3-Digit Numbers in Columns: Add and Subtract

Three columns now — hundreds, tens and ones — and the six problems on this Grade 2 page mix addition with subtraction, so the sign has to be read before anything else happens: 342 + 215 sits beside 687 − 143. There is no carrying and no borrowing anywhere on the page. The child checks the sign, starts at the ones, and works leftward through all three places, one digit per box.

Mixing the two operations changes what the page is really testing. On a sheet of pure additions the sign becomes wallpaper and children stop looking at it; here the very first move is a decision, and the classic error is a subtraction carried out as an addition simply because the previous problem was one. Pausing to read the sign aloud before the pencil moves is a habit worth a fortnight of nagging. It is also the habit that makes mixed test papers survivable in the years ahead.

The worksheet prints free as a PDF and makes a solid mid-week check, since it takes only a few minutes to mark. Two-digit column addition and two-digit column subtraction are the narrower pages behind it, three-digit column addition keeps the width without the switching, and the column method review is the fuller mixed set to reach for once three digits stop feeling new.