Hi Guys,
Sorry I haven't responded in a while.
Just finished testing week in my classes and I've finally been able to come up for some air.
TeachingMyToddler > Unfortunately there isn't a international or even a national registration for teachers. We've really dropped the ball in the profession on that one! I know it can be a minefield trying to find a "good" Soroban teacher, so I would definitely be up for any suggestions on how I might make such a list. I'm also sorry to say I don't know anyone off hand in Virginia.
Ayesha Nicole > As of right now I don't see a comprehensive way to learn Soroban in a easy step by step way without a teacher. It's part of the reason I thought I could help a lot of parents by making videos that taught them how to do it. I'm still working on the videos and I'm trying to figure out what parents would really like to learn in them, so please give me some pointers!
Also I've never used nurture mind's workbooks but let me try to answer some of the questions.
The golden rule I always follow when teaching is to let the student guide me in setting the pace for their learning. Some kids will "get" concepts quickly while others won't but every student should really practice and master a skill before they move on to any other skills. It's really hard as an adult to repeat the same lesson since it feels repetitive, but in more cases than not kids don't feel bored by it. And they need the repetition to develop their muscle memory and other skills to be able to learn new skills on top of it. I hope that helps.
2010BEBES > Aangeles is definitely right about a 4 year old being able to understand the concept of 5's and 10's. I would like to throw in my 2 cents that understanding the concept isn't the final goal of learning. This was really counter intuitive for me, but learning is more than understanding the why and how. It's been really important for me to learn that kids don't understand math the way I as an adult understand math. For me I can see the connection that numbers have with graphs, and shapes and how its all interconnected. But with kids they don't have the years of schooling and experience that I do. So, their understanding of math can be more superficial, as long as it's a solid base that they can later use to refine their understanding.
So to give you an example: a child depending on their age might understand that having 1 apple and then their mom giving them 1 more apple means that they now have 2 apples.
However, they may not understand the abstraction and make the logical conclusion that having 2 apples and giving an apple to mommy means you'll only have 1 apple left.
The 2 "facts" may not be linked especially if they are taught in a rote memorization format.
Anyway, all I wanted to say was that you shouldn't be worried even if it feels like your child isn't understand all of the conceptual portions of math all at once. if you keep working on the Soroban, the patterns of bead movements will naturally develop a "sense" of how numbers are linked together, even if they can't fully explain how.
Wow, this ended up a lot longer than I expected. Sorry for the long post (again).
Also a quick update about the video's: I've posted a video of a 3 year old student in Japan who was doing multiplication. Here's a link to the video if you want to check it out
http://www.learnsoroban.com/2012/01/25/amazing/3-years-old/Have a good one,
Tom
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