Trying to help 8 yo DS with maths :(

[GahBuggerit]

Hi all

My 8yo DS is not very good at Maths. He can allow his mind to wander off and initially I thought that was what came first, so he wasn't listening to the teachers explanations, but after spending a lot more time with him on the subject I've realised hes switching off because he just doesn't get it, he wants to - tells me he feels stupid compared to his friends :( - but he just can't.

I don't want to blame the teacher as such - she has a class of 20-odd other kids to concentrate on after all, but I do get a general feeling of that shes done all she can with him. She keeps giving him homework that is way to complicated for him when I feel she should give him work that is stretching but also within his capability to try and get him enthusiastic about it again. I keep leaving notes on his homework asking for advice on how I can explain things and / or work that is at his level so we can work together to get him up to where he needs to be but I get nothing back.

Homework is a nightmare, tears, upset, frustration, so my stance has always been if its upsetting, we stop it. There have been times when hes pretended to be upset but Im generally pretty good at spotting when hes pulling a fast one so we persevere as much as we can until it does eventually get genuinely upsetting (for both of us)

The latest one is subtraction, and me trying to explain "taking" from the next column so eg. 958 - 265 using the method where you do 958 then 265 underneath, 2 lines and subtract 5 from 8 first and so on. However, when I try and explain how, because you can't subtract 6 from 5, you change the 9 to an 8 and add the 1 to the 5 to make it 15, subtract 6 from 15 etc etc - I confuse even myself even though I know what it is I want to explain so I end up saying "its just what you do" which isnt helpful as I want to be able to explain WHY you do this.

I bought a Maths practice book that I thought may help but it doesn't really explain anything, just shows an example, not the why.

I look at the sort of things he should be able to do and I could cry because hes so way off. Dont get me wrong he can be a lazy bugger and very stubborn, but hes very clearly got the ability its just we havent been able to engage him enough.

Can anyone recommend any resources to help me explain this? Or any suggestions as to what I can do?

(Im in work currently so may not be able to respond for a little while)

Go back to the grid method until he's much more confident. Once he's understood how grid works then he should be able to see that column is a short cut way of doing the grid method.

I highly recommend Mathsfactor. My 8 year old has become very confident in maths with this online programme. There is a suggested level to start based on the child's age, but it is very easy to start at an easier level or move up a harder level. We often jump stages to match what is being covered at school.

It's called partitioning. It's how we teach prior to learning column addition or subtraction.

Honestly? If it were me, I would back off. A parent helping in the wrong way is going to make things much worse ! If he is genuinely struggling, invest in a tutor for a few months to iron out any misconceptions and get his basic place value and number work sorted.

First port of call is speaking to his class teacher. Book an appointment for after school. Ask for a genuine assessment of where he is (i.e. is he behind or does he just struggle on a couple of topics) and go from there. Ask for evidence to show that the homework is differentiated (i.e. there should be hard/medium/easy versions of the same work) - is he being given the right homework? Children should be able to do their homework without the assistance of their parent.

Money spent on a tutor would be better for the pair of you than these battles over homework, which no doubt is turning him off maths currently.

Couple of great channels on youtube for him to watch - mathantics is fab.

ahh yes so 8 + 9 = 17 on one line
then 6(0) + 1(0) = 70
then 17 + 70 = 87??

So instead of doing the carry over at the top you do it underneath. Guessing this method is all in keeping with the tens, thousands etc. I did wonder if that was how it would be but did want to double check with teach before I went ahead

Please believe me when I say I am actually quite bright. my mum told me so

OP - re. Conquer Maths you could join the home education annual subscription. Search for Debbie Towns Conquer Maths it works out £32 annually.

I'll see if I can find a link later when I'm home

I get what you mean about backing off (would be easier for me!!) but he wouldnt even make an attempt at it, he would just stare at it and cry that he was 'stupid'

I cant not help him when hes saying things like that.

Torture might be a good call.

TUTOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Its a bit too soon for torture

sorry got to dash again, sincere thanks everyone so far, I really mean it. Loads of ideas and links etc for me to look at.

What do others think about the tutor idea (not to say its a bad idea Star just seeing what others think). Im actually thinking this might be the way to go but it feels a bit.........I dunno........like the easy way out? I feel like I should be able to help him.

Funny I would never have considered a tutor as I thought they were £££ but a quick check has coe up with a few i my area that are £20ish for an hour. is that good?

I have a similar problem with my DD in year 4. In her case I think the main problem was confidence so I told her we would do 10 minutes of maths every day and I wanted her to do it without fuss. At first she could choose any resource she liked, games on the tablet were a big favourite! Then later on I encouraged her to do more structured work in worksheets and books etc. We have a subscription to urbrainy.com which has lots of sheets to print and starts with sheets for pre-schoolers so you could choose something simpler to start. Just in the last couple of weeks I have seen her confidence increase in that she now chooses to do a Carol Vorderman book of 10 minutes a day Maths. She isn't perfect by any means but my goal wa really to get her to the stage where she wouldn't switch off in class and create a vicious circle of fear and lack of confidence. At her last parent consultation I was really pleased that the teacher could see she had improved. It made all the extra effort (and arguments) worthwhile.

If I have a question like 23 - 5
I usually say that I have a 2 packets of sweets which has 10 sweets in each packet and 3 loose sweets. If I have to give 5 sweets away to 5 kids I need to open one of the packets so I will be left with one whole packet and then 13 loose sweets to take the 5 sweets from.

The school is failing if they allow the situation to continue. Talk to the headteacher. They should offer some one-to-one help during the school day and this support should be able to offer different techniques to help - until one of them works. (Keep up the extra help at home, also.)

I turned to mathsfactor

Now £ 9.99 a month - I've gone from children struggling to being very confident and now all ahead of where they are supposed to be.

I got fewer arguments than when I tried to sit down and help them. It covers methods school now teach and one DH and I know - which they sometime prefer.

They can also go back and slowly build their confidence up.

Hi, yr 3 ta here. You definitely need to go back to basics and do a lot of partitioning of number. He needs to understand what each digit in a number represents before doing exchanging ( new speak for borrowing and carrying). E.g can he tell you that the number 52= 50 + 2 and therefore that the 5 is 5 tens not 5 and the 2 is 2 ones or units. Once he understands this then you can move on and do expanded addition and subtraction with no exchanges. E. G 52 + 24 29-15

50 + 2.

20 + 4.

-----

70 + 6.

Recombine = 76.

20+ 9 ( 9-5) (20-10)
-10+5
----
10 + 4

Recombine = 14

Add the units or ones first. Then the tens and recombine to get the answer. Once he is secure with this then look at adding with exchanges. Use the same expanded method.
E.g
17 + 24

10 + 7
20 + 4
–----
30 + 11 exchange/ move 10 into the 10s column
–---

Make sure he understands that 11 is a 2 digit number and made of 1 lot of 10 and 1 unit so you therefore exchange or move the 10 into the 10s column where it belongs and leave the one unit in the units column

So 30 + 11 becomes
30 + 10 + 1 ans 41

You can show subtraction in the same way

52- 13

50 + 2

10+ 3.

–---

Start with units. Can't do 2-3 so I therefore need to exchange by moving 1 lot of 10, 2 therefore becomes 12. Because you have moved 1 lot of 10 across you need to subtract ten from the tens so 50 becomes 40. We can now do the sum.

40 + 12 ( 12-3)
10 + 3. ( 40-10)
---
30 + 9

Recombine = 39

Once he is secure then you can move on to short column addition and subtraction because he will understand why the numbers move and not just following a process.

Sorry for the mammoth post but hope this helps.

Ps. Agree school should be putting in the effort to support him. My afternoons are spent running interventions just like this for the children in my class.

I think tutor is good idea. But it depend on how confident you are about teaching him yourself. There are a lot of tutorial you tube videos now(ones I gave link to are great, but there are hundreds of others), so you can try doing it yourself with help of those, if you have time and patience.

Also good idea to subscribe to one of maths sites, if your ds' school doesn't already.

thanks everyone, cass your post was v helpful......everyones has. ive obvs tried to look online myself but therd are so many........good to have some recommended.

ds isnt keen on the tutor idea, says it will feel like school, i said thats the idea but you can ask questions without feeling awkward etc buthes not into the idea at all. not now anyway. ive said we'll have a look at all the links and pick which one he prefers and take it ftom there, see how he gets on.

thread has given me a bit of resolve to speak to his teacher aswell. shes dodged out of the times ive asked when shes available so i can leave work early but im off for a week soon so will ask for a meeting then.

also going to try the sweets aswell. have tried beford but half heartedly on my part i admiy. i just didnt realise how far behind he is until now :(

I think it's great you are dealing with it now. Still plenty of time before secondary.
In my country, school starts when children are 6/7. So, he could only be in school for 2 years in my country.
I struggled with maths at first. My father helped me every night after work for while, and it suddenly clicked. I think I was 8 or 9 back then.
Good luck with meeting!

You might find something to help from standard information, which may 'fill in gaps' :

Practical things are best for grasping number concepts - bricks, Lego, beads, counters, money, shapes, weights, measuring, cooking.

Do adding, taking away, multiplication (repeated addition), division (sharing), using REAL OBJECTS as just 'numbers' can be too abstract for some children.

Number Bonds of Ten forms the basis of much maths, so try to learn them. Using Lego or something similar, use a LOT of bricks (of just TWO colours, if you have enough) lay them out so the pattern can be seen of one colour INCREASING while the other colour DECREASES. Lay them down, or build up like steps.

So:
ten of one colour none of other
nine of one colour one of other
eight of one colour two of other
seven of one colour three of other
etc,
then of course, the sides are equal at 5 and 5; after which the colours 'swap over' as to increasing/decreasing.

To learn TABLES, do them in groups that have a relationship, thus:

x2, x4, x8

x3, x6, x12

5 and 10 are easy

7 and 9 are rather harder.

Starting with TWO times TABLE, I always say: "Imagine the class is lining up in pairs; each child will have a partner, if there is an EVEN number in the class. If one child is left without a partner, then the number is ODD, because an odd one is left out."

Use Lego bricks again, lay them out in a column of 2 wide to learn 2x table. Go half way down the column, and move half the bricks up, so that now the column is 4 bricks wide. That gives the start of 4x table.

Then do similar things with 3x and 6x.

With 5x, try and count in 'fives', and notice the relationship with 'ten' - they will alternate, ending in 5 then 10.

It is important to try and UNDERSTAND the relationships between numbers, and not just learn them 'by rote'.

An inexpensive solar powered calculator (no battery to run out!) can help learn tables by 'repeated addition'. So: enter 2+2 and press = to give 4. KEEP PRESSING = and it should add on 2 each time, giving 2 times table.

There are good web sites, which can be fun to use :

www.ictgames.com/

www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/page/default.asp?title=Woodlands%20Junior%20School&pid=1

Hi, similar problems here with my DD (Y3). Her teacher recommended me hiring a tutor.

However, I somehow don't think it would work. Ideally, maths needs to be practised (nearly) every day for a short period of time (according to her teacher as well) rather than once a week for a longer period of time. Also, I very much doubt that it is the case of ironing out any misconceptions with the help for a tutor for a few months and all is sorted. We've been battling maths with various intensity ever since the beginning of Y2, since it become obvious that how difficult it is.

We use all sorts of things, e. g. egg keeper for understanding time table (so 34 is not 43), measuring cups, medicine spoons for volume, card games developed for arithmetic, lots of drawings for explaining fractions etc. (Not a dramatically different outcome though.) I'm so well equipped by now, that I should set up my own maths club.

Well..............we tried to do the subtraction homework again last night.

Hence me on my lunch hour now looking at some of the maths sites so subscribe him to as it didnt go very well - was going to wait until I had some time at the weekend but Im 'on one' about it now and just want to get it sorted so I;ve started to take steps asap.

And I dont think it will be a good idea to let him pick which site actually, he will likely faff about and I feel I need to take a bit of control here - especially as I said he is a lazy stubborn little tit bugger so my plan is to go home, tel him I listened to him not wanting a tutor and so Ive got him his own subscription to a maths website especially for kids and get this DS - you get to use Mummys precious, oh so precious waaaaaah laptop that even Daddy isnt allowed to use so it makes it all a bit "ooooooh" but I will kill him if he breaks it

I wont be involved except to help him log on, he can have his fave soft drink (VERY rare treat, its sugar free....) and some snacks while hes on it again to make it a bit of fun and he can spend half an hour a night on it and an hour at weekend. I'll promise not to do it with him so its just 'his' but will get him to agree that he will work through it. Im assuming I can log in and check his progress etc

AND I've decided that when he gets up to scratch, I'll buy him a particular game related thing he has wanted for a very long time, it costs about £100, massively extravagant when his normal treats are kinder eggs and such like but I feel I should give him something to aim for and a reward for trying and succeeding (because I know he will, I have got faith in my little tit lad) as he does find it very distressing.

I'll let you know how we get on. In the meantime Ive printed this thread out so I can have a proper read of the methods you have all suggested etc so we can keep up the techniques while hes off line.

fingers crossed!!!!

If you can get loads of coins, then set out sums where you have however many pennies in each units square, 10ps in the 10s, and £1 coins in the hundrends squares, then the concept of borrowing a 10p and turning it into 10 pennies in the units may become clearer.

Currently my 8yo gets and loved addition and subtraction, understands multiplcation and can work out any sum... very slowly. Resists the idea of memorising tables, so if I ask how to make 24, he starts testing 2.....times 12.....3......time 8, 4....times 6..... 5... eventually gives up....

Could he be dyscalculic? In my experience, schools are fairly quick to recognise and put methods in place to support dyslexia but dyscalculia is less well recognised. dd is both dyslexic and dyscalculic. Her first 5 - 6 years at primary focused on the dyslexia and getting her reading. Her maths failed to progress beyond P2 (year 1 -2 ) level. She cannot learn number bonds. She struggles with learning tables - you think she has them fixed but then they're gone again. But she has developed strategies herself to work them out. It took until her last year at primary for some intervention to be put in place. Giving her the use of table squares and a calculator have pushed her maths on. She's in her 3rd year at secondary and we have discovered she can actually handle many maths topics (algebra / basic trig) etc but struggles a lot with arithmetic.
When it came to subtraction (which she could not do in a linear form) we found putting it into columns really worked for her. It does help to use physical materials - blocks etc but with her it works if she can learn a rule and then apply it - even if she does not always understand it.

Could you just get a tutor ( in the shape of a specialist teacher)? It's all about the concepts, best explained visually, with aids that they can touch and manipulate and without much of just being talked at.