& You Thought You Knew How To Add & Subtract..

Kids these days aren't being taught the same way as you and i were taught.  I was taught start with the numbers on the right when you add, carry the first digit if there was one, leave the other number below, and add the next column so on and so forth. 
  10
+11
  21


Now, kids are learning more efficient ways of adding. It might mix kids up to add right to left and read left to right, and the reason for doing it that way, simply "because".


A way to teach kids to add is to start at the left, and work right. like this
                         3000
                   +   4999
                        7000
                          900
                            90
                               9
                        7999
So basically i started in the thousands place and did 3000+4000. Then wrote the answer in the first line. Then did the same thing with the hundreds, tens and ones. It makes more sense in kids minds to add left to right, and they can see why 3000+4999=7999.