Addition Strategies
What Are Addition Strategies?
Addition strategies are little “tricks” that help kids add faster and with more confidence — but most importantly, they help kids truly understand how numbers work. Very often, a harder problem can be made simpler by using a task they already know.
For example:
A girl knows how to add 1. When asked to solve 1+8, she switched the numbers around: 8+1 is the same result and easier for her to do.
A boy knows that 7+7=14. That made him realize 6+8 had to be 14 too. As he put it, “one left one number and joined the other, but the total stayed the same.”
To add 6 and 8, a kid can “make a ten.” Take 2 from the 6 and give it to the 8. Now it’s 4+10, which is quick to solve.
Another way is to split 8 into 4 and 4. Do 6+4=10 first, then add the other 4 to get 14.
When your kid adds two numbers, don’t jump to the next one right away. Pause and ask, “Are you sure? How did you figure it out?” Let them talk through their steps. Then show how you’d do it. If you make this a habit, kids get better at explaining their strategies — and you’ll be surprised by how many different ways they come up with.
👉 Want to see this in action? Check out our short video on switching addends.
Why Does It Matter for Kids?
A hundred years ago, being quick with numbers was almost a survival skill. The world looks different now, but solid addition skills still matter. They help kids:
pause and think, “How do I know this?”
realize there’s often more than one road to the right answer,
check themselves (and explain what they did),
see how our base-ten system really works,
make quick guesses — like spotting whether numbers are close together on a number line.
Kids who know a few handy addition strategies (e.g., counting on from the larger number, breaking numbers to make ten, rounding one addend to 20 and adjusting) find it easier to understand how numbers work and relate to each other. Experts note that these strategies grow number sense and cognitive flexibility, which makes math easier to understand.
Learning part–whole relations helps these ideas stick: kids see multiple ways to decompose and recompose numbers, forming a base for later math.
Research shows that fluency in addition is closely linked to success in more advanced problem solving. Interventions that focus on addition strategies improve kids’ skills as early as ages 6–7.
Educators also point out that mastering addition strategies builds what’s called fact fluency — the ability to recall answers quickly and effortlessly. This really matters later: when kids face harder problems, like adding fractions, fact fluency frees their attention from basic steps so they can focus on the new material.
The teaching guide Addition Strategies Progression shows how step-by-step teaching — from hands-on work with objects to clear verbal explanations — helps kids move naturally to a new level of understanding and opens the door to more abstract thinking. When we teach preschoolers and early elementary students addition strategies, we’re giving them thinking tools they’ll use for life.
How Do We Teach?
Addition is about putting two groups of objects together and counting them one by one, from 1 to the total number of objects.
The first strategy most kids discover is counting on. That means we don’t recount the first addend, but start from it. For example, to solve 7+4, a kid can say “7,” then hold up 4 fingers and keep counting: 8, 9, 10, 11.
This strategy also works with bigger numbers, especially when crossing over into the next ten or hundred. For instance, to add 498 and 3, kids can raise 3 fingers and say: 499, 500, 501.
Of course, it’s not so handy to count on from the smaller number. That’s why kids discover the commutative property (switching addends): instead of adding 3 to 9, they add 9 and then count on 3.
Switching addends makes addition easier in many cases. You can break numbers apart and put them back together in a simpler way. For example, to add 97 and 4, it’s easier to first add 3 to make 100, and then add the leftover 1, which gives 101.
Another common strategy is breaking numbers into tens and ones. First add all the tens, then add the ones. If the ones make more than 10, kids regroup them into a new ten.
There’s also the compensation strategy. Instead of adding 99 and 6, imagine taking 1 away from 6 and giving it to 99. That turns the problem into 100+5=105 that’s much easier! It’s like moving a nut from one pocket to another: the total didn’t change, it just got easier to count.
These kinds of strategies make math feel logical and clear, give kids confidence in their answers, and grow their number sense. Written methods, like column addition, are best introduced once kids work with three-digit numbers and already understand how place value works.
First Steps
Learning to Break Numbers Apart and Add Up to Ten
By the age of 5–6, kids start to remember number bonds — for example, they know that you need to add 3 to 4 to make 7.
Quantities & addition
Add up within 10 (numbers only)
We spend a lot of time practicing the number bonds of 10 — like knowing that 10 can be made from 4 and 6. A helpful tool here is the ten frame, which shows 10 objects arranged in two rows of five.
As kids get more comfortable, they also learn another standard way of showing numbers: a full ten is pictured as a stick of 10 cubes, and the ones are shown as single cubes. At this stage, teachers often introduce the idea of moving ones from one addend to another in order to make a full 10.
Once kids clearly understand how to break any number into parts, they can use this skill to simplify addition. For example, they might split one number so it can “fill up” the other to 10. This makes it easier to move from one ten to the next and solve problems like 4 + 9 or 7 + 8
Make ten
Decompose 10 with ten frame (objects and numbers)
Addition strategies
Compensation strategy (up to 20)
Addition
Crossing ten
Addition
Crossing ten
Deep Understanding
Crossing Tens and Grouping Addends
By ages 6–7, kids start to enjoy grouping numbers that make a round sum — like 3 + 7 = 10 or 14 + 6 = 20 — and then adding whatever is left. This saves effort and helps them stay organized.
It’s the same strategy they use with money: first making whole tens, then adding the leftover ones.
Addition
Reorder addends
Crossing over a ten is always shown with hands-on materials: single cubes are packed into a new group of ten, and then kids just count what remains.
When adding a small one-digit number to a two-digit number that crosses into the next ten, kids often begin with counting on fingers. Later, they practice addition on a number line: first jumping to the nearest round number, then adding the rest.
Step by step, kids learn to break the one-digit number into parts in their head and use it flexibly — without relying on visual aids.
Addition
Crossing 10 (up to 20)
Addition strategies
Crossing tens (up to 100)
Addition
Counting up
Distance on the number line
Distance on the number line up to 100 (numbers only)
Confident Mastery
Moving Into the Next Hundred and Place Value Addition
Kids quickly learn to break one addend into parts that make it easier to cross into a new ten. For example, if they see 59 + something, they know it takes just 1 to reach the next round number, 60. So they can add 1 first, then add the rest.
Addition strategies
Crossing tens (up to 100)
As three-digit numbers appear, kids begin to practice place value addition — first adding the ones, then the tens, and finally the hundreds. At the start, this happens without regrouping. But when the ones add up to more than 9, they form a new ten. Sometimes this even means two regroupings: 10 ones make a ten, then 10 tens make a hundred. This lays the groundwork for an important school skill: column addition.
Big numbers
Regrouping
Big numbers
Regrouping
Big numbers
Expanded form
Big numbers
Column addition
Big Ideas
The strategies kids are learning now form the foundation for more advanced math later on:
Place value addition helps them understand how coordinates and vectors work in geometry. To add two vectors, you add the horizontal coordinates separately from the vertical ones.
Reordering and grouping numbers prepares them for working with algebraic expressions in middle school.
