6 min readUpdated 22 September 2026
An abacus is a counting frame: rows of beads on rods that you slide to represent numbers. It is thousands of years old, and it is still the fastest way ever found to teach a child how numbers are built — not just how to write them.
The version used in almost every abacus class today is the Japanese soroban: one bead above a horizontal beam and four beads below it on every rod. That is the abacus inside Abacus Kids, and it is the one this guide explains.
0
Tap the beads to try it
Prefer to watch? Episode 1 of our video series covers exactly this in four minutes.
The parts of the abacus
- Frame — the outer border that holds everything together.
- Rods (columns) — each rod holds one digit. The rightmost rod is the ones, the next is the tens, then hundreds, and so on. This is exactly how we write numbers, which is why the abacus and place value fit together so well.
- Beam (bar) — the horizontal divider. A bead only counts when it is pushed against the beam.
- Heaven bead — the single bead above the beam. It is worth 5.
- Earth beads — the four beads below the beam. Each is worth 1.
So on any rod, the most you can show is 5 + 4 = 9 — the biggest single digit. That is not a coincidence — it is the whole design.
How to read a rod
Look only at beads touching the beam:
- No beads touching → 0
- Two earth beads pushed up → 2
- Heaven bead pushed down → 5
- Heaven bead down and two earth beads up → 7
7
Tap the beads to try it
Children learn this in a few minutes. The pattern that takes a little longer — and matters far more — is that each rod is separate. A 7 on the ones rod and a 7 on the tens rod are different things, and the abacus makes that difference physical.
Reading a whole number
Read left to right, one digit per rod, exactly as you would read the number written down.
235
Tap the beads to try it
The blank rods to the left are zeros you don't need to write. A seven-rod abacus can therefore show any number up to 9,999,999, and a child who can read three rods can read all seven — nothing new is added.
Why an abacus, when we have calculators?
A calculator gives you the answer. An abacus gives you the structure of the answer. When a child adds 8 to 7 on an abacus, they physically see that the ones rod overflows and something has to move to the tens rod — that is carrying, made visible. Written arithmetic asks children to trust a rule. The abacus lets them watch the rule happen.
After enough practice the picture moves into the child's head. They stop touching beads and start imagining them — a skill called Anzan — and that is where the famous "faster than a calculator" speed comes from.
Soroban, suanpan and others
- Soroban (Japanese) — 1 heaven bead, 4 earth beads. Clean decimal design, and the standard for teaching children.
- Suanpan (Chinese) — 2 heaven beads, 5 earth beads. Older, and able to represent 15 on a rod, which was useful for older weight systems but is confusing for base-10 arithmetic.
- Schoty (Russian) — ten beads on horizontal wires, no beam. Works like counting on fingers.
Abacus Kids uses the soroban, in a 7-rod version for whole numbers and a 13-rod version that adds decimal places.
What comes next
Reading numbers is Level 1. Level 2 teaches adding and subtracting — first directly, then with the two rules that let you add any digit even when the beads run out: the Small Friend formulas (working with 5) and the Big Friend formulas (working with 10).
Try it on a real, touchable abacus
Level 1 of Abacus Kids is free: five short lessons that teach exactly what this guide covers, with practice and a quiz after each one.
