Number bond

In mathematics education at primary school level, a number bond (sometimes alternatively called an addition fact) is a simple addition sum which has become so familiar that a child can recognise it and complete it almost instantly, with recall as automatic as that of an entry from a multiplication table in multiplication.

For example,

$5 + 2 = 7\;$

A child who "knows" this number bond should be able to immediately fill in any one of these three numbers if it was missing, given the other two, without having to "work it out".

Having acquired some familiar number bonds, children should also soon learn how to use them to develop strategies to complete more complicated sums, for example by navigating from a new sum to an adjacent number bond they know, i.e. 5 + 2 and 4 + 3 are both number bonds that make 7; or by strategies like "making ten", for example recognising that 7 + 6 = 7 + (3 + 3) = (7 + 3) + 3 = 13.

History

The term "number bond" is sometimes derided^{[by whom?]} as a piece of unnecessary new mathematical jargon, adding an element of pointless abstraction or incomprehensibility for those not familiar with it (such as children's parents) to a subject even as simple as primary school addition.^[1] In fact the term has been used at least since the 1960s,^[2] and had formally entered the primary curriculum in Singapore by the early 1970s.^[3]

In the U.K. the phrase came into widespread classroom use from the late 1990s when the National Numeracy Strategy brought in an emphasis on in-classroom discussion of strategies for developing mental arithmetic in its "numeracy hour".

See also

• Addition#Elementary methods and Addition#Decimal system

References

1. ^ e.g. Sarah Ebner, Can you help an eight-year-old with her maths homework?, Times Online, 12 March 2010
2. ^ Gordon Pemberton and A. Haigh (1963), Number bond workbooks, books 1–4, Glasgow: Blackie, 1963
3. ^ Peng Yee Lee (2008), Sixty years of Mathematics syllabi and textbooks in Singapore, in Zalman Usiskin, Edwin Willmore (eds), Mathematics curriculum in Pacific rim countries—China, Japan, Korea, and Singapore: proceedings of a conference, Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, p.89 ISBN 1593119534

External links

• Number bonds: beginning addition
• Number Bond machine - online number bond practice applet, Ambleside C.E. Primary School
• Let's play math: Number bonds