My goal in teaching addition strategies is to strongly emphasize ways to help students think about and figure out the addition facts. We worked on several strategies that hopefully make the facts easier for quick recall. I do want my students to memorize their facts, but working on facts one group at a time should be easier.

Here are the strategies with the accompanying facts:

Doubles: With the doubles, we related the facts to objects we knew.

0+0=0 1+1=2 (eyes) 2+2=4 (dog's legs) 3+3=6 (insect's legs) 4+4=8 (spider/octopus legs) 5+5=10 (two hands) 6+6=12 (dozen eggs) 7+7=14 (2 weeks/calendar) 8+8=16 (driving age) 9+9=18 (eighteen wheel truck)

Doubles + One: Knowing the doubles facts is very important for background knowledge of the next strategies. Students are using what they know. With doubles plus one a student should think of a fact like 6 + 7 as the same as 6 + 6 + 1 = 12 + 1 or 13. The addends can be switched around (6 + 7 or 7 + 6 ). The answers (sums) are all odd numbers. The facts are:

1+0=1 1+2=3 2+3=5 3+4=7 4+5=9 5+6=11 6+7=13 7+8=15 8+9=17 9+10=19

Make a Ten: The "make a ten" strategy emphasizes what we know about making the number ten. A problem like 9 + 6 is the same as 10 +5 = 15. The "make a ten" strategy can be used when adding numbers to larger numbers like 7, 8. or 9 (8 + 4 is the same as 10 + 2; 7 + 4 is the same as 10 + 1). In class we used ten frames to teach this strategy.

Nifty Nines: When using the "make a ten" strategy with the number nine we discovered a quick way to figure out the answer to the facts which we call "Nifty Nines." Whenever we add a number to 9, the number in the ones place will be one less than that number (9 + 6 = 15 because 5 is one less than 6 and we just made a ten). The facts are:

9+1=10 9+2=11 9+3 =12 9+4=13 9+5 =14 9+6 =15 9+7= 16 9+8=17 9+9 =18 9+10=19

Doubles in Between: Continuing to build on their knowledge of the doubles facts, we looked at numbers that are next to or near each other. A fact like 7 + 9 is easy to solve because there is only one number (8) in between the 7 and 9. If there is only one number between the two numbers that are being added together (7 + 9), the answer will be the same as the doubles fact of the number in between (8 + 8 = 16). The sums are all even numbers. The facts are:

0+2=2 1+3=4 2+4=6 3+5=8 4+6=10 5+7=12 6+8=14 7+9=16 8+10=18 9+11=20

Counting On: Counting On is a strategy that is helpful, but overused by students. Students should not be counting on using their fingers at this age. They should not be counting on any number larger than 3 because they will make mistakes. When students use counting on or use touch math they should start with the largest addend (8 + 3) and say "8, 9, 10, 11" because they counted on three numbers. I hope that my students will use the other addition strategies instead of relying on counting on all the time .

Adding Three Addends: When students add three or more numbers (addends) together, they should try to make the problems simpler by using the strategies of making a ten, adding doubles, or counting on.

Make a Ten: 3 + 7 + 4 is just like 3 + 7 = 10 and 10 + 4 = 14

Use Doubles: 8 + 3 + 3 is the same as 3 + 3 = 6 and 6 + 8 =14

Count On: 2 + 7 + 5 can be solved by saying "7, 8. 9" and 9 + 5 =14 (Nifty Nine)