Little tricks that Help

Reading over the passage for me is almost nostalgic. I know that sounds awfully weird but it is. The tricks described for all of the adding, subtracting and basic multiplication were the trick that my dad taught me in middle school when I was have tremendous trouble with math. Over the years some problems I get right away now because we have done them so many times but even for the addition problems I still revert back. It is such a simple trick to break down the problems so that they are in a way more manageable, that I do not understand why teacher do not teach their students this method to begin with.