5 year has no understanding of maths

[Sallyssss]

My 5 year can't seem to do the even the basic maths - what's 3+1? Unless you show him with Lego or another objects? I
Don't ever remember teaching my son this - it just came. Does any parent/teacher have any idea what's going on?

[mrz]

Very normal for children to need concrete objects (blocks, counters, fingers) before moving on and being able to add mentally.

[viques]

If you break down what you are asking your child to do then it might help to realise that this is conceptually a complicated concept that some grasp quicker than others.

First of all, there are lots of ways of asking this, what is one more than three, if I have three sweets and I find another one how many do I have, what is three add 1, what is three plus 1, what do I get if I add 1 to 3. So immediatley you have a vocabulary demand, more than, plus, add, another, equals, makes, totals. a child has to understand specific vocabulary in maths, it can take a while to work them out! and maybe what you are asking is not couched in quite the same terms that the teacher is currently introducing.

Then you have the maths bit , to answer the question a child has to understand what the numbers we use represent, ie three things are always three things, no matter if their size, shape ,colour, orientation change, you are asking your child to hold that concept of three, to understand it, remember it, and then manipulate it or change it by adding on another number. Hard to do in your head, much easier if you have real things to visualise what you are doing and allow you to check.

some children come to this concept, that numbers of things remain the same until you do something to them , a bit later than others. you can try this with very small children. Put down a row of say four smarties and count them with the child. Then match them with another row of four smarties arranged so that the rows are equal lengths. Ask the child if there are the same number of smarties in each row. most will agree. Then stretch out one of the rows so that it looks 'longer'. Do they still have the same number or has one got more. a child at an early level of understanding will think that the stretched out row contains more, it has not learned to conserve the number four.
Try another game with smarties. Put three smarties on the table, ask how many there are. some children will need to count each smarty to reach a total, others will immediately say three. They have learned what in the old days used to be called the threeness of three. some children are very good and quick at this and can tell you numbers of objects at a glance, others still need to count and unless the objects are in a line or organised will often get confused and count wrong without realising what they are doing. watching children's understanding of number develop is fascinating, it can take a long time but don't forget, it took mankind centuries and centuries of using impossible number systems before some bright spark thought of zero!

Early maths knowledge is largely built on experience, do a lot of counting, matching items, talking about numbers - how many cakes will we need for mummy,daddy ,brother and sister. How many bananas do we need to buy. Can you put eight biscuits on the plate for me etc etc

[mrz]

Current thinking is that Concrete (using counters, cubes etc) Pictoral (drawings of the calculation - bar modelling for example) Abstract (symbolic) [CPA] model of maths is useful whatever the age, building a deeper and lasting understanding of maths. It is important to realise that these are not stages gone through once, but a continuum. There will be occasions when a particular child will use concrete, pictorial and abstract representations all in one session. A child who uses abstract representations in one area may need concrete representations in another. On a different occasion, a child may need to revisit a concrete representation before moving on to a pictorial or abstract one. Therefore, it is important that a variety of representations are available for children to use at all times. Sometimes children will need to touch and manipulate, but at other times simply seeing or imagining the representation will be enough.