11 Plus Exams Forum

I have been doing a small amount of maths with my youngest in the holidays using a combination of methods and a Trinity School 11+ paper which he is tackling without much help although he only does a few questions a week. But I am rather worried about how poor he is at addition and subtraction. He has to work out what a single unit plus 2 equals and by the start of Year 6 he should just know the answer automatically. We played monopoly the other day with two die and he had to count each dice rather than say 5+4=9, for example. I would say his multiplication and division are slightl better but not by much and his concepts are far more secure than all the above mentioned.

So, I need some sort of teaching method that will ingrain basic addition and subtraction. Kumon is an obvious choice but it takes so long to even be put on the correct sections and he could be adding +1 for four months and at this late stage he needs a faster method but one that will stick. Any advice would be much appreciated, thank you!

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Hi - I'd go for games as he needs practice and a reason to do the question quickly! He does not need a 'method' although practising counting in different steps can be made into a game of table tennis maths - e.g. three, six, ..... with actions of course and noises if it engages him!

Another simple non-PC one is to have a pack of cards and two suits each (one of you has red, the other black).

Then you each turn over a card and the winner is the one to add them up correctly first - you can start by eliminating the picture cards (Jack + 11, Queen = 12, King = 13) if you prefer.

How about using Scofffield and Sims mental arithmetic worksheets?

You could start with basic ones but time him so he has to do it pretty fast then gradually move to harder ones.You could also do some of the exercises verbally with him in the beginning. If he is more tech you could try Mathletics as its more fun and the child doesnt feel they are doing a lot of work compared to giving them worksheets during summer break.

Keep playing plenty of board games, but use dice that have the numbers on not the dots. We have the rule 'if the dice are thrown too hard so they roll off the table, you miss your turn,' you could equally swap this for 'if the dice are added up incorrectly your miss your turn'... it really does focus the mind!

Maths training or brain training on the DS made a real difference with my son. Also buying a magnetic dart board really appealled to his competitive streak and got his number computation red hot very quickly.

These are all really fantastic ideas. I feel so guilty that I hadn't noticed this sooner. I just assumed he was bright and the school would do what it needed to, and too much time on the PC too.

Waiting_For_Godot wrote:These are all really fantastic ideas. I feel so guilty that I hadn't noticed this sooner. I just assumed he was bright and the school would do what it needed to, and too much time on the PC too.

I think the main thing is that you are now aware of this and are willing to put in the effort to help him.Maths is something can always been improved with time and reinforcement of key concepts is vital to help it "stick" so I would second playing plenty of board games,to try and make it fun whilst sneakong in the maths.

The BBC pages have some good maths games also. Look at the teacher pages as well as children pages.

Cuisenaire Rods. Amazon have them at sensible money.

I have some wooden cuisinaire rods from when I was little, the problem is I can't remember how to use the to teach different maths concepts e.g. is the child expected to remember the number value for each colour rod as a pre-requisite. Any suggestions please?

poppit

Look at the Power of 2 books on the website of that name. They also have lots of maths game stuff to purchase. Also Carol Vorderman website - subscription.

If he can still solve problems accurately and efficiently, crazy as it sounds it might not matter that much. He might have ways of doing it visually (or even with sound) in his head that when you quiz him about he starts to lose and does things differently. You might have to help him develop shorter cuts involving his own methods rather than expecting him just to know every sum off pat without thinking. There are great theoretical physicists who still count on their fingers!

It's interesting isn't it. It's not impossible to be fab at maths concepts and poor at remembering mental arithmetic, and when you think about it, true mathematicians do not have to be great at fast mental arithmetic - they rarely use numbers.