Column discipline

For simple arithmetic column discipline is one of the most important things that a child can learn. If the columns in which they put their numbers are not neat then it is very easy, for example, for the child to add a number which resides in the tens column to a number that is in the units column or is in the hundreds column. If this happens, then no matter how good their skills at adding single digits together are, they will arrive at the wrong answer. This is very dispiriting and can lead a child, who is perfectly capable, to simply give up. In schools pupils are provided with squared paper to encourage pupils to put their numbers in straight columns, but often this is not sufficient, still many pupils allow the figures they write to meander across the page. Pupils should be taught how to lay out columns of figures neatly, so that they can subsequently add them easily. But where does that leave the dyslexic child? Many dyslexic children complain that they cannot tell which column a number is in because “they keep moving about”. The secret to success here lies with the highlighter pen. If all the numbers that should be in the units column are highlighted green, and all the number that should be in the tens column highlighted orange, and all the numbers that should be in the hundreds column are highlighted red (and so on), then all the pupil has to do is add up all the green numbers, then add together all the orange ones, then next the red ones. It doesn’t matter that they move about the page, the background colour moves with the digit and tells the child which numbers should be added to which. This is one of the tricks that we teach at puppet maths to make maths easy.