Soroban Abacus Books Free Download [NEW]
Cuauhtleco Scoobz
I'm interested in learning soroban as a hobby. Are there websites or books that you can use that offer a progressive series of exercises that you can do daily to build up this skill in a self-taught manner? Thank you
Tochio's Computation on the Soroban by Tochio Kintaro
Scarce and comprehensive guide to the Japanese abacus (soroban) which a skilled operator can use to calculate faster than the time it takes to enter numbers into an electronic calculator. Inscribed by Tochio to Dr. C[harles] W[illiam] Eliot, who was president of Harvard University for 40 years from 1869-1909.
I always meant to teach my son Soroban, Anzan (mental abacus) and Vedic math. I am planning to start this winter (with my 6 year old son) and am looking for resources to use for these topics. I am thinking of doing them as "fun" topics together and hope to learn these with my child. Anyone who has BTDT and can point me to the right resources? I have found some videos online, but a textbook or a curriculum might be more helpful to teach in a systematic manner. Thanks for your help!
I am currently teaching my dd (nearly 4) Soroban primarily at home. We really love it. I had no previous experience and there was a bit of a learning curve, but there are lots of great resources out there to overcome that hump. I have acquired a ridiculous number of books, software, DVDs, YouTube videos, and even some great apps for IPad. I am on my phone at the moment, but would be more than happy to share links to some of he better resources. In the meantime, there is a thread in another forum where several members (including me) have listed just about every resource they have found, and which ones helped them
Currently we are using the software from the school, which can be done at home and uploaded to the site so she gets feedback and competition if she wants. We also found a lovely college student at the Uni where my hubby teaches, an exchange student from Japan, that comes over as a mother's helper once per week. She also helps with any questions and works with my dd on the abacus.
Heathermomster, I am looking at Nurtureminds curriculum and also this free book: - you can click on the links to the left that will download free ebooks for each of the topics like addition and subtraction. I have seen previous posts from you in this forum on this topic. What curriculum have you used with your DD? Is she doing Anzan now?
My 5 yo DD could easily count to 9 and perform addition without a carry on the abacus. We worked on 5s and 10s complements (big and little friends) and then stopped. We use Essentials A/B and MUS, but have not performed any Anzan. I may pick things back up later, and DD is still young. She was just about ready to perform addition with the friends when we stopped..
Thank you, Heather. I also found a few soroban apps on the itunes store. I will download them to see how they work. My ultimate goal is to teach my son Anzan in a year. I am frustrated to see how slow he is when doing complicated math.
The soroban is different from the standard abacus. The calculation methodology is also different. Soroban has dots marking every alternate rod that can be used for the units place of a number while calculating using both round and decimal numbers.
The whole point of learning to use the Soroban is to quickly migrate to using Anzan in all calculations - Anzan is the mental abacus method of calculation - in Anzan, you visualize the pictorial representation of the state of the Soroban for each step of your calculation and you use your finger movements in the air to aid you in the visualization. After you learn Anzan for your current level, you may use the Soroban for more complicated operations while your Anzan skills catch up to your higher level Soroban skills. In the end, when you achieve mastery (there are several levels of mastery), you will be able to do complex problems like 5521.734 x 0.8197 = 4526.165 (I pulled this out of a real soroban mental test) in your mind and quickly enough to come through with flying colors in timed test situations. Look up some of the youtube videos of soroban competitions - they sure blew my mind away and got me to think about mental math completely differently. I now kick myself for being ignorant of this great and ancient method of doing mental math for so long.
An added advantage of Soroban is that when the child uses mental pictures of the abacus to tie them with computations of numbers, both the left side and right side of the brain are used and a strong connection is formed between both sides of the brain. This has been thought to be somewhat similar to a child learning chess - when they visualize 3 or more chess moves in advance of their opponent, they are using their left and right part of the brain together.
As I teach my DD, I want her to understand math conceptually, develop a solid numbers sense, and accurately perform all aspects of arithmetic Adding or subtracting at supersonic speeds does not really matter to me. I see the abacus as a useful tool, I just don't know how to effectively apply its use in my DD's overall math education. Btw, she knows her math facts to 10 already, without drilling or abacus.
I believe that Japanese schools dropped Soroban for a while in favor of computers and calculators and that now, they are going back to their old roots and reintroducing soroban in their curriculum. There are a lot of Asian countries and some European countries where the soroban method has caught on and they are adopting it for their elementary grades.
FYI: There are a ton of threads on the soroban for very young kids on the Brillkids forum that Kerileanne referred to upthread. There are plenty of people there who use soroban for teaching their preschoolers math. They also have a lot of experiences to share and resources for parents.
Followup after my son started soroban classes: they start from the very basics. The curriculum is one that they have developed inhouse. But, even prek kids can start on soroban (there were a few enrolled and doing well). My son started with addition and subtraction of numbers below 5. The problems were simple: 1+2-1-2, 1+3-2-1 etc. The key was to do these operations using the soroban beads and not to use "conventional" math methods to arrive at the answer. The next level is to move to numbers using a single 5 bead: 1+2-3+5, 2+5-1-5 etc. And then it moves on to addition and subtraction using 6, 7, 8, 9 in his current book.
This program is to be considered an "add on" to any math "spine". It can not replace the Singapore Math program that my son is doing in terms of learning math concepts. And I prefer to teach math concepts and solidify them in my child's mind using a conventional math program and then letting him practice the already learnt concepts on the soroban.
The key to mastery of soroban/anzan is verbal practice every day for 5-10 minutes - the parent reads out problems from a sheet of paper and the child uses the soroban to figure the solution. This is similar to regular musical instrument practice - very essential to develop the muscle memory and fluency and you need to make the time commitment to get better at this skill.
This is a Workbook. It contains only practice work for children/adults who are trying to learn soroban. Instructions on how to use this workbook, how to learn soroban, and how to teach children soroban are all covered in the Instruction book which is sold seperately under the title: Abacus Mind Math Instruction Book Level 1: Step by Step Guide to Excel at Mind Math with Soroban, a Japanese Abacus.
Level 1 has three books; one Instruction book and two Workbooks. The Instruction book teaches adults how to use soroban, how to introduce soroban to children and how to use the workbooks. The Workbooks 1 and 2 must be completed by the children to fully complete their Level 1 training. These books can unfortunately not be sold in bundles due to certain rules and regulations.
Soroban, the Japanese abacus is a very useful visual tool that helps children 'see' numbers as beads while calculating. Soroban perfectly fits with the base 10 number system used at present and provides a systematic method (formulas) to follow while calculating both on the tool and in the mind. Mastering of this tool will enhance your child's basic math comprehension, speed and accuracy. In general, when children practice mind math, they get a very important sense of achievement that helps raise their confidence as students. You can also see an improvement in their concentration, tenacity, memory power and listening skills.
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