Supercharge Your Mental Maths!

Imagine you are at a market stall. You want to buy a juice for 8p and a snack for 6p. How much is that altogether? Could you work it out without writing anything down? Mental addition means adding numbers in your head, without a pencil or calculator. Lots of people find this tricky — but there are clever tricks that make it much easier. Today you will learn two of those tricks.

A strategy is a plan or method that helps you solve a problem. Instead of counting on your fingers every time, you can use strategies to add faster and more accurately. **Strategy 1: Make Ten** Ten is a friendly number to work with because our number system is built in groups of ten. When you add two numbers, look to see if you can borrow a little from one number to make the other one reach 10. For example: 8 + 6 — Ask: how much does 8 need to reach 10? It needs 2 more. — Take 2 from the 6. Now you have: 10 + 4. — 10 + 4 = 14. Done! You have split 6 into 2 + 4 to help you make a ten first. This is called partitioning — breaking a number into smaller parts. **Strategy 2: Near Doubles** A double means adding a number to itself. You probably know some doubles already: 6 + 6 = 12, 7 + 7 = 14. These are easy to remember! When two numbers are close to each other (differing by just 1 or 2), you can use a double you already know and then adjust. For example: 7 + 8 — Notice that 7 + 7 = 14 (a double you know). — 8 is one more than 7, so the answer is one more than 14. — 7 + 8 = 15. You adjusted the double by 1 to get the real answer. This is the near doubles strategy. Both strategies save time because you are building on facts you already know instead of counting from scratch every time.