I completely agree with checking your answers! DS and I had a talk about why that was important the other night. He would get a problem wrong and be sooo upset, he couldn't understand how it was possible. I'd ask him if he checked his answer and he would say no. We go back and check the answers and then he could see where missed something, usually because he wouldn't show his work in the first place. Oh well, he'll learn eventually.
The counting on his fingers thing though actually seemed like it was creating a barrier to him answering, and understanding, some problems. He'd want to count on his fingers from 30 to 50 instead of using the skill, idea, that 20 is two 10s.
The school has told me many times that they don't care if a kid knows something, the want them to "understand" it. I'm actually not positive that they wouldn't make him go back and count on his fingers to prove that 12+5=17.
I hope you are right. I'm just finding it very frustrating right now. This might just be that it is coming on top of everything else I'm dealing with school about and I'm making too much of it.
