Lost it with dd over maths :(

[paddlinglikehell]

I feel really ashamed of myself, as I totally lost it today.

DD has some maths sent home for the holidays (YR2 age 7 Sept. birthday), she moved schools and her maths is showing some gaps with the basics.

Addition seems no problem, but subtraction she seems to have hit a wall. The sums were things like 19-6 and 16-4, basically numbers up to 20.

Now she seems to know her number bonds and I went through some of the ways she could work the sums out, although her prefered method is literally counting back on her fingers (fair enough). However, when she started doing them, I noticed that she would start counting wrong on her fingers, would then just add the numbers together, like she forgot she was doing subtraction (they were all subtraction!). Part way through she just gave up and said they were too hard.

I know it is a lot do to with confidence and started to help her, but she then just switched off and couldn't even do 17-3 (As she isn't grasping the use of number bonds, I suggested she just look at the units 7-3 and then add the 10), but she then couldn't work out 7-3!!

It all ended badly, she put her fingers in her ears and refused to listen!!! I then shouted at her that she couldn't just 'give up' and that she was going to be left behind everyone even more if she didn't just try.

I know it was the wrong thing to do and it won't help, Poor little mite, looked so shocked at me. I feel horrid. I am just frustrated - not that she doesn't know how to do them, but the fact she just is not willing to listen. I feel mean and don't know where to go from here. I don't think I am cut out for this parenting business!!!

sorry that's 8 terms - now I just can't type.

'The trick is to make it as stress-free as possible.'

Agreed, stress blocks effective learning.

My ds is 7 and came home with subtraction homework. The teacher (who is excellent) had stapled a sheet to the front explaining how they use number lines and a demo or count on from the lower number instead of counting back on fingers. She even included a piece of blank paper to draw the number lines on. My dd is in the same class but year 3 as it's a small school. Her group are doing more complicated subtraction with a different teacher, and she has also bought homework home, but with no idea at all where to start. She massivley lacks confidence when it comes to numeracy and I must admit I have had to back away before now as she tends to switch off and announces she can't do something before the sheet is even out of her bag. It's a real shame as she can do it eventually she just needs an extra few goes to get it too sink in. We also have to come back to it sometimes otherwise there would be a stand up row between us as she is nearly as stubborn as me!

Is she using a number line at school for the maths. This was how my 2 were taught, and they still visualise this method now they are in yr6. Draw a line and puut on it the numbers 1-20 equally spaced. Get DD to put her pencil at the start number and draw arches down the line 1 digit at a time, and the number she ends up at is the solution. It looks like this in the end 7-3 = 4 nnn 7 IYSWIM
Don't worry too much tho, I had endless shouting matches discussions with my 2 before we finally broke through the "i can't do it" barrier.

My DD is also having a melt down at this moment over her maths homework (it is 8pm here), she is 16. She is good at maths but doesn't enjoy it and just moans all the time rather than actually doing it.

Sorry to hijack OP, I just saw the thread title and thought that is me at this very moment. DH and I are having a big talk with her. She is ignoring us. She is lying on the sofa with her sweatshirt hood pulled over her head.

I don't have any advice I am afraid but I share your pain.

PS I am a maths teacher!

I don't see how any "normal" seven year old child can't subtract one digit from a two digit number. I think it's possible that if it was presented to some seven year olds as a sum in mathematical notation, (column subtraction) then maybe some children couldn't do it. But given fifteen marbles and being asked to take away seven they'd soon come up with the answer eight. So then they'd agree that eight and seven make fifteen and fifteen take away seven is eight. It's hard to argue with, especially if you've got the marbles on the floor. Once that's done you can write it on a piece of paper

15
-7

=

and the child will say eight. So she writes 8.

I don't think it's 'shocking' to be at that stage. Below average perhaps, but not shocking. These things cannot be forced. The child needs to learn at their own pace and get those basics firmly in place before trying to move on. Especially with numeracy. Once the concept is understood, the child can move on a quite a pace sometimes. But often they do need a lot of support.

OP another thing you could count with would be money. Just pennies so that your dd can count in 1s. Money is another tricky one and many children who can add 17 and 3 cannot add 17p and 3p (especially using 10p, 5p 2p pieces) so introducing this as 'just another thing we can count' would give her a good basis for money work too. And playing with money is fun .

Hi LeeCoakley

Number bonds. Schools seem to be very enamored of bonds to 10 and bonds to 20.

So children knowing - 1+9, 2+8, 3+7, 4+6, 5+5, 6+4, 7+3, 8+2 and 9+1 all =10. and same principle for various sums to 20.

The problem seems to be (at least from our experience) is that they rather gloss over the patterns for the numbers between.

So how should number bonds help with 17-3?

Well if your DC understood that 3 + 4/ 4 +3 = 7 - really internally knew that
then they should almost instantly be able to see if you take 3 from 7 you get 4
if you take 3 from 17 you should get 14.

What we found - is this emphasis on only knowing bonds for 10 and 20 - left a lot out.

Go back to concrete - give her some things (pasta shapes, lego etc) to use as a prop to use for the sums until she feels more confident. She's struggling with the switch from concrete (ie things she can touch and move around) and abstract (moving things in her imagination).

No problem, back to the pasta - or mini eggs - even better

ps I am a teacher, used to teach yr 3

I've found the easiest thing is to use number lines, DS2's teacher gave us one which goes up to 50 but you can just draw your own on a piece of paper. I think that works better as they don't think of the number line as being some magical thing they can't do without - you can just do your own whenever you need to, it doesn't have to start at 0 but at whatever number you choose. It presents a very clear way of adding and subtracting

I would also ditch counting on fingers as she doesn't have 20 fingers, so using objects would be much easier for her.

Only when she is confident with this method and can do it right every time, move on to putting the big number 'in her head' then counting back with fingers.

Thanks for all the comments. We have just had a cuddle and I apologised for shouting at her and said that I was wrong to do that - she then apologised for not listening!!! (bless her).

We sat down, got the cuisnaire rods out and did a few (there were 12), that way. I then asked if she would let me explain the easy way (counting up from the small number) and she did - then adding on the 10, so I presume they do that at school. She completed the lot correctly (sigh). However, I think it was the process she 'got', not the reasoning behind it!

I don't want to go back to a numberline - she hasn't used one for a long time, but if that is the only way, then I will.

I think apart from confidence, it is also ' I don't want to' because it is too much like hard work - so I totally go with the 'sometimes we just have to get on with it' camp, but this obviously was a complete stress block, my fault entirely - bad mummy. Not doing it at all and leaving it to the teachers is not an option for me, I left that at her old school and look what happened!!!

I am still not convinced the basics are there. Funnily enough, last night my otherhalf subscribed to the Mathsfactor for her - she doesn't know this yet, but loves using the computer. Pastsellby - I am glad to hear you found it helpful, certainly worth the try.

She is also determined to do better than S...... at school, so has a bit of motivation going on that will help too.

I am going to speak to the teachers at the new school on how they teach too, hadn't thought of that one. Thanks.

Yes, I was being dense because I only ever think of number bonds for 10 and 20.

At school we make sure the children are secure with terms, (subtraction is taking away, getting smaller etc), secure with the physical before moving onto the abstract, and can take numbers away accurately from 10 before attempting higher 2-digit numbers. Our low ability year 2s can't always 'hold' a number in their head and lose the objective what they are trying to do very easily. We use number lines and 100 squares and jump once the concept is clear.

I wish we had a 'like' button, so much good advice.

Thankyou

Back to basics I am afraid, number subtraction only up to 10, she needs to be secure 100% with those to be able to relate her knowledge up to 20.
I just ask DD y1 17-4, 17-3, 19-4 and she answered without hesitation correctly, we go over number bonds every morning for five minutes, and result is DD mental calculations have really taken off.
Do it every day in short bursts, perhaps several times a day, while doing something else, she will be practising those bonds without even realising she is doing it.
I also prefer DD doing her mental maths without relying on props(number line, fingers) and feel it is crucial for them to feel secure and to know automatically how to give answer to simple sums.
It is also useful to teach her halves so: half of 20, of 18, of 16 all the way down to half of 2, repeat those every day, this will give your DD confidence and also help her to relate other numbers (16-8=8 would help with 16-9=7) and to easy and quickly find the answers, good luck.

Hi paddlinglikehell -

agree with strictlovingmum comment - short bursts 5 or 10 minutes here are there over the week seem to achieve more than one longer session. Keeping stress low for child (and more importantly Mum or Dad).

learnandsay - all I can say (and trust me I don't condone this) is school policy was not to teach counting with objects - only number lines. I was under strict instructions not to teach that way as 'I would only confuse her' - however we have taught DD2 this way from start (with crayons, legos, raisins, etc...) with great results.

I sincerely hope that my school doesn't try to give me strict instructions about anything. And if it seemed to me that their strict instructions were helping to confuse my daughter, (who doesn't seem to be having any comprehension problems at the moment,) then there would be ructions.

Hi learnandsay

No. No ructions. We took the school for their word, presuming they knew best, but gradually realised they just weren't any good at teaching maths.

However when OFSTED came to inspect we raised our concerns on a general level in a very carefully prepared letter (advice of teacher friends at other schools was sought). Our concerns were acknowledged, we were interviewed (quite pleasantly) and OFSTED specifically required improvement in maths provision, especially for girls, as part of their report.

It's probably too late for DD1, and we'll continue with mathsfactor because I prefer reliability. We hope, however, that it will bring improvements for everybody. It really isn't good enough for over 1/2 of Y6 to graduate without fully knowing their times tables to x10 or even being able to divide.

shortie3, I just read your post and hadn't heard of numicon until you mentioned it. Do you find it worthwhile? I'm just balking at the £32 for some plastic bits price tag. DCs are 5 and nearly 3 so we would get the early years kit.

Learnandsay, if you aren't already familiar with the process you'd better google "chunking", it was a bit of a surprise to me when I found out about it!

OP, funnily enough our DS (also yr2, age 6) had a meltdown last week with his homework about addition and subtraction of numbers with 2 or 3 digits so, for example, 419-39 or 523+36. He knows his number bonds, times tables and is fairly good at maths. I got a bit hot under the collar too then realised he was pretty tired because of the end of term. I also offered to "help" by teaching him hundreds, tens and units and he dissolved into tears so I left it.

We went back to it a few days later and he was fine. Then we tried the telling the time exercise and that's a whole other story

I'm used to training and teaching in the workplace and do so quite successfully but I really think having patience with little ones (especially your own!) to learn from scratch things that you know backwards and have done for many years is very difficult indeed. Hats off to the teachers, I say.

You could make your own numicon with card.I wouldn't buy it.

We have some in school and I love playing with it, very tactile.

Coming to this rather late but wanted to say that my Yr2 DD gets stressy around maths so the instant she doesn't get something quickly she panics and starts throwing wrong answers around like confetti. So she would probably give the wrong answer to 7-4 as well - not because she can't subtract a number that small but because she panics and starts shouting out numbers in the desperate hope she'll find the right one. When she does this I take a break, calm her down and reassure her and then, yes, go right back to basics - objects/a number line, even showing her HOW to do very basic stuff. We had the same situation with her 3 and 4 times tables this morning.

I have got like this with DD over maths. You are not alone.

Reading thread advice with interest.

I can sympathise, we've had tears too (aged 8) in the past. Agree best to leave it for a few days and think about your strategy - we do mathletics at school and last year paid for it at home but the novelty wore off quickly and there isn't much in the way of explanation. I bought some of the carol vorderman books and like the fact that they are old fashioned paper and pencil, with gold sticker rewards, and you can just pick up and say 'let's do a few questions' just for a short time here and there. I don't think there's anything wrong with counting on fingers both mine do it (aged 8 and 5), and the younger one has a number line on his desk at school. As DS1 says, 'i do maths my way mummy because it gives the right answer, other peoples way doesn't make sense'. You will likely be the best person to know what method of explanation will appeal to your daughter.

I'm sure you can help her yourself , i tried explaining calmly and kindly i was sorry i was angry, i just really wanted to help teach some 'tricks' to help, and the tears are long gone.

don't give up