Year 4 dd - report says below average in maths

[jollymollie]

My dd is in year 4 and we've just had her school report. She is above average in absolutely everything except for Maths. She has always found this subject extremely difficult and because of this she doesn't want to do it. This makes me trying to help her very hard resulting in tantrums etc etc. I have always been told by her teachers that even though she struggles and doesn't enjoy it she's always been 'average'. This is the first time she's been labelled 'below average'. Maths is so important and I'm really upset for her that she's doing so badly but how can I help her?? She hates it and doesn't want to listen when I try to help. Does anyone have any advice please?

What is the actual end of year level you have been given. Nationally expected level for this age is a 3b.

What action is the school proposing for next year?

Talk to the teacher. A report is just a snippet of the whole picture- I could talk for England about all 31 kids in my class, for every subject, but my report boxes were 150 words so there isn't much space to explain the whole picture.

I find sitting at the table trying to do maths work is not much fun and is usually met with little enthusiasm. I try to make maths lessons at home fun and relevant. For example use it in baking or cooking when you have to weigh and measure, or out shopping when you need to add up prices or estimate totals. A fun exercise is to choose a recipe with your child, make the shopping list together and then get her to take charge of picking out the ingredients and paying for it at the shop - use cash (coins) not a credit card. She can jot down the prices onto the list as she goes around the shop and then estimate how much the bill will come to. Once you've baked the cake you can use that to teach fractions by cutting the round cake into portions. You can teach data handling by going out for a walk to obtain data about the things you see, for example how many of each colour car did you see or different types/colours of dogs, different types of transport or whatever might interest her. I remember one exercise I did with my daughter and son which they really enjoyed was to buy a few packs of smarties and sort the different coloured smarties and then draw a bar chart to represent it all. They got to eat the smarties afterwards :)

I'd talk to the teacher and find out the area that she needs help in before anything else. It might be an 'across the board' issue or she may be struggling with one concept that impacts a variety of areas.

Clarity first. Plan second.

Decide if you are the type of person that can come up with 'fun' ways of learning maths (I'm not!), if not then look at websites etc for help.

We use Education City sometimes and my dd seems to like it. Otherwise I'm afraid we're a sit down and do some extra work type of family but that works for us.

Hi Jollymollie:

Our DD1 was really struggling with maths - as in unable to take 1 from 10 by the end of Y2. We turned to mathsfactor [http://www.themathsfactor.com/] which has worked well for us. You have choices of worksheets, the on-line tutorial with a monthly subscription or summer school [http://www.themathsfactor.com/summerschools/default.aspx]. They will test your DD's ability and start work from there.

Now I hasten to add that there are a lot of other options available out there:

Mathletics: www.mathletics.co.uk/
Mathswhizz: www.whizz.com/

and of course a range of workbooks available as well.

What we enjoy about the on-line tutorials is that it can fit around our lives and can be done as and when DD1 is able.

If your DD responds better to video games and slow, sequential building blocks of skills then I think any of these on-line options would be a good idea. I think they all have free trials and demonstrations - so do have a look around and see what you can do.

With DD1 (now Y4) I'm about to help - mainly with the writing pen on screen, which she hates, but she's doing the bulk of the work. The regular practice and clear instruction have made a huge improvement in her work. Obviously I'm speaking 2 years on from when we started - but I think it is important to understand it is a gradual thing, but the improvements do come.

Anyway I do understand - I was definitely in the same boat 2 years ago - with a very angry and unwilling 7 year old who was absolutely convinced she was no good at math. I hope one of these options may be the solution for you - but at the very least they're worth a try.

sorry jollymollie:

mathsfactor link here: www.themathsfactor.com/

and summer school www.themathsfactor.com/summerschools/default.aspx.