reading at the expense of numeracy

[TheGreatHunt]

A lot of threads on here talk about reading and getting children to read. Does this mean that numeracy levels are ok or is there more to do in terms of teaching children numeracy?

It's a very garbled way of asking whether I need to be doing little bits of numeracy as well as reading every day when ds starts school?

My DC school seems to focus more on reading and writing - the home work is very rarely maths based. I think the other parents pick up on that focus.

In fact maths homework didn't come home regularly till YR 4 and then mainly times table stuff. Though by that stage there are several DC in my eldest class who are completely scared by maths and struggling - I know that by talking to their parents and occasionally comments about maths from the DC.

I will say in the pre-school years basic maths concepts counting, numbers, colors, shapes were automatic part of playing with things - while the jolly phonics was more a conscious choice.

Parents are directly involved in reading because reading requires endless amounts of practise.

See IMO maths does too or at least for our DC.

Plus the DC school does seem to have teachers who don't seem very confident with some maths and some concepts are rushed which has cause our DC some anxiety with certain concepts which we then have to get them past.

Authors are invited to speak on TV panels (even when their books are written about a totally different subject). But how often do TV companies invite random mathematicians to debate the ethics of abortion, or even the statistics of climate change? (Mind you, I'm not sure how big the audience would be for a statistics debate.)

I wonder if tv types choose people they know and tend not to have links to maths/statistics people.

I bet Marcus Du Sautoy and Hans Rosling would be excellent debaters.

At vase level, English is core to success in every subject. Maths isn't

Somebody touched on this upthread in regard to tables left undone till Y4.

One of the ongoing problems is the accessibility of maths. Everyone knows that where English is concerned, if you don't like a particular book you can simply choose a different one.

But in the case of maths, if a concept is presented in an inaccessible form there's not much you can do at the time. (Today with the Internet and perseverance you can read around and re-teach yourself, if you're old enough.)

I very much remember a problem we were set on volume which read

If a pig in a bath displaces x amount of water....

And I asked why do we need to know this? We don't put pigs in baths.

Children are expected to know ALL their times tables by Year 4 so if some schools are leaving it until Y4 they aren't following the curriculum.

Maths is a life skill. Incredibly important.

I agree.

Einstein called compound interest the most powerful force on Earth.

An inability to understand compound interest can ruin people. Harness its power if you possibly can.