5 year old maths/number understanding

[nordicwannabe]

My academic IQ is probably around top 0.5 - 1% of the population. So I'm not a genius by any means, but I'm used to understanding academic things easily.

I have a 5 year old DD (in Reception). A few people have told me she's clever, but sometimes I find myself really doubting it So I wanted to run this by you guys. She's obviously not gifted the way kids are when described on here - but given my own IQ I'd expect her to be reasonably far to the right of the bell-curve, and I'm looking for reassurance from people (who hopefully won't judge me for the question) that this behaviour doesn't rule that out!

Today, I was trying to show her what the digits 'mean' in written numbers. We have one of these posters with all the numbers up to 100 in lines of 10. I explained that the first digit shows how many groups of 10 there are (showed her on the poster) and that the second digit shows how many 'extra' there are. So far, so good. She seemed to get that, and was able to express a few numbers that way.

But then I was tried to show her how you can use that in sums (this was all in the context of a pocket money calculation!) And it all went wrong. She was struggling to subtract 8 from 20, so I showed her on the poster how you can just subtract it from 10 (which she can do) and then add the result back on to the other 10. And I tried to show her that you can do the same thing when subtracting from 40 or 50 or 60.. But she didn't get it, and just started saying random numbers!

This seems to me a fairly fundamental concept - what a number means, and how you can manipulate it.

Please don't blast me - of course I don't mind how clever she is. But I do recognise that her life will be easier if she's clever 'enough' and tbh I also find it strange when she doesn't understand things. Is it just that my expectations are out of whack, or is she actually not that great at maths?

My dd yr 1 5.8yo i was trying to get to do addition/subtraction to 20 without objects and she cannnot. Im a little surprised as her memory is very good. I guess it is practice though. I was also showing her coins and identifying them and catrgorizing them. And trying to understand the values so that £1 is not the same a 1p.
I agree with a pp that learningin a group vs 1-2-1 is very different. Just like reading it is going to take practice.

It's not to do with memory. It's to do with having a genuine concept of what those numbers actually mean. Memorising these things does nothing for actual Maths competence IMO.

The way schools teach maths now is really weird!!! It just isn’t logical to me and I know my way is much simpler but I just confuse the kids when I try to explain how I do it!!!

I’m very good with numbers (did accounting at uni, was moved up a school year and joined Mensa when I was 12) so like you am busted used to ‘getting’ concepts.
My eldest is also very gifted so I never had to teach him so then when it came to my middle child I just floundered trying to teach her. As my brain misses out crucial steps in the teaching process because I just ‘know’ 1+1=2 so I forget to explain that bit which ends up confusing her!
Likewise I found teaching them to read really hard - I was a very early reader and my eldest also learnt to read very early and taught himself but I left the phonics etc to DH as he was much better at teaching it thean me!

Heliophilous, watching my ds, I do disagree. Good memory + genuine understanding of concepts together works better.
Looking at number 2401 and instantly recognising it's 7^4, or knowing all the formula by heart helps a lot in maths, imo.

My Reception aged child could do 20-8 with no trouble (counting backwards on fingers) but hates the idea of place value. He can do it - matching dienes cubes to numbers, telling me how many tens and how many ones - but he hates it. To him a number is a whole thing. It is a developmental thing - it will click when they are older and their abstract thinking is more developed.

People are mistaking early development with talent. There is clearly a correlation but it is weak.

I remember a kid at school who was bottom of the double maths set at A level. He had an ability with arithmetic (though nothing special) but v limited conceptual talent. He had been going to maths camps since early primary and told he was gifted. I think he found the reality quite distressing.

Kids need both motivation and interest to progress. They also need to be cognitively ready.

Don’t be that pushy vicarious parent who spends coffee mornings bragging about what their reception age child can do. It will lead to tears for both of you.

Both my parents were good with numbers, but not me. Genes doesn't always comes out to perform. On the other hand, my ds is exceptional with numbers since toddler age. If they have genuine talent, you don't even need to explain anything in detail, they just get it from minimal input.

Hmm. Mine are much older. One has a first from Oxford and the other dropped 5 UMS points at A'Level and is going to Cambridge.

At 5 they were best at sand and water play, hatching from a pile of cushions and we counted and did number bonds using sweets.

I'm only a bit to the right of the bell curve though but sensible enough to make sure they had lots of fun, love, good food, conversation and then went to very good schools.

Irvine,

I am curious as to what instantly recognising 2401=7^4 is useful for??

When he had a question involving 4th root of 2401, in maths problems. Yes, I do agree, there's no need in real life, but he is obsessed with numbers, and once he figured it out, he won't forget, and it won't hurt him knowing, since he doesn't need extra effort for it.

But the tricky thing with maths is that you can't see it like you can playground equipment, so kids won't give it a go unless you show them.

This is I think where you might be running into trouble. Kids can see maths, and they understand a lot of maths work. What they don't always understand is the theory behind it.

Our youngest is 5. He doesn't understand theoretical maths. I don't think he could answer 20-8 correctly, let alone with confidence he was given the correct answer. He could absolutely work out that there is were 20 sweets on the table, and his sister took 8, there'd be 12 left for his brother and he to share, and that'd mean 6 each, which wouldn't be fair to everyone.

It also looks like he can multiply. He understands that 3 threes are 9, and can do simle multiplication. The way he does that though is to add the numbers together the required number of times. He can't understand that as a theoretical concept, but how he learned to do it was with a roll of stickers. We went into town one day and there was a promotion on. The lady behind the counter had 3 rolls of stickers. She gave him 3 from each roll.

For what it's worth, in our system, at 5 he's expected to understand the numbers 1-5, what they mean, and how to manipulate them.

Irvine,

I did not mean real life, I meant mathematical development. Well, I guess if you need to solve 4th root problems with whole number solutions, it may be useful, but that is highly limited!

There is a lot to maths: shape, number, algebra, rates of change. Mental arithmetic is a tiny part of it and being good at it does not necessarily imply mathematical ability (although there is a correlation).

Unless you are desperately ambitious for your child to be a number theorist, which is quite esoteric, I would not overly focus on numbers. Just have interesting conversations around real world problems and let your child engage or not.

larrygrylls, don't worry, my ds pursue maths himself and he is already beyond me. The example was to respond to helio saying memory isn't a factor in maths. Knowing those (useless) number is not a big deal for him, it's just part of what he can do without any effort.

Honestly the way you explained it to her confused even me. I've never seen that method of working out a sum before

So you expect her to do 8-2, and then add the 10 back on? I'm not surprised she's a little lost.

I’d say you can’t tell from this and you explained it badly. My reception child can do this, but she has older children around her all the time and we play a lot of board games, and we do a lot of number bonds games anyway. But do adding before subtraction!

I haven't rtft OP but I understand where you are coming from. I am pretty numerate and dd1 seemed to be good with them at nursery eyfs stage but focus interest on books and reading took over in reception.
I agree your expectations are a little off but I see your point about numbers clicking in their head conceptually and not 30-12=50. Dd1 is year 2 now and above expected levels and I'm still waiting for this to happen. She's great and learning techniques and is always asking me to do times tables but I still feel like the fundamental concept is missing at times. I spoke to her teacher at the beginning of the year and she explained their method of teaching and how it would click eventually. Fingers and toes crossed. Most important thing is dd1 is so enthusiastic about numbers.

He had an ability with arithmetic (though nothing special) but v limited conceptual talent.

That is what I was trying to say (badly) before when I said memorising things is of very limited use when it comes to actual Maths.

Sorry, and that's even more confusing. I am the poster formerly known as...

She may just not be that interested at this stage. Basic interest trumps underlying ability at this age.

My DD was OK at maths in primary - good at problem solving (logic), but not so good at arithmetic (not interested; not attentive; lots of careless mistakes). I couldn't tell you if there were issues with understanding mathematical concepts or if it was just that she was not bothered.

Her results in maths only started to improve from around the equivalent of Y8 - she is now in equiv. Y13, and in the top two students in maths in a very large senior high school. She still isn't that bothered by maths though, no interest in a STEM degree.

Basically: it's way too early to tell, but ability at basic arithmetic is probably not very predictive of later ability in maths anyway.

Also you realise that in a lot of countries they don't even start school until 6/7?

An ex of mine was danish. Started school at 7 and was running around in forests in a forest school before then. He went on to study physics and did a masters at Cambridge where we met. I really wouldn't worry at this point.

@Lupiform I get what you are saying. I have a degree in pure mathematics, & can imagine n-dimensional space (for example) but I'm terrible at mental arithmetic.

Oh good, glad someone gets it! I am also a bit rubbish at mental arithmetic but actually very good at maths (compared to most people, not to anyone who can imagine n-dimensional space).

I bloody loved it at school when maths went beyond numbers. I went from adequate to good in a heartbeat.

DD is currently being asked to memorise all the cube numbers up to 12. I seriously cannot see what good this is ever likely to do her, except as a kind of 'trick' in that she might recognise a number that helps at some point. It's not maths! It's stamp collecting.

I don't think I would get it if it were explained to me that way either (I also score top 1% in pretty much everything academic). Surely you could have used a better aid than the poster? I remember being given unit blocks in school-little 1cm3 block which came grouped as ones, tens and, hundreds. Maybe try something along those lines.

Yes outy, Dienes blocks they're called, or just hundreds tens and units blocks. We have some and kids played with them, so DC would have been able to visualise 20-8 at that age. I think it really helped them intuit place value.

My two are not natural arithmetic geniuses. But then DH was, I wasn't and I'm the one who did better with degree level maths. I think in some ways DH could "just see" far too much for his own good mathematically. I was used to embarking on a problem without knowing exactly how it was going to pan out. Those of you with arithmetic geniuses, give them hard problems to cut their teeth on!

Yes, exactly, catkind.
But I also think people with good early arithmetic ability do better than older generations, because there are tons of information and resources to work on, if they are interested. Existence of sites like Khan academy and others, with high level detailed explanation of everything make it possible for children to study maths better from early age.