Math and Candy

Since Noah started school I have eased up on drilling him on various addition and subtraction problems. First of all I noticed that he was really just memorizing stuff but didn't really understand what it meant. Like 9+9=18 but then 8+9 he has no clue, even though it's the same as 18-1 right? or 18-1 he would just flip out and yell at me. So what's the point? I was talking to Grace about this and then I brought him over to use some shapes from a puzzle as a tool "Each side has a candy on it," I said, "so how many candies are there?"

This with one square then two and three and four and then with triangles. At first he was counting but then, when faced with the idea of candy, abstractly not even getting real candy but just talking about it, I saw him reach back in there and pull out those times tables. Grace started laughing.

I recalled that our little drills on the train, back when Noah was going to acorn, would also go better when I phrased it in terms of apples, pretzels, or twizzlers that we were dividing or subtracting (eating) or adding or multiplying or whatever. He couldn't get something as an equation but could easily do it as a word problem. This was weird to me because I specifically remember being taught in school how to pull out the equation from a word problem, because the words were somehow supposed to have made it harder. It wasn't just me, it was the class that was being taught this.
But for Noah the equation is difficult and the word problem is easier. Maybe it's more difficult when you have to read the words instead of someone talking to you conversationally.