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LAND OF THE RISING SUMS

Alex Bellos visits Japan, on a quest to discover why Asian cultures seem so much better at maths and numbers than many western countries. He looks at the cultural difference in the Japanese approach to numbers and asks whether there is something fundamental in Japanese culture that keeps them at the upper end of international numeracy league tables. Alex explores the language used to describe numbers themselves, the songs taught in schools to teach children their times tables, and the passion the Japanese still show for the ancient but foolproof abacus, even in the computer age. He visits the national abacus competition in Kyoto to see the incredible mathematical feats achieved by children as young as 5 and discovers why abacus users actually use a different part of the brain to most people doing mathematical problems, and whether this could be the key to their superior number skills…

Japan: Schools 'reintroduce abacus in lessons'

Some teachers have been reintroducing a version of the traditional counting tool - the soroban - to help young people think through problems, convert measurements or solve written puzzles, reports Kyodo news agency. But it seems that in today's high-tech society, pupils are as likely to use a scaled-down version presented on a computer screen as the traditional soroban, which has been around for 400 years. It encourages pupils to use ears, eyes and fingertips, as well as their brains, for everyday calculations, one Tokyo teacher told the agency…..

I learned how to do math with the ancient abacus — and it changed my life

Researchers from Harvard to China have studied the device, showing that abacus students often learn more than students who use more modern approaches….

Abacus adds up to number joy in Japan

From looking at the children doing their sums, I saw that the abacus also makes intuitive sense. When you add and multiply using a pen and paper, you always start with the units and then work backwards to the tens, hundreds and so on. With the abacus, on the other hand, you start with the leftmost digit of a number, the highest value column, as seen in the clip above, and gradually work your way to the units.

In this way the abacus user begins with an intuitive understanding of the size of the number – something which you do not get when calculating the way we learn at school……

Enhanced white matter tracts integrity in children with abacus training.

our findings suggested that long-term AMC training from an early age may improve the memory capacity and enhance the integrity in white matter tracts related to motor and visuospatial processes……

Mitsuyo Tamai lists advantages that a student can have if schools use information communication technology methods of teaching

Soroban Abacus: It employs level progression curriculum, allowing children to proceed with their study depending upon their level of understanding. Through the incorporation of Abacus, children will get to develop the ability to visualize solutions, providing a heightened level of understanding….