DS5 has been doing addition and subtraction for a while now 1 1/2+. Before he started K he could tell you what 10-7 was immediately. Lately I've been noticing that he will no longer just give an answer but must count everything on his fingers. I've been becoming increasingly frustrated because I know he knows this. I've recently, can't believe it took me this long, realized why he is doing this. In math class they have them count everything on their fingers! They add with their fingers, they subtract with their fingers, they check their answers on their fingers!
I think the school sees it as going "deeper". This lets the kids see the math and manipulate it, at least this is what I am assuming. I can see where they are coming from with kids just learning the concept of addition and subtraction but DS is way past that. How do I stop this? how do I let him know that it is OK to just know the answer? Explain to him that knowing the answer will actually help him do the type of problems that he wants to do? To me it feels like he is going backwards and this is a very bad habit to get into.
