A HEAD FOR NUMBERS
Eleven-year-old mental math maven cranks out computations with ease
Param Vyas, 11, a Grade 6 student at Richard Secord School, is a national champion in abacus and mental arithmetic. He can do the kind of sums in his head that send most people scrambling to find a calculator.
In 23 seconds, Megha Jani rattles off 10 three-digit numbers for her son to add and subtract: “849 minus 437 plus 172 ...”
Param Vyas, her 11-year-old, watches her intently before answering, without hesitation, “3,273.”
He’s right, of course.
After more than three years of ritual practice, the sixth-grade mental math maven was provincial and national champion in his class last year, and came third in a December international competition.
At those contests, thousands of children age four to 13 line up in a gym full of tables. A person with a timer stands at the front of the room while the kids are challenged to rapidly crank out computations.
They do the number crunching with the aid of an ancient tool: the abacus. The lattice of beads on rods dates back to pre-Christian Greece and served as a way for people to keep track of numbers as they did calculations in their heads.
Each row of beads represents a decimal place and helps the user tally ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, tenths, hundredths, and so on.
Param, who spends up to an hour a day practising mental math, doesn’t use his plastic abacus much anymore — he visualizes his fingers moving the beads up and down rods in his mind while mentally mashing digits.
He can add and subtract a long series of three- and four-digit numbers, multiply and divide multi-digit numbers, and compute squares and percentages.
I’m faster than everyone else at those questions. Everyone else writes it down and it takes forever, and I just quickly give the answer before anyone else ...
The Richard Secord Elementary School student trains using the UCMAS abacus and mental math program, which involves looking at lists of numbers and operations, practising flash card-like exercises on the computer, and having his mom read numerals and manipulatives aloud.
“I focus better,” Param said of the secret to his excellent school work.
“I’m faster than everyone else at those questions. Everyone else writes it down and it takes forever, and I just quickly give the answer before anyone else has time to.”
And the mental math portion of his upcoming Grade 6 provincial achievement test? Pssh.
“I’m ready for it.” Although he thinks the math is fun, Param acknowledges his competitive streak is part of what drives him to hone those his skills. His mom says it isn’t hard to prompt him to practise.
Jani, who has long loved numbers, said children shouldn’t need calculators or paper and pencil to do basic mathematical operations.
In addition to mental calculation skills, she said the program helps improve her son’s focus, concentration, memory, and multi-tasking ability.
Some other children in Richard Secord’s Cogito program also use the UCMAS program.
Cogito, which Edmonton Public Schools offers at 10 elementary and five junior high schools, is a traditional academic program with highly structured classes that focus on memorization and recitation.
Param doesn’t quite yet know how he’d like to put his number sense to use in the future. He’s interested in becoming a pilot, or perhaps a neuroscientist.