Personal Trainer: Math

INTRODUCTION: Personal Trainer: Math uses a number of activities to keep you coming back every day for consistent and effective math training. Fun daily exercises get your brain churning through simple math problems presented in quick succession. Personal Trainer: Math automatically keeps track of your completion time for each exercise, monitors your daily progress, and gives you new activities when you're ready to advance. Whether you want to get your child excited about his/her math class or keep your own skills sharp, it's easy and enjoyable thanks to the stylus-led controls of the Nintendo DS.

DAILY TESTING: Daily Testing gives you a test made up of three exercises that match your level of study. You can only complete the test once per day. If you take the test every day and get a good score, you will be able to move up to the next level after a few days. If you seem to require a little more practice, then you will be presented with the same exercises the next day (although the questions will be different). There are 20 levels of study in all.

• Level 1 - Level 6: Starting with Flash Cards to learn number recognition, you will practice everything from addition problems without carrying and subtraction problems without borrowing, to 50-Cell Addition and 100-Cell Addition and Subtraction. At this stage, you'll mainly focus on the fundamentals of addition and subtraction.
• Level 7 - Level 14: At this level, you'll begin by memorizing multiplication tables. You will then polish those skills through the Flash Multiplication exercise and the 50-Cell and 100-Cell Multiplication exercises. After those come the more difficult Ladder Addition and Ladder Subtraction activities.
• Level 15 - Level 20: After reviewing your multiplication tables (which are fundamental for division) through the Missing Number Multiplication exercise, you'll practice Type A, B, and C division problems in that order. After finishing more difficult multiplication problems and Fill the Blanks exercises, all that’s left to clear are the Ladder Addition 3, Ladder Subtraction 3, and Division Marathon Type C exercises. Once you complete Level 19, you will be ranked Master! Repeat all of the activities to record your best possible time!

KAGEYAMA METHOD: "Study alone" if you want to tackle the 100-Cell Math and Division Marathon exercises by yourself. "Study together" if you want to practice with up to 15 of your friends, family, or classmates, choose this multiplayer mode!

100-Cell Math: The 100-Cell Math approach is a technique used to help students learn fundamental arithmetic. It involves adding, subtracting, or multiplying numbers along the sides and top of a 10x10 grid and writing their answers in corresponding boxes with the Nintendo DS stylus. Start with only 10 cells, and gradually move up to 30, 50, and all 100 cells. In Personal Trainer: Math, this is just one fun and fast-paced lesson to tackle when you select Kageyama Method on the main menu.

Division Marathon: This exercise challenges you with a series of division problems presented one after the other. Write the answer to each problem on the touch screen, and if your answer is correct, you'll move on to the next one. Choose Type A, B, or C for Easy, Normal, or Hard problems respectively. The Easy division problems have no remainder, while Normal problems have a reminder but don't require borrowing to work out the remainder. In Hard mode, the division problems will require borrowing numbers to work out the remainder. The problems may seem easy, but try to finish 30 division problems in under 48 seconds and see how you do – and that's just an Easy exercise!

Meet Professor Kageyama: Hideo Kageyama is a real-life Professor at the Center for Research and Educational Development in Higher Education at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan. He is also the deputy headmaster of Ritsumeikan Primary School and a member of the Central Education Council of the Japanese Ministry of Education.

I was wracking my brains over how to get people to practice the 100-Cell Math method in an easy-to-use and effective way when I discovered the Nintendo DS™. Immediately, I knew that this was what I was looking for. It offered the possibility of self-assessment, saving and displaying one’s records, setting puzzle difficulties, and providing the fun that would motivate users to keep coming back. -Hideo Kageyama