Mar 2021 New: 5 Secrets of the Mental Math That Will Help You Improve Your Grades

Understanding the complex secrets of mental math can be a long and tedious process.

Confused parents who may not know where to begin can use this article as a quick guide to success.
 

I'm the author of this article and I'm a qualified abacus teacher, answering questions from around the world online abacus and various questions from online-soroban.com students.

Table of contents

The increasing level of competition in the academic world has made mental maths one of the most sought-after skills these days.

It is not an empty bubble though.

Students who can compute faster in their heads have clear advantages over those who can’t.

Being able to compute without the use of a calculator or pen and paper means the student can focus more on the problem at hand rather than on the calculations themselves.

Mental maths techniques have been in development for centuries now.

Mathematicians have tried to come up with better and more efficient ways to solve common problems each decade.

Not learning mental maths would mean not taking advantage of all this research.
 

1-1.Age Requirement and Secrets of Mental Math To Begin

Math is a skill that can be learned.

And like most skills, it gets better as it is practiced more.

To gain the upper hand in this, it is recommended to start early - as early as possible.

For minimum age limits, ages four to five work for most children.

The brain has had enough time to develop properly by that age and the children can start making sense of abstract concepts such as numbers.

We must however keep in mind that mental maths doesn’t require someone to understand the philosophical point behind numbers - meaning children can use mental maths just as efficiently as adults can.

The level of mental maths being imparted should be carefully considered.

For younglings, of or below the age of five, simple arithmetical shortcuts like multiplication with powers of ten and addition and subtraction by breaking up should be considered.

For older champions up to the age of ten, techniques using basic algebra, decimal shortcuts, percentage shortcuts, and shortcuts of similar levels should be taught.

For even older learners more complex topics such as surd calculation, ratios, and visual concepts can be considered. The key is to teach the right kind of material at the right age.

Making a three-year-old memorize all the trigonometry values doesn’t mean anything, it simply sends them a message that studies and especially maths are a burden - a message which can have a very negative impact in the long run.

1-2.Secrets of Mental Math To Improve Your Calculation

As we have discussed before, mental maths is one of the most important skills to have and if started at the right age, it can help the student gain the extra competitive edge over the competitors.

Many tools have been developed that can help achieve this, though nothing comes close to the abacus in terms of simplicity.

Abacus is a simple tool that was developed in ancient China to help traders and pretty much anyone else who had to perform a lot of calculations.

Abacus is still in prominent use in the Japanese school system and is widely used and taught across the world.

But in the age of computers, apps and calculators why is such an old and archaic device being used?

The reason is that it provides more value than is visible at the first glance.

In the long run, regular users of the abacus show improved visualization, clear logical understanding, and more.

Abacus can help in doing basic arithmetic calculations faster.

The use of beads provides the fingers something real to hold and count which means the user gets a real sense of calculating, as opposed to writing on paper or doing it on a phone app where no such haptic feedback can be felt.

1-3. The Deep Secrets of Mental Math Online Schools and Can You Learn Abacus Online?

After we discussed the importance of mental maths and how the abacus can help students learn mental maths, we must ask ourselves what the best way to learn the abacus would be for you.

The two most popular ways people are learning abacus today are offline and online modes.

The more preferred method for most people is learning it online.

Learning abacus online has multiple benefits some of which we shall discuss here:

1. Time flexibility: Most courses online are not time-dependent which means the students can learn whenever they have time out of their schedule.

It could be a public holiday or a Sunday, the classes are always available.

2. Ability to enroll in multiple classes and courses: As wide applications as abacus has, there are a variety of courses available online.

Once the learners get a taste of the abacus, most of them prefer to learn different techniques.

For this enrollment in multiple courses is required.

This is not possible for most people in real life as it requires devoting a significant amount of time each day.

On an online platform, however, the video content and the exercises are always available.

3. Abacus games: Abacus games are hugely popular.

They range from finding the unknown numbers to making designs from abacus beads.

They are available for many different age groups and make the learning process easy and fun, such games are again not possible in the offline mode.

Learning abacus with the ISHIDO-SHIKI is possible and is even the preferred platform for many.

Note that a virtual abacus is not a replacement for a real device.

Therefore, it is strongly recommended that a real abacus is purchased and practiced along with Online Soroban’s flash anzan classes.

Overall  
Mental maths is a powerful tool that can help boost the scores not only in math papers but also in reasoning exams and tests, this is because learners of mental maths learn to see patterns in objects - an ability that improves reasoning power.

We saw that starting to learn mental maths is best done in the younger age groups as the younger learners have much higher neuroplasticity and can learn much faster.

Abacus can help learn mental maths with less effort and make the learning process fun and entertaining.