Subtracting Single Digits: 12 - 5

Arithmetic · Axiom Academy

EXAMPLE Subtracting Single Digits: 12 − 5 A step-by-step walkthrough of taking 5 away from 12. We start with 12 and need to take away 5 . Work through it one step at a time: Nice work — you took 5 away from 12 and landed on 7, then confirmed it two different ways. Count back: subtracting 5 means stepping back five places — . Take away: remove 5 of the 12 counters and 7 are left. Check with addition: subtraction undoes addition, so 7 + 5 = 12 confirms 12 - 5 = 7 . Try the same method yourself: for 11 - 4 , count back four from 11 — 10, 9, 8, 7 — so 11 - 4 = 7 . The counting-back and addition-check ideas work for every single-digit subtraction.

This is the written version of the interactive lesson above. See the full Arithmetic course.