process.
We see this everyday. When we get cold, we put on a jacket. When we get hot, we take off the jacket. This process makes sense in real life, but what about for numbers?
Some times these patterns aren’t clear unless we practice them directly. Then through that practice we start to build the relationships in our mind, and make them second-nature.
So number bonds help to take this understanding and turn it in a skill that can be applied over and over again.
It also leads naturally from addition to subtraction and from multiplication to division.
Not to mention it can be used for any operation that takes in 2 results.
Wow, the pattern becomes clearer!
So students who understand this pattern can easily apply this understanding to exponents, radicals, and logarithms.
Here we have number bond activities that we use to address this issue. It takes students back through the fundamentals in a simple way. It also helps with word problems because students need to understand how to find unknowns both forward and backward. This activity starts their training early, so they can see that pattern.
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