Ravi is a teacher of Class 4 in a municipal school in Delhi. When the new school year started, he opened the textbook and started teaching the children how to write 4-digit numbers. After copying part of the text on the board, he gave them several simple exercises, and left the room.

Later, he was surprised to find that most of the children couldn't do the exercises. Why do you think such a situation arose?

What we have tried to say in this section is that when teaching a child a concept, it is important to identify the pre-requisites, and see if the child has attained them.

Let us now talk about some principles of teaching, specifically in the context of learning mathematics.

18 +5 =  41

Place the problems in a relevant context.