For decades, sceptics have dismissed mental arithmetic training – and abacus-based methods in particular – as a relic of pre-calculator education, useful perhaps for novelty but hardly worth serious scientific attention. Peer-reviewed literature tells a very different story. Over the past 30 years, a substantial and growing body of research has examined what actually happens inside the brain when a trained human mental calculator works, and the findings are, to put it plainly, remarkable. The...

One of the most common questions parents ask with regards to their children being trained in abacus and mental arithmetic is this: "Is my child doing well?"  The fact is that progress in abacus and mental arithmetic is not always visible in a test/exam marks or a competition trophy. It is more subtle than that, and far more meaningful. The following paragraphs depict what progress looks like at each stage of your child's development, and what obvious and subtle indicators – both obvious and...

In a world increasingly driven by calculators and digital tools, it may seem unusual to advocate for an ancient counting device. Yet the humble abacus – used for thousands of years across Asia and the Middle East – is staging a remarkable comeback in classrooms and enrichment centres worldwide, and for very good reason. As your child steps into Primary 1 and begins his/her formal mathematics journey, the foundations laid in these early years will shape his/her relationship with numbers for...