“I just don’t understand, Amy! How can he pass a test on fractions,
multiply two digits by two digits in his math workbook, and solve word
problems on his homework, yet if I ask him, ‘What’s 2 less than 9?’ he
has to think about it for several seconds and count on his fingers to
get the right answer?” Sound familiar? This woman’s frustration with her
grandson’s inability to do something as “basic” as mentally solving 9
minus 2 is not uncommon. In fact, it’s an aggravation often expressed by
grandparents, parents, teachers, and the like—basically anyone who’s
had the baffling experience of dealing with a child who typically makes
good grades in school and may even score well on standardized tests, but
can’t seem to solve a simple addition or subtraction fact without the
use of his fingers. And if the child is struggling to work with small
numbers, he can all but kiss success with larger numbers goodbye! Ask
any teacher, and she’ll tell you--it’s a universal issue. And an
impartial one. Afflicting the academically high-achieving, as well as
those deemed most at risk, the inability to compute mentally with
fluency is fast becoming the norm.
