Developing fluency with addition and subtraction depends on a firm foundation. A firm foundation takes time to develop, so remember, slowly, slowly wins the race. Moving forward too quickly for some students leads to early failure and consequent risk-aversion and poor disposition towards mathematics. If we’re not careful, some students begin to believe that they don’t have a maths brain and so disengage. We can do better than this. We can prevent maths failure. Let’s go with early prevention rather than later intervention.