Teaching Math

Okay....so in teaching Isaac math...I've tried to do the Coming to Know Number way (a book I got in college)...getting him to see numbers as groups and stuff. Like automatically recognizing at 6 by seeing two groups of 3, and thereby learning 3+3, or 2+2=4 so 2+3 is one more, so it must be 5. I do all those "cute" inventive ways to get them to not rely on just counting/counting on. Sometimes it works, but sometimes Isaac naturally returns to counting on. I can't help but think here that the people that wrote that book obviously have not worked with kids. lol...Memorization is detrimental they cry! I understand their point. Some kids never really learn how to work with numbers and always rely on memorizing or algorithims. Isaac really seems to prefer just counting/counting on or memorizing flash cards. It is fun to him. I guess as long as you introduce different ways of thinking of numbers, its just fine and dandy if they take to memorization first rather than seeing groups or grouping numbers. I mean, it worked for me, so....and I still learned other ways of looking at things as I got older. So that is my conclusion. Developmentally, some kids aren't ready to learn the way this book suggests (although they claim they are!). Some kids don't conserve yet, duh! Introduce a variety of ways to solve or think of numbers and let them choose what works for them at their developmental stage.