What maths can your 7 1/2 year old actually do?

[TwoPlusTwoEqualsFive]

Sorry if similar question has been asked before but not happy with current school (not UK) and want to know if this is "normal" or what an average-ability child should be aspiring to at this age:

• Basic addition, numbers up to 20. Recognises units of ten 20, 30, 40 etc. but can't add them
  
• Basic subtraction, numbers up to 10. Struggles with anything above 11.
  

That's it.
Should I be doing something about this?

[TheSmallPrint]

Twoplus, maybe your daughter is struggling with maths a little and her teacher is setting the easier work to try and ease her along? I really think you need to sit down with her (if you can) and discuss your concerns.

[RunningAllDay]

Don't panic. My DD (7yrs3mnths) cannot do all said above (just started yr 3, which is the 4th year of primary, though maths in Reception class is pretty basic). She can do 2 3, 5 and 10 times tables, but not the others; mentally add/subtract numbers upto 100, division by explanation. Simple graphs and Venn diagrams. Can tell the time on an analogue clock but we have ongoing battles about converting to digital time. Similar to izzy1020. She's in a regular state primary, and although in the bottom half of the class for maths, is no dummy. In her previous primary (before June this year) she was in the top quarter of the class - and there was a very big range in both.

Because we did change her school and she had a wobble about being terrible at maths (similar reactions to your daughter) - when she isn't - we did maths books over the summer. We have done Carol Vorderman ones before but I found them a bit superficial. We did the Bond ones instead which I found better and gave her lots of confidence with her strategies (e.g. adding tens and untis seperately: 12 plus 46 equals 10 plus 40 and 2 plus 6). I have found that we do need to stay on top of it (reward charts etc) as she would happily not even try!

Hope things go better for your daughter this year! Good luck :)

[Francagoestohollywood]

Tesmallprint, I don't think it's the case, as we don't do "streaming" here in Italy usually.

[Francagoestohollywood]

"(e.g. adding tens and untis seperately: 12 plus 46 equals 10 plus 40 and 2 plus 6)": this is a strategy that is taught at the beginning of seconda here in Italy.

[ZZZenAgain]

If she has just had one year of school, it is not dramatic. However if there is any difficulty for her in adding/subtracting numbers up to 20, I think yes, you should intervene and sort that out by working on number bonds up to 10, then number bonds up to 20. We had little houses with two columns and a pointy roof on top. In one column are 1,2,3 etc; in the other 9, 8, 7 so you see 1 corresponds with 9. Had to get dd to write those up every day and then they had those little houses with missing numbers which needed to be filled in. From there they went on to addition/subtraction. I thought it was very badly taught and really had to start from scratch to sort it all out.

In the second year, presumably they do times tables and I found I had to teach my dd those at home myself. Whatever they did at school achieved little in the end. I expect because dd needed a lot of repetition.

[TwoPlusTwoEqualsFive]

OK. I'll give it until Christmas before panicking totally. I will try and talk to the teacher about class progress but already know the answer will be blamed on the (very small) number of non-Italian speaking children in the class. But you never know, the teacher might have developed a proactive helpful attitude over the summer break. Meanwhile I'll have a look at the Bond books because that's how I used to do mental arithmetic, thanks RLD.

[TwoPlusTwoEqualsFive]

Also thanks ZZZen I will look at number bonds, this is very helpful.

[Francagoestohollywood]

zzz, no here they go over their time tables for months, until they dream it at night

Twoplus, sounds like a good strategy. As I said, they do take it slow the first year. Wait until they are in terza, and you'll miss the fluffy, chilled out first year (ime)

[munstersmum]

These start at easy addition & feel like more fun than worksheets.
www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks1bitesize/numeracy/

[ForYourDreamsAreChina]

I have just been in the UK and have bought some of the Lett's key stage books (mainly for English, as of course in Italy apart from numbers and contents of pencil cases, they aren't doing much) and looking at where my child seems to be I went for the age 9-10 books rather than the 7-8 which is their actual age IYSWIM?

[TwoPlusTwoEqualsFive]

Wow. So your DC is above her peer group in the UK for English?! That's really impressive. I now have massive inferiority complex as mine - who is very good at Italian - can only manage book 5 of Peter and Jane and can't write English words with more than 3 letters.

[ForYourDreamsAreChina]

To be honest I stopped looking at the UK equivalents at the same time as I chucked the Oxford reading scheme on the bonfire thinking if I had to read one more time about blimmin' Kipper and Skipper and whatever other daft names they have I might just lose the will to go on....My child's English spelling is up the creek (as might be expected given its non-regularity compared to Italian) but I'm not worrying about that as I think the more she reads, the more naturally the spelling will come IYSWIM?

Let us know how you go on this year when the school starts again, as Franca says there is a big difference between prima and seconda, and I've been told, an even bigger one once they get into terza...(I'm imagining being on the phone all afternoon to Italian mamma friends asking them to help me!!)

[firstgreatholswiththree]

Can you find a teacher that knows the UK curriculum out there? What 1 hour of extra help can give your child is quite a lot at this age. Having moved countries I would have started with a tutor if I could have found one but I do have two others to look after and it was hard work to fit in time with our first child (year 3). Maths Whizz has really helped DD and has given us an idea of what sort of things they are covering.

[firstgreatholswiththree]

p.s I was more concerned about the writing side of things because they didn't get much practise our previous country. It was definitely harder for me to work out levels in that area to. The bit to watch out for with home tutoring for maths (from my experience) is that they need to understand not only the maths but how and when to apply it.