Mental arithmetic is a unique methodology of developing intellectual abilities of children at the age from 4 to 16, based on the system of oral counting. Being trained by this methodology a child can work arithmetical problems for several seconds (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, square rooting) in mind faster than by means of a calculator.

What is the difference of our methodology of teaching mental arithmetic from other methodologies?

1. Presence of study guides for instructors, containing plans described in detail for each lesson.

2. Every lesson children learn a new subject, therefore being of children with different levels of knowledge and mental arithmetic technics in one group is excluded.

3. Every subject is explained in 6 stages, and from the 3-rd level – in seven stages. All information perception channels of a child are trained. It means only one new subject is worked over for 45 minutes. Only after being convinced that every child 100% understood and trained a new material, he is given a home assignment in order to reinforce acquired knowledge and skills at home.  

4. The methodology is described in detail and in-depth. When working on a new subject, the material for repetition and reinforcing previously learnt subjects is included necessarily, thereby solid knowledge and skills are acquired. Therefore addition of new students to a group at any stage of learning and with any level of knowledge is excluded.

5. Thoroughly and in-detail developed books for study. Not less than 8 pages are provided for each new subject. Each page contains 4 lines, with 10 examples. This is 2-3 times more than usually proposed by other schools.

6. Taking into account our mentality, children start counting mentally already from the third lesson in our schools. A soon as a child trained acquired skills on abacus, he is proposed to do it mentally, using imagination, at first on easy examples without formulas, then gradually counting is becoming complicated. It strongly motivates children to study; since from the first steps in learning mental arithmetic they see results, well learnt material and trained skills make this process not complicated to the maximum. They try, they manage and children acquire sense of self confidence, in their abilities and knowledge. According to other methodologies, as a rule, all formulas are learnt on abacus at first for a year, and only after a year they start trying to calculate mentally.

7. A unique educational online portal created specifically for the ISMA methodology. Children train at the portal every day. The work of the portal is set up in such a way that an instructor controls how regular and correct home assignments are fulfilled, monitors statistics and analyzes child development. If a child does not train at the portal, it is seen at once, his rating falls down. This is a powerful self-control instrument and motivation for a child, control not only by the instructor, but also by parents, who may at any time, enter the portal and trace the dynamics of child development. Apart from arithmetical problems, there are also tasks for development of logics, attention, and photographic memory at the portal. These trainings are very important for skill training and reinforcing.

8. Children in parallel work problems with formulas for addition and subtraction. Usual foreign methodologies offer mainly problems for addition. They learn subtraction in separate formulas. The ISMA methodology also teaches children to count negative numbers, decimal fractions, square root, cube root, per cents. Keep counts in monetary terms, in terms of mass and other measures.  

9. Uniqueness of the methodology is that it is our Kazakhstan product, which is successfully working for 4 years not only on the market of Kazakhstan, but also in countries of near and far abroad. Besides the methodology is constantly improved and developed – this is its advantage before those acquired abroad, since legislatively it is impossible to make changes, improvements to a template of an acquired alien methodology, even if it does not suit out mentality. This is a very important aspect. Even on a small example: in many methodologies the number 5 250 is written like 5,250. Schools in this case cannot deviate from regulations of the acquired methodology. In our educational system comma after number five means that further hundredths go. And the number is read like five point two hundred fiftieth. Children experience some kind of a conflict of number perception, since school requires one system, and there is another system in the mental arithmetic school. Hence, discontent and negativity appear in school teachers regarding mental arithmetic.

Training of mental arithmetic by the ISMA methodology takes into account school requirements, peculiarities of mentality and psychology of our children, thus enables to achieve excellent results not only in training of mental arithmetic, but significantly increasing general academic progress at school.

Besides knowledge and skills of children, being trained mental arithmetic by the ISMA methodology, conform to the requirements of largest world associations on mental arithmetic. The number of rows is increased in our methodology; improvements are made in accordance with international requirements. This enables our children to participate at world Olympiads brilliantly.