Parents go back to school to be able to help kids with math homework

[Cardinal_Fang]

“We want to develop flexible thinking, so if they hit a roadblock, they have multiple places they can go,” Polly Gillie, principal of Dunn’s Corners Elementary School told the AP. “It all comes back to real-world application and mental math.”

Excellent! That’s the math intuition we should try to develop in students.

The linked story talks about ‘the new vocabulary of math, including “doubles,” “count on,” and “bridge to 10.”’ I didn’t know what those were. Here’s an expanded version of the linked story, that includes definitions of those terms:
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/05d35d51bec644d9b178909c874bf5d4/help-homework-help-teaching-parents-common-core-math

In doubles, the student finds the closest double and works from there. So, 7+6 becomes 6+6=12+1=13.

In bridge to 10, students break one of the other numbers up to form a combination that makes 10. In 7+6, break up the 6 to make 3+3. Then, 7+3=10. 10+3=13.

In count on, the student finds the largest number and adds to it, one by one. In 7+6, the student might count on 7, 8, 9, and reach 10. Add the remaining 3 to get 13.

Nobody ever taught me any of those strategies, but I do “bridge to 10” (or 100, or 1000) all the time when I’m adding numbers in my head.