HELP - P5 (Scotland) maths help - DD really struggling :-(

[vowels]

Do not panic, and you have not let her down.

I have a P7 and P4 and they are exactly the same as your two, but with no autism.

My P7 has always struggled with maths, she is not academic at all and has the most awful memory. We, like you, worried and really pushed her, only for her to be upset and no further forward. She copes at school, abet in a lower level than most and her teacher is happy with her accomplishments.

We try to use baking and other tasks at home to improve her numeracy and the practical application does help. Her last three teachers and her aunt, who is a principal primary teacher, have all said not to worry too much, the world is changing and most people will just use the calculator and spellcheck on their phone so the skills we, as parents, think are necessary are not essential.

When our children are doing their best but struggling, it is better just to accept their limitations, praise their endeavours and shine a light on their gifts and talents. Best piece of advice I was given by a teacher.

Her first gift is parents that care.

[bwfc4ife]

Originally Posted by vowels

Do not panic, and you have not let her down.

I have a P7 and P4 and they are exactly the same as your two, but with no autism.

My P7 has always struggled with maths, she is not academic at all and has the most awful memory. We, like you, worried and really pushed her, only for her to be upset and no further forward. She copes at school, abet in a lower level than most and her teacher is happy with her accomplishments.

We try to use baking and other tasks at home to improve her numeracy and the practical application does help. Her last three teachers and her aunt, who is a principal primary teacher, have all said not to worry too much, the world is changing and most people will just use the calculator and spellcheck on their phone so the skills we, as parents, think are necessary are not essential.

When our children are doing their best but struggling, it is better just to accept their limitations, praise their endeavours and shine a light on their gifts and talents. Best piece of advice I was given by a teacher.

Her first gift is parents that care.

See more...

Clearly your children are equally as lucky

[Goldia]

I'm a secondary maths teacher so while I don't have experience of teaching a child the same age as your daughter I do have experience of teaching children who don't love maths, feel like they can't do any of it and who have little confidence in their mathematical ability. These sorts of feelings can happen to children at all ability levels and it's a real shame.

In my experience it can be helpful to move onto a completely different topic. So if it's number that she is finding tricky, meaning addition, subtraction, multiplication, division etc, perhaps try one of the other maths topics.

So, you could think about shape, space and geometry. Included in this would be naming of 2d and 3d shapes and their properties (number of sides, edges and vertices/corners), area and perimeter of 2d shapes, angles such as different types, measuring and drawing angles, knowing angle facts and the angle sum for triangles, quadrilaterals, angles on a straight line and angles at a point and then working out the value of missing angles in a diagram.

Another maths topic is statistics and data handling. So calculating averages, mean, median and mode. Collecting and presenting data in different formats e.g. in a table, on a bar chart, or line graph or histogram...

Usually if a child is struggling with one area of maths they find other areas easier as it's human nature to be better in one area than another. But if you can find a topic that she can do this will help with her confidence. What I would do is overkill on this topic, so that she feels like every time she will get the right answer, literally 50 questions on the same thing for a few days or a week or two. Then you can try going back to something she hasn't understood before and with luck she will be in a better frame of mind and be more open to the topic she couldn't do.

There are lots of really good you tube videos out there. For secondary maths I use Corbett Maths and they are great videos, I believe they also offer primary maths resources but I haven't used these in my teaching so please check them first before diving in. I wouldn't want to recommend something I've not used myself.

Good luck, I hope she doesn't feel too bad about it and that you can overcome this with her.

[DUNXandWILL]

Originally Posted by bwfc4ife

A fab website is Times Table Rockstars - we use this with our students at school every week (I'm a secondary school maths teacher), and the students really like it. Just looked online and its £6 for a 1 year family subscription.

Not sure about the family subscription, but with the school one the teacher can set which times tables the students will focus on, and gradually builds it up. It also analyses which ones they are finding the most tricky and throws them up more often. I would imagine it will be the same for the family version?

See more...

bwfc4life,

I'll get onto Times Table Rockstars tomorrow :-) Thanks for the heads up :-)

I feel that she is really struggling with 4, 6 and 9 especially :-( hopefully with myself and DH support she'll be a times table rockstar by the time she returns to school!

Thanks dunx x

[RM2016]

Hi, I have a P4 and a P6 and teach part time. Please don’t blame yourself and relax. Go back to basics to try and work out what she knows and then focus on the positives that she does know, ie adding and subtraction to 10 then say 20. Use a number line or physically count items so that or is visual rather than all mental. Gain confidence before moving on to say the 2 and 5 times table, again you can make or download a number line or write out a times table chart or just practice counting in 2s, 5s and tens to begin with. You say 5, she says 10 and so on. Once the easier ones are nailed move on to the trickier tables.
Keep it lights hearted and don’t compare to her brother.
Only so these activities for short bursts so that concentration and confidence remain high. If you work on the basics over time you will notice a big difference and then you can move on gradually to more difficult tasks.

[DUNXandWILL]

Originally Posted by Midges17

Does your school use abacus or top marks websites they have great games for doing maths sometimes doing it as a little game helps & these website do it in classes you could easily click P3/P4 or P5 without her seeing & see if she manages it which will hopefully help with the confidence

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Hi Midges17,

thanks for your input, they use Sumdog at their school which both DD and DS seem to enjoy (albeit DS scoots through his no problem, DD not so much)

I'll sit by and let her log in and try to pick one of the easier levels to see how she copes, thanks for the tip ;-)

Dunx x

[DUNXandWILL]

Originally Posted by vowels

Do not panic, and you have not let her down.

I have a P7 and P4 and they are exactly the same as your two, but with no autism.

My P7 has always struggled with maths, she is not academic at all and has the most awful memory. We, like you, worried and really pushed her, only for her to be upset and no further forward. She copes at school, abet in a lower level than most and her teacher is happy with her accomplishments.

We try to use baking and other tasks at home to improve her numeracy and the practical application does help. Her last three teachers and her aunt, who is a principal primary teacher, have all said not to worry too much, the world is changing and most people will just use the calculator and spellcheck on their phone so the skills we, as parents, think are necessary are not essential.

When our children are doing their best but struggling, it is better just to accept their limitations, praise their endeavours and shine a light on their gifts and talents. Best piece of advice I was given by a teacher.

Her first gift is parents that care.

See more...

Vowels,

Thanks for your words of support, much appreciated :-)

She is super talented when it comes to baking, painting, crafts and writing very very imaginative stories so we have been giving her freedom to pick one of these each afternoon to do... but today as a sort of wee assessment we printed off a P5 assessment from Twinkl for a P5 who is progressing into P6 (maths only at this point) and DD totally melted down and wouldn't even attempt it, DS on the other hand seemed to breeze through most of it (he did need some stuff explained to him) but other than that didn't really struggle at all!

You're right, we won't push her too hard but just try to focus on what she excels in.

Thanks Dunx x

[Tiggers Pal]

Here’s a google search for multiplication squares.

google/search?q=ti... 1024&bih=666

Some are printable but I made one for my own son when he was in P5 a number of years ago (he is 19 now). He struggled to get to grips with multiplication of the higher numbers and had a complete meltdown when they were set it as homework to be done under timed conditions. My son went on to achieve an A at Nat 5 and a B at Higher Maths. Please don’t feel you’ve let her down though as you have noticed and are trying to help her.

Also do you have anything she could use as a visual aid instead of her fingers such as lego blocks or pebbles? I’m not a teacher but I help in a primary school class one day a week and they use coloured counting blocks so something like that may help her. Good luck x

[bwfc4ife]

Originally Posted by DUNXandWILL

Hi Midges17,

thanks for your input, they use Sumdog at their school which both DD and DS seem to enjoy (albeit DS scoots through his no problem, DD not so much)

I'll sit by and let her log in and try to pick one of the easier levels to see how she copes, thanks for the tip ;-)

Dunx x

See more...

Sumdog is more fun, but in my experience I don't think it is as effective as some of the other maths sites out there. I'm not saying don't use it, but just to maybe use it in moderation?

Also, if struggling with 9's, try this:
mymathtables/tips-an...mes-table.html

I teach 16 year-olds who still rely on this, but as long as they know a way to get the answer, I don't think it matters. May also help with boosting confidence.

Good luck

Leanne :-)

[DUNXandWILL]

Originally Posted by Goldia

I'm a secondary maths teacher so while I don't have experience of teaching a child the same age as your daughter I do have experience of teaching children who don't love maths, feel like they can't do any of it and who have little confidence in their mathematical ability. These sorts of feelings can happen to children at all ability levels and it's a real shame.

In my experience it can be helpful to move onto a completely different topic. So if it's number that she is finding tricky, meaning addition, subtraction, multiplication, division etc, perhaps try one of the other maths topics.

So, you could think about shape, space and geometry. Included in this would be naming of 2d and 3d shapes and their properties (number of sides, edges and vertices/corners), area and perimeter of 2d shapes, angles such as different types, measuring and drawing angles, knowing angle facts and the angle sum for triangles, quadrilaterals, angles on a straight line and angles at a point and then working out the value of missing angles in a diagram.

Another maths topic is statistics and data handling. So calculating averages, mean, median and mode. Collecting and presenting data in different formats e.g. in a table, on a bar chart, or line graph or histogram...

Usually if a child is struggling with one area of maths they find other areas easier as it's human nature to be better in one area than another. But if you can find a topic that she can do this will help with her confidence. What I would do is overkill on this topic, so that she feels like every time she will get the right answer, literally 50 questions on the same thing for a few days or a week or two. Then you can try going back to something she hasn't understood before and with luck she will be in a better frame of mind and be more open to the topic she couldn't do.

There are lots of really good you tube videos out there. For secondary maths I use Corbett Maths and they are great videos, I believe they also offer primary maths resources but I haven't used these in my teaching so please check them first before diving in. I wouldn't want to recommend something I've not used myself.

Good luck, I hope she doesn't feel too bad about it and that you can overcome this with her.

See more...

Goldia,

Wow thank you so much for your detailed and very informative response, much appreciated

We totally never thought about other subjects within maths as an alternative but you're absolutely right! Myself and DH will try and get some variations on what she can work on for a wee while tomorrow to try and keep her interested instead of her panicking and saying "not maths again! " as we know this is setting her up to not be in the right frame of mind to even try!

I'll have a look tonight with Corbett maths when she's in bed and see what i can find that might suit her.

Thanks again for your detailed reply, very much appreciated

Dunx x