Need advice on whether to talk to teacher...

[Twiglett]

DS is in reception year .. he has not been the quickest on the uptake with reading but he is quite bright

Over the last month or so I've noticed that his numeracy is quite far ahead of what is set in class .. in terms of adding and subtracting he can do it in columns and he's starting learning multiplication

anyhoo I asked teacher for advice on how to teach multiplication and she said she didn't know because they didn't do it till year 1

Now should I be showing teacher the types of maths he's doing at home (asking to do at home) and asking her to support that in school time or should he just be continuing to do the stuff they do in school as a matter of course (they seem to do single digit addition whereas DS is adding in columns of thousands, hundreds, tens and units . and has just started to take away in columns too)

I know that there's lots of tasks in maths that do not involve add, subtract, multiplication .. but he seems so thrilled by it I just want him to feel proud of what he can do at school too

[singersgirl]

DS2,also in Reception, is not so keen on doing sums as your DS, Twiglett, who sounds very advanced at this. However, he does show a sound mathematical understanding, which in the last couple of months I've become aware of.

What I have done, to save another conversation with the teacher, is orally practise counting in 2s, 5s and 10s (Fizz Buzz is good if they are confident); partitioning tens, hundreds and units; adding and taking away 10 from a number up to 100; ordering and comparing numbers in the hundreds; understanding odd and even (all the even numbers can be split equally into 2, so this ties into doubles and counting in 2s of course); looking for patterns in number squares; extrapolating from units to 10s and 100s and from doubles to halves etc.

We don't do this all the time, but in the car etc when I think of it.

My older son, now in Y3, has only started learning column addition this year. They are very keen on mental strategies now, like spotting the near doubles, or the near tens, so that the children do double digit addition in their heads before they ever write anything down. Y

Just some other ideas to keep your son's interest in maths going. He may know/understand this all already, of course, so please ignore if he does!

[Twiglett]

I am actually incredibly pissed off now .. that there is a method that is taught in schools that they don't bother mentioning to the parents .. what? we're supposed to do it by osmosis .. we can teach our kids wrong?

I give up

[NikkiH]

At my boys school they hold a reading meeting early in Reception so that parents know how to support their children while learning to read. However, they never did anything for maths and yet this seems to have altered beyond all recognition compared to how I was taught (in the 70s) at school!

I was concerned that when helping DS1 with his homework I was showing him the wrong way of doing things and so confusing him and suggested a maths meeting along the lines of the reading meeting so they could teach parents how to do maths like their children. Unfortunately nothing ever came of it and I'm as much in the dark now about how he calculates sums as I ever was but thankfully he doesn't seem to need my help and is doing well on his own.

DS2 starts Reception in September and I might try suggesting it again and see what happens. Maths was never my strong point and I hated it when a child - perhaps the new way of teaching it might revise my opinion!

[Piffle]

I must admit I taught ds the way I was taught. Add and carry.
When he got to school they were very unhappy and tried to reteach him to no avail however in about yr 4 they stopped worrying about it, so long as he had the concept down he was confident using they left him alone - he had good mental maths - x tables etc.
He has always done it for fun, little alien that he is :)
Now at secondary school, they are trying to teach the quicker mental maths way. Which makes me mad, why is there such a lack of continuity?

[frogs]

Twiglett, if you want structured maths that will let him stretch himself, then Kumon maths may appeal. It's a very trad, Japanese in origin, system of worksheets for the child to complete each day, with a weekly visit to the centre for feedback. They assess children initially and then put them on whatever level they are naturally at so you can have hulking big secondary kids doing number bonds to 20, and tiny little prawns doing fancy multiplication. They're v. good at incentivising the kids with stickers and certificates. There are lots of centres all around the country it's run as a franchise.

But (and it's a big but) it doesn't really address your issue with the school, and may even make it worse as he will get further ahead of his 'expected' level. In the end it will depend whether the teacher and the school want to hear what you are saying and are prepared to take it on board and act accordingly. Some do, but some either don't or won't, and you may get yourself tarred with the 'pushy mother' label. It's a tough one.

[Twiglett]

going to speak to teacher after school today .. I think what's happened is I've taught him the trick of adding and subtracting by columns and he loves doing it so keeps asking for it ..

but from reading this I think I'm going about it all wrong

I like the idea of meetings on how to support your child .. perfect sense

[Piffle]

Agree Kumon was really good for ds but he as then even more bored at school :(

[foxinsocks]

twiglett, we have just had a day at the children's school where we are allowed to go and look at their work.

Dd (yr1) had been telling me that she was finding some things in maths a bit puzzling and I now understand why!! She was doing things like 47 + 38 using some weird number square/number line and doing all sorts of breaking it down into bits....I can see why they are trying to teach them that way (because I guess in the end, that's the sort of process that you end up with when you do it in your head) but it seems quite complicated to me.

There's no mention of adding/subtracting in columns at all (which seems far simpler to me when you are having to work it out on paper). I didn't get to speak to her teacher but it looks like they don't use this method till far later on in the school!

[shimmy21]

Hi Twig - if your ds is enjoying himself doing sums then there is absolutely no problem doing it a different way from the school. The 'new' school method is based on getting the chilkdren to actually understand why they are doing what they do before teaching them quicker methods. So the carrying tens etc doesn't get introduced until much later on once they are quite competent at mentally adding 2 or 3 digit numbers. The fact that you have taught your ds how to do it is not bad or wrong or anything else and if he is proud of himself then it's fantastic. The more different strategies we give our kids for finding answers the better off they are. The school may be worried about your ds being confused by different methods but if you make sure ds knows that there are lots of different ways and you have shown him one, the school is showing him another and he's happy with that, fine!

[Bink]

twiglett, here comes a long Bink post... This how we've dealt with similar situation with ds (now 7 and in year 2):

• he does lots of maths for fun at home - we've got him notebooks (Paperchase is good) with squared paper and he sits and happily generates his own sums, just of whatever kind he wants to make up (he went through a stage of inventing new symbols for alien functions, eg). He does this like other kids do colouring, just off his own bat;
  

• at school he does the same coursework as everyone else but has a very sympathetic teacher who (a) gives him extension work (word-based problems especially - ie sums embedded in a narrative - your old-fashioned "ten men are trying to dig a hole. Last week a hundred men managed it in four hours, so how long ..." - which is good for his reading/comprehension too) once he's charged through the worksheet; and (b) occasionally lets him "teach" the mental maths sessions for the rest of the class, which if sensitively done (ie, ds is absolutely not showing off) I think is really good for everyone - (so I do think you definitely should talk to your ds's teacher about options); and
  

• we love the books & other resources on the \link{http://www.tarquin-books.demon.co.uk/math/newmathslist.html\Tarquin} website - in particular for your ds's age I would really recommend the times tables colouring books.
  

My ds is also at the moment devouring the Murderous Maths series of books, but I think that your boy might be too young yet for those.

Finally, and despite all the above! - we try quite hard to get him to be interested in all sorts of stuff other than sums, as left to himself he might not do much else.

[foxinsocks]

what a great website bink, I love the making polyhedra book!

[shewhoneverdusts]

Just you wait until they start doing division by the 'CHUNKING' method!! OMG, it uses up a whole bloody page of paper, and then they have to remember to add all the bits up after to get the answer!! As you can tell, I am very stressed with the way maths is being taught at the moment, having spent hours with dd (10yo) trying to get her to understand. Why cat we just let them learn their times tables by rote and then do division the old numbers at a bus stop way? Anyway sorry to rant!

[Bink]

Meant also to say re methodology - how to teach multiplication and so on - if doing something new, we follow the Letts workbooks & use whatever method they do, as they're meant to conform to current national curriculum policy.

[Bink]

foxinsocks, a Tip in case you do start making them (and a hint as to what you might be getting yourself into ...): double-sided sellotape is a better bet than gobs of UHU.

[alexsmum]

i remember when my nephew was doing gcse maths and needed help one day.dh helped him( dh has a phd in maths) and nephew had his work marked wrong.dh has shown him a different way of doing it apparently.

[frogs]

bink, thanks for that website! Will explore at leisure, since although ds's calculation skills have improved through all the ruddy Kumon, he struggles to see how to apply the ideas. We had some timestables colouring books years ago for dd1, but can't remember from where, annoyingly. Perhaps I'll find a replacement at Tarquin.

Rueful at the unlikely prospect of my ds devouring Murderous Maths -- but maybe there's scope for a Maths/soldiers or maths/Harry Potter crossover series?!

[juuule]

Twiglett - If your son is enjoying maths and expanding his knowledge then whatever you are doing you must be doing right. I would carry on the way you are doing and just let the school get on with whatever it is they have to do.

[Hallgerda]

frogs, \link{http://www.murderousmaths.co.uk/\Murderous Maths website here}. As you'll see, soldiers do come into it - while the maths. content is not dumbed down, the general silliness is of a nature quite appealing to small boys!

[Emma7]

I was a bit shocked at the teacher's response 'I don't know how they do it in year 1'. Surely teachers have to know the next stage so that they can stretch more able pupils. The school has a duty to set appropriate work for all its pupils including those with a talent in a particular subject. If I were you I would find out who the school's numeracy co-ordinator is and ask for a meeting with them. They will have an overview of what is going on in each year group and should be able to provide you with some suitable resources.

[23balloons]

When we went to ds's (also in Reception) parent's evening the teacher actually made a point of saying ds was very good at Maths and she was doing year 1 work with him, as he was beyond Reception level. I hadn't even thought about it as I has only been concentrating on reading and forgot how much he used to love numbers before he started learning letters.

She said any good Teacher would push the more able children on to the next level if they were ready. I was quite impressed but he has obviously been very lucky this year and has an excellent Teacher who happened to teach Year 1 last year so knows the stuff. I do worry he might get bored in Year 1 if he doesn't get the same standard of Teacher though.

Recently I bought a Year 1 Reader Rabbit PC disc which has lots of fun things to do based on the year 1 curriculum. It has a task of adding money eg. you make sandwhiches with crazy toppings like ice-cream and chocolate, each topping costs x amt and you need to use coins to get the correct amt. Ds loves it and it helps with adding in a fun way.

[singersgirl]

What I was sort of trying to say in my earlier (rambling) post was that, since they don't teach column addition till much later in school, it's not likely the teacher will extend him in that area (because the Y1 and 2 children won't be doing it), but will probably be extending him/try to extend him in other areas.


That's why I gave some examples of the sort of Y1 areas she would probably extend him in. Money sums are excellent too, as you have to count in 2s, 5s,10s, 20s and 50s, all of which is a precursor to multiplication.

I think it's brilliant that your son loves doing the sums and is good at them, and as others have said, it doesn't matter if the school doesn't teach it that way till later.

Definitely talk to the teacher about his ability in this area and see what she suggests.

[Twiglett]

have come to the conclusion that I have taught him a trick .. the trick of adding in columns .. now does that further his general knowledge? I'm not sure .. I know he enjoys it

so, with advice from teacher, I am going to also
try to round out what we do and make it a bit more practical with using money and shopping trips etc

I would like to thank everyone for their comments .. most helpful