I agree with what other posters have said and I get that kids need to learn the reason why, but I also understand Eibbed's frustration.
Our DD7 who has been adding/subtracting in her head for quite some time now just mentioned yesterday to me that she knows she could do more problems on her timed addition/subtraction test, but the teacher wants her to do some sort of dot counting to get the answer. DD showed me how she counts points on the numbers to get the answer. I asked DD if she knows 5+5=10 then why can't she just put down the answer and go on. The response I got was something like "Mommmmmm, that isn't how I'm supposed to do it".
