Help 1st Graders Master Addition Through Fast-Paced Play

At this stage addition stops being counting and starts being recall. The two strategies that carry the most weight are make-a-ten — turning 8 + 5 into 8 + 2 + 3 — and near-doubles, turning 6 + 7 into 6 + 6 + 1. A child still counting on from one for every sum has not yet built the number bonds those strategies stand on, and that, rather than the sums themselves, is what to practise.

First grade is where numbers stop being a recitation and become quantities that can be taken apart. The year's real targets are addition and subtraction within 20, number bonds to 10, and reading two-digit numbers as tens and ones. Progress is easiest to see in how a child answers rather than whether they are right: counting every object is early, counting on from the larger number is progress, and answering without counting is fluency.

1st graders are expected to add fluently within 20, know the doubles, and use number bonds to 10 to bridge across it; after that comes facts within 20, then number bonds to 10 and 20.

Watch for counting all the objects from one instead of counting on from the larger number, which works but stays slow.