Build Fast Subtraction Fact Skills in 3rd Grade

Third grade meets borrowing across a zero, where two columns have to change at once and the middle digit is easy to leave untouched. It is worth slowing down on precisely these questions rather than doing more subtraction generally — the rest of three-digit subtraction is usually already secure by the time this one is not.

Third grade belongs to the times tables. Multiplication and division are introduced together, area and arrays give them a picture, and rounding to the nearest ten and hundred begins. It is the highest-leverage year in elementary arithmetic: the tables learned here carry fractions, long multiplication and mental math for the rest of school, and gaps left now surface for years.

3rd graders are expected to subtract three-digit numbers including borrowing across a zero; after that comes three-digit subtraction with borrowing across zeros.

Watch for borrowing across a zero, where two columns have to change at once.