This unique program uses visualization of quantities, de-emphasizes counting, and provides strategies (visual pictures) for learning the facts. The primary learning tool is the AL Abacus, a specially designed two-sided abacus that is both kinesthetic and visual.

To appreciate visualization, try to imagine eight yellow boxes in a line without grouping them–virtually impossible. Next, imagine five of those boxes as blue and three as yellow.

Now you can see them. The children learn to use these mental models for mental arithmetic.

For young children, counting is inaccurate and inefficient, and it ignores place value. However, grouping quantities in fives and tens makes it possible to recognize quantities without counting and to see them mentally.

Understanding is stressed. Math needs to be taught so 95% is understood and only 5% memorized. When children understand, they will need to spend less time in review and practice. When children don’t understand, they memorize until the burden becomes too great and then give up. Rote memorization is high maintenance; it requires constant review.  Those merely memorizing math usually can’t apply it and generally dislike it.

Place value is introduced early.  The Place Value Cards help children understand how to construct numbers and to read them in the normal order from left to right. To understand the pattern that ten 1s is 10, ten 10s is 100, and ten 100s is 1000, the child must work with 4-digit numbers. Stopping at 99, as does traditional math, prevents children from seeing the pattern.

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