This year's fourth grades will get their first abacus lessons next year, and then each class will be on track. Some students already are doing the calculation in their heads by visualizing the instrument and moving the beads to and fro in their imagination. Title I students, who are given special tutoring in difficult subjects like math and reading, are finding they can do calculations as quickly as the best math students - a great confidence builder, the teachers said. Richards, who was back in town Saturday for the tournament, said he has presented the abacus to thousands of teachers and students in his career. But seldom had he seen the tool adopted with as much enthusiasm and success as at Hellgate.
Kids can see it and move it and hear the beads - it's right there.
Calculators and computers do the most of the thinking for the -kids, and this doesn't. And I like the self-discipline of it. And I really liked Hellgate School. We are really trying to combine the old with new she said. By the way, the answer to the long division is 17,256.