What's the point of primary school students learning abacus now?

Abacus is a simple calculation tool invented by our ancestors. It originated in the Eastern Han Dynasty and was shaped in the Northern Song Dynasty. In a long historical period, it is a convenient, fast and accurate important calculation tool widely used in people's daily life. People often compare the abacus with four great inventions of ancient china and call it the fifth great invention. There is an abacus in Zhao Taicheng's medicine cabinet in the famous painting "The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival" in the Northern Song Dynasty. UNESCO lists abacus as the intangible cultural heritage of mankind.

The abacus is divided into upper and lower gears. The number of lower gears is one, two, two, and the number of upper gears is one equals five (in the past, China was hexadecimal, so there were two upper gears). This design is not only convenient for calculation, but also in line with people's cognitive process of logarithm from concrete to abstract; When the next five beads and the last one are full, we will take a step forward and divide one into ten, thus turning abstract numbers into visible concrete images for people to see at a glance.

So in my opinion, the intuitive "five liters and ten decimals" of abacus calculation is not only a calculation tool, but also an enlightenment tool for children's arithmetic. Seeing, touching and counting, the abstract "number" and "value" are vividly placed in front of people. Therefore, at present, the abacus model is still an important mathematics teaching aid in the teaching of lower grades.

Therefore, it is very beneficial for young children and children in the first grade to learn abacus. It can not only help children to "count" and "count", but also help children abstract numbers from objects in abacus calculation, truly grasp the concept of "number", visualize abstract calculation, let children gradually form a solid arithmetic algorithm in their minds, truly grasp the ins and outs of "calculation", and help children understand the true meaning of strengthening "calculation"

In addition, abacus calculation is a kind of calculation that integrates eyes, hands, mouth and brain, that is, this calculation is not only concrete in image, but also requires the coordination of the whole body and mind. Research shows that physical activity memory can not only strengthen the firmness of memory, but also effectively stimulate the excitement of brain cells, which is an important way and method for children's intellectual development. At the same time, because of the controllability of abacus, it can help children develop intentional attention and strengthen goal concentration!

Of course, what needs to be explained here is to distinguish between traditional abacus and the popular abacus mental arithmetic. At present, abacus mental arithmetic is popular in many places, but the purpose of its training is to break away from children's cognitive and abstract actual level, blindly calculate for the sake of calculation, separate numbers from objects, and let children regard numbers as a plaything for independent calculation, while ignoring the meaning of numbers themselves, which actually deviates from the original meaning of mathematics and is easier to kill children's imagination. What's more, many children remember many quick calculation methods and skills of abacus mental arithmetic, but they don't understand the reasoning behind them, which is not good for their future math study!

Therefore, I would like to remind parents and friends here that it is very good for children to learn abacus, but they should be careful when learning abacus mental arithmetic!