Any tips on how to get yr5 child better at maths word problems?

[Hathall]

Ds1s teacher says ds1 makes silly mistakes in maths and finds two and three step word problems tricky.
Can anyone give any suggestions in how to help him? Any recommended websites or books?

A highlighter can be useful for word problems. Highlight the numbers, and any words that suggest what calculations need to be done like 'total', 'difference' or 'altogether'.

Does he actually know the different maths words? A glossary could help.

Thanks. That's a great idea. I'll try to get a glossary together for him.

What noble said.

Does school use RUCESAC?

Read, Underline, Choose (the calculation method), Estimate, Solve, Answer, Check?

Also sometimes drawing pictures, or moving physical objects can help.

Occasionally using simpler numbers the child 'instinctively' knows the answer then they can work out what calculation they chose and go from there.

Sometimes drawing bars can help - I'll do one and take a photo, it's probably easier...

Damien had 16 stickers. His mum gave him 12 more. He then gave half to his brother. How many did he have left?

So we draw bars to show what we know and what we need to find out.

www.amazon.co.uk/Step-By-Step-Problem-Solving-Grade-Singapore/dp/1609964799

Singapore math teaches strategies for problem solving. I suggest you start off with grade 3 if your son is in year 4

Google 'Thinking Blocks'. It is a free site that gives different problems and models how to solve it. I would highly recommend it! X