Hello Nancy,

Thank you for your message. So far you have no need to worry, things appear to be on the right track with your son.

Let us know if you have any additional questions. We are more than happy to help.

Make it a great day!

Cassie
Activities for Learning-RightStart™ Mathematics
Cassie@ALabacus.com
www.ALabacus.com

Our Mission: To help children understand, apply, and enjoy mathematics.

Thank you so much Cassie for putting my mind at ease. We really love Right Start Math, it's such an incredible and wonderful way to teach math!

Just wanted to clarify a bit after what Cassie said... It's certainly obvious that whatever strategy your son is using is working just fine, so there's no reason to be concerned at all.

But you were asking specifically about the 2 fives strategy. "7+7=14" on its own doesn't show signs of using that strategy. To my understanding, using the 2 five's would mean thinking to yourself "each 7 is five and two, so the two fives go together to make 10, and the two's go together to make 4, that makes 14".

In other words, the 2 fives strategy is just one (of many) ways to arrive at the answer of 14.

He could just as well be using the what-makes-ten strategy (I forget the term RS uses for it), which would be... "7 needs 3 more to make 10, so once I use those three from the other seven, there are 4 left, that makes 14". Or he might use a doubles strategy.

I really like the 2 fives strategy because it uses the idea of the abacus and the groups of five (if you find it confusing, it might be clearer if you try it on the abacus -- put 7 on each of the first two rows. You'll see two fives every clearly, and 4 more beads, thus 14.)

The idea behind doing all the different strategies (rather than just memorizing, or 'counting up'), is to really experience different ways of thinking about and manipulating numbers and exploring their relationships to each other. Once a student has reached a certain level of comprehension, though, they'll either settle in to their favourite strategy, or just have the facts memorized, or whatever... We expose them to the different ways to approach solving a difficult problem, then they go from there.

Anyway, just wanted to clarify that about the 2 fives. It's not going to hurt your son in the long run if he's not using that particular strategy... it's just a really cool tool to have, but if he's already mastered the concept then there's no need for it. Maybe he is using that one, maybe he's not, the important thing is that he's using SOME strategy and he's getting the right answer. :)

heather