Previously discussed how important it is to expose children to a variety of verbal problems involving the concept that they are trying to learn. Children attach meaning to the abstract operation of addition by solving a variety of such problems. When I ask my five-year-old neighbour how much 4 and 2 is, he makes all kinds of guesses. But, when I ask him to tell me how many 'chapatis' will be needed if his mother eats 4 and he eats 2, the answers that correctly. This is because he can relate to this contest.

Children should be exposed to verbal problems at an early stage, not after they have 'learnt their facts'. While you are interacting with a child, look for natural opportunities to ask the child a verbal problem about the concept you are helping her learn. For instance,

5-year-old Meeta is fond of playing with tennis balls. One day she had-two of them, and a friend brought over a container with three more balls. She, quite happily, proclaimed to all that she had 5 balls now! And then, a couple of days later we played a 'cricket match in which we used two owner tennis balls, which she wanted to keep also. So she said, "I circle have's0 many balls if1 take these also." And I asked, "How trrany?"

Ask them questions like 'If you add these marbles (pointing to one set) to these marbles (pointing to the other set), how many will you have altogether?'. This will help them lo improve their understanding of addition. Of course, while asking them such problems, we need to keep them simple, and to cover various situations that the children relate to.

Broadly, there are two models of verbal problems involving addition that children are exposed to, namely,

Aggregation - when they need to combine two or more quantities (like sets of objects, money, distance, volume, etc.) to obtain single quantity. (e.g., if Munni has 3 pencils and Munna has 2, how many pencils are there altogether?)

Augmentation -.where a quantity is to be increased (or augmented) by some amount, and the increased value has to be obtained. (e.g., to a crate containing 5 bottles, 4 more are added. HOW many bottles wit1 the crates now have?)

How would you familiarize children with these models? The following exercises may give you some ideas.