I have been researching Soroban and Anzan mental math and I have to say that I am very impressed by the lightning speed they achieve in coming up with answers to complicated math problems. I found a local Soroban school run by a lady who learnt and taught Soroban in Japan back in the day when it was the norm for all children to learn soroban there. I attended their trial class with my 6 year old and came away even more impressed. Kindergarteners were doing mental math involving 3 digit numbers effortlessly and middle schoolers were mentally calculating square roots of 6 digit numbers. I am also impressed that the Anzan method uses visualization of the state of the abacus to perform math operations thereby using the whole brain for doing math.
Does anyone here use this method to teach their kids mental math? Any experiences to share?
