subtracting 2 digit numbers. It was really frustrating to her trying to draw all of the squares and try to pull out different intermediate numbers (like this picture that I posted) and she just wasn't getting it. Finally after a few days, my wife just said, "Do you want me to show you how I was taught to do it when I was a kid?" She said yes, so my wife showed her (using the carry digits, etc) and it just clicked with my daughter. Within about 5 minutes she burned through all of the 30-40 exercise problems without drawing or filling in any squares and got them all right.

This method might make sense to some people (like CrackerJack), but to me asking how to get 10 from adding 8+5 is nonsense. Requiring everybody to do it that way is what I disagree with, not that they are trying to teach a method.