Maths!

Independent Schools as an alternative to Grammar

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menagerie
Posts: 577
Joined: Thu May 26, 2011 9:37 pm

Maths!

Post by menagerie »

I'm starting to panic about maths. Other scores are very high - in the high 90s for Vr and NVR and good scores for English but the maths just doesn't stick. Sometimes it's 100% but other times the mistakes are utterly basic. Today he was adamant that 5x7 is 45. And took several minutes to work out that 4 couldn't possibly go into 33 without a remainder because 33 is an odd number.

I don't know what to do because we have hammered in the times tables but if we stop hammering them for even a week, they disappear - it's as if they just can't get into his long term memory.

Any advice?
fatbananas
Posts: 1411
Joined: Mon Mar 08, 2010 2:03 pm

Re: Maths!

Post by fatbananas »

Hi Menagerie,

This may not be of much consolation but day-to-day my DS makes similar mistakes to the ones you mention with the times tables but, when he practices for a test, he gets 100%. Perhaps just keep going over them and especially in the weeks before the exams, so that they are 'freshly' in there, so to speak!
Seize the day ... before it seizes you.
mystery
Posts: 8927
Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:56 pm

Re: Maths!

Post by mystery »

He's probably just never done enough practice for them to all completely stick all the time. It probably won't be problem on the day as he'll have the helpful adrenaline rush which exams seem to provide where you suddenly remember things you never even knew you knew.

If you are going to do some timestable practice you might like to think about which way round he needs to practise them - perhaps you need to concentrate on division facts rather than multiplication facts.

And doing division with remainders is another thing entirely - it's about quickly spotting where you need to be in the timestable itself. Perhaps he just needs some practice with worksheets with whatever you think the weakness is - or back a step from that even. There are plenty of websites where you can tailor make your own worksheets free of charge.
jo123
Posts: 25
Joined: Tue May 15, 2012 12:26 pm

Re: Maths!

Post by jo123 »

My DD is exactly the same. We practice times tables and division facts in the car literally every day. It sounds ridiculous but I hadn't entirely grasped how important tables were - it's almost like she learnt them for a test and then she (or maybe I let her) park them. Then when she got onto fractions etc she just collapsed. Now we drill them and her maths has improved. Leave it for a very small amount of time and they disappear. I got apps on the i-pad which she seemed to like and helped her practice without me having to nag quite as much!! Good luck!!
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