AIBU to ask for ideas how to help DD9 who hates maths

[mathsmadness]

DD in Y5 (age 9) hates maths and gets very anxious/upset about doing any maths work! She really struggles with the fundamentals and is way behind at school. She has always been like this. While school have been sympathetic, there hasn't been that much support on this throughout infant/junior (covid has obviously not helped with this and, of course, they have 29 other children to think about in the classroom). The learning keeps moving on and I feel like DD can never catch up.

She did have a tutor once a week pre covid but with limited success for the money involved. So I'm hoping to try and fill some of the gaps myself with her. I have had stints of doing this with her before some some successes and some dramatic failures!

I was hoping to draw on mumsneters tips, resources, and inspirations to help me with this. Any ideas from teachers or parents who've been in the same situation would be brilliant.

Sorry, but baking/random activities aren't going to get a struggling Y5 up to speed. It needs deliberate, targeted and structured practice and reinforcement.

You wouldn't try to get a struggling reader to improve by asking them to read a recipe every now and again.

The way to get kids who struggle at maths to overcome that and get better is to give them a taste of success. Give them stuff that they can do. Nothing builds confidence like a page full of ticks. Build up slowly.

When I was your DDs age I hated maths. Didn’t get it at all and was always incredibly embarrassed at the wall chart in the classroom where my name was firmly at the bottom of the times tables. I started secondary school and was duly put in the bottom maths set.

Someone recommended Kumon to my Mum and she decided to sign me up after school and it changed everything. It takes you back to basics and is repetitive and by GCSE I had moved up to set 3 of 6 and achieved a B. It also became one of my favourite subjects so would highly recommend having a look into it.

Another vote for The Maths Factor here.
I’m a long time home ed mum and my DC love it. It has given them so much confidence too.
You can pitch it right for your child without them knowing whether they’re doing Y2/3/4/5 work. Think it’s aimed at 4-12 year olds. You get a 3 week free trial too. Then it £4.99 pcm.

Wanted to also give the Times Fables book a shout out too. For children struggling to remember times tables it’s genius. Look it up on Amazon.

The top marks website is great too for quick, simple free games such as number bonds, doubles, times tables etc.

I’d second daily, short, fun sessions.

Apologies if this has been said already but I really rate Sumdog and small doses every day of Hit The Button.

Both are apps and can be done on your phone or tablet. You can play against your child on Sumdog - it's fun!

The gigantic problem I have with Apps (and of course it could just be me and my DD not really getting on with online stuff) is that you aren't using physical objects and you aren't being encouraged to use pencil and paper. Fine for mental maths, not so fine for other stuff. But lots of people seem to rate them.

I agree with @noblegiraffe (who if you don't know is a maths teacher) that cooking etc is all very well as an add on, but it isn't going to help someone catch up. That is where regular, focused sessions come in.

Not quite read every post so sorry if I’m repeating, but I teach Y2 and if you’re going back to the basics my advice would be to do it in roughly this order:

• check she can count, recognise written numbers, tell you how many hundreds/tens/ones in a number (if even this is tricky, it’s worth a conversation with the school)
• addition (start really small - can she do simple addition in her head? Move from one digit + one digit, to two digit + one digit, etc) You could spend ages on this tbh, if a child ‘gets’ addition, they’re more likely to get the other stuff fairly quickly. Practice different methods of addition, not just column method, and make sure she knows it’s adding even when the wording is slightly different.
• Then, and only then, move onto subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions (in that order).

If she has gaps in basic understanding then you need a proper intervention to identify and address these.

I would recommend Power of 2 - ten minutes daily, 1:1, with an adult improves confidence and allows you to address any gaps.

It is a book of simple concept lessons, all verbal, no writing (adding 9 by adding 10 then subtracting 1, for example). You would have several lessons on the go at any one time. Very simple and intuitive. Children have to get every answer right before moving on.

Then work through White Rose, maybe y2 stuff initially, 30 minutes.

Then 5 mins on TTRockstars with the timer off - set the times tables so she is only doing, say, 3x and 6x tables initially. Add more as she improves.

So that's 45 mins 1:1, will make a huge difference.

I really recommend mathforlove by Dan Finkel. It's a games based catch up curriculum for children in exactly this position focussing on basic conceptual understanding of number. Last time I looked it was on special offer of 20 dollars, including the videos on how to teach it.

What is her reading like? I teach year 4 and have a group of children who find maths challenging because their reading skills are still developing and they don't always understand what they are being asked to do.

Also it's worth asking school what maths scheme they are using so you can keep to strategies that are familiar to her or that she would have heard about before. We use maths no problem at my school.

Definitely agree about concrete, pictorial and abstract approach - absolutely essential in teaching the 'why' as well as the 'how'.

@GingersHaveSoulsToo

I would highly recommend Math Antics. The videos are all free but the worksheets require a really small annual fee and are well worth it. I discovered during lockdown that my daughter, who was 10 at the time, had only a veneer of understanding for maths. She could do things but didn't really understand why she was doing what she did. I went back to basics using Math Antics. It doesn't dumb down the mathematics (I have a maths degree although decades ago, and was impressed at the rigour of the videos - all age appropriate), just presents it in a child appropriate way.

She is now finding the algebra her class are covering 'really easy' as she has the foundations in place. It has helped her confidence a lot as she feels good at maths, which is a complete turn around as before i couldn't understand why she thought she was 'bad at maths' when she could answer the questions she was set. She needed the conceptual basics to put it all together. Even understanding of the relationship between 4 basic operators makes a big difference.

Math antics videos are so brilliant for non mathematicians. I had no idea they had worksheets and will definitely subscribe for the summer holiday. DS is another one who gets massively emotional over Maths. I’m note sure if your DD is the same, OP, but he is really quite good at English and the other subjects so Maths feels like wading through treacle in comparison. I know what you mean about being tempted to leave the Maths alone for the sake of household harmony. I hear you. But I think it’s on us to intervene, support and help. It helps to put a very strict time limit on the Maths ‘sessions’. If he starts being a drama queen, I stop the clock and wait for him to get back to it! This seems to encourage getting the job done and being productive. Short bursts without too much agony

If you really can't face it yourself, there are a number of companies who offer online tuition via Teams or Zoom - Third Space Learning is used in schools in my area but I'm sure there are others.

Thanks everyone for all your ideas and suggestions on this - I really appreciate it. I've spent lots of time doing mathsfactor and doodlemaths trials and looking at some other resources. I'm trying to decide which to use with DD

I've also bought the powerof2 book. I think this looks pretty good as a starting point as I think she'd find quite a lot of it it pretty tricky initially. But I did wonder if anyone can give their experience of using it. Is the numeracy it teaches enough/sufficient to really help with Y5 maths concepts/processes. Also did you use it alongside actual physical resources to help explain/allow them to visualise the numbers - or would this just all get too confusing? Any ideas/tips would be great.