Chapter 5 The Study Of Numbers Up To 10
As addition the pattern in Fig. 52 reads: 8 = 3 + 2 + 3. It can be read in a form which is equivalent to ‘eight minus three plus two equals three’, where the utterance of the words ‘three plus two’ is speeded up. As the child hears that the ‘three plus two’ is taken together he would want to give it a distinctive written form. When this is first written, the child could write 8 – 3 + 2 = 3 and then show that 8 – 3 = 5, and 5 + 2 = 7, thus producing an answer quite different from the one expected. If the earlier discussion has been adequate, the child will explain that he meant 8 minus 3 plus 2 together. One of two approaches can now be taken: 1
He can be given the written symbol which means ‘3 plus 2 together’, and its name ‘brackets’,
or 2
when the child reads his pattern, he can be asked to cup his hands on either side of the rods he means to keep together, and then, when the fact is to be written, he simply draws his hands.
FIG. 53.
8 – (3 + 2) = 3.
A third step would be to cultivate the notion that the contents of the brackets can be reduced to a single term, when the brackets
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