For solving a partial different equation by a numerical method, a possible alternative may be either to use a mesh method or a meshless method. A flexible computational procedure for solving 1D linear elastic beam problems is presented that currently uses two forms of approximation function (moving least squares and kernel approximation functions) and two types of formulations, namely the weak form and collocation technique, respectively, to reproduce Element Free Galerkin (EFG) and Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) meshless methods. The numerical implementation for beam problems of these two formulations is discussed and numerical tests are presented to illustrate the difference between the formulations.