All Kids Can Learn Arithmetic is a professional development program for elementary school teachers of mathematics. It is a math course in that it is based on — the arithmetic of work, business, and daily living. It is also a methods course on how to teach basic math because the strategies used to teach the keys to teachers are the very ones to use with children, virtually all children—those in need of remediation as well as those ready for enrichment and acceleration. It is thus a vital resource for parents, guardians, tutors—anyone helping children with their math—as well as elementary school aids and teachers.

The five keys were worked out years ago in answering the following question about a number fact like 5+8=13: , not just know that 13 is the right answer? How to teach the keys, though, is still in progress and properly varies from teacher to teacher and student to student to fit the teaching/learning styles of both. The question that guides the pedagogy for the keys is this: What is the most effective way to communicate to a child? The answer is to become one.

In All Kids Can Learn Arithmetic, the insistence is on students being smart, not teachers. Students don’t need convincing that teachers are smart. They know they are. Many, though, don’t know or believe that they, too, are smart.

Through questions, not answers, teachers guide students to come up with answers on their own. When students do this, they are the smart ones and it is their math. They “own” it and thus remember it better and make more use of it. When teachers give them the answers, they are the smart ones and it is their math. Counting cow legs at provides an example of teaching with questions instead of answers.

A Professional Growth Program for Elementary School Teachers of Mathematics

ALLKIDSARITHMETIC