Primary school maths getting difficult for our kids ..

[harold81]

blog.mathsloth.com/2017/08/worldtop10elementarymathsqns.html

My DD ( primary 1 ) tried the list of questions .. and was 3 for 10. She managed the U.S. question, but the Hong Kong and China's primary 1 questions were slightly too difficult for her. The UK ones - she already knew when her teacher covered briefly with the class.

I have a feeling the standard of maths is unnecessarily high for primary school kids. The world's schools seem to think otherwise.. wonder how kids in other countries cope ..

Irvine.

Most children, particularly those who arent the most able arithmaticians need loads and loads of practice of basic skills involving recall of number bonds and tables. Most mainstream schools just dont seem to plan "little and often" sessions into each day, probably due to the NC originally hijacking all sensible thinking eith the Literacy and Numeracy hours.

Irvine – please tell me you are Asian. Or alternatively tell me not to be nosey. That’s fine too!

Rafa – I agree that prevailing cultural attitudes will impact the league table significantly.

kesstrel – Children with the potential to think in mathematically sophisticated ways could be put off maths in the early years if they struggle with language. It seems such a shame.

Out, yes, but not stating which country.

probably due to the NC originally hijacking all sensible thinking with the Literacy and Numeracy hours.

That's an interesting point about the negative effects of the concentration of numeracy into a single hour. However, I'm not sure that thinking about maths pre-1997 was all that sensible. I seem to recall a huge fuss about the idea of children having to practise mental maths in class, and also about having to use whole-class teaching rather than small groups or the individualised work-sheet based methods that many schools used back then.

Thanks for that Irvine – no need to be more specific!

One positive feature of the British system that I have noticed from my DS’s schooling has been that there is a willingness to allow students to look for different ways of solving problems. I think this encouragement to explore will prove beneficial in the long run – from the perspective of producing an innovative workforce -- even if it slows progress in the short term.

And a short mathematical interlude in case anyone is interested.

From the link in the OP:

Q. 4. 1st grade maths test problem from Hong Kong.

1 o 4 = 10
2 o 5 = 14
6 o 10 = 40
9 o 11 = 30
1 o 10 = ?

a o b = ½(a+b)(1+b-a) is a general algebraic form that fits the first 4 equations. This would give:

1 o 10 = 55

It does seem advanced for 1st grade (6 year olds?!) to me.

The initial numeracy strategy wasn't a bad document.

The follow up Primary national strategy was dire and would have been best kept in the back of a cupboard or filed in the bin.

There never was a numeracy hour although most schools seemed to believe there was. Personally I thought the Numeracy strategy was better thought out than literacy but disliked all the jumping from one "topic" to another before children were ready to move on.

Rafa is right China has a very different culture and attitude to education that we can't just transport to the UK so wholesale adopting of methods from other countries and expecting them to work miracles is naive.

The problem is/was not enough time for regularly learning and practising recall of basic facts and strategies. Even at Alevel most learners find that confidence and surety of using a good method to get the right answer only comes after practice, practice, practice. I agree that until children have mastery of the skills and strategies, attempting word problems is very tricky for them.

I am talking about the vast majority of children, not the G&T offspring of MNetters of course

OutwiththeOutCrowd Algebra would be too advanced for the 1st grade kids. I encountered this previously - it tests the concept (but not the formula of) basic Arithmetic Progression. Coincidentally, your formula works out to be an Arithmetic Progression where n=(1+b-a), leading to ½ n (a+b), which is the AP formula.

The answer for the child to work out is to observe, try, enumerate and sum the numbers from A to B :
1 o 4 = 10 : 1 + ( 2 + 3 ) + 4 = 10
2 o 5 = 14 : 2 + ( 3 + 4 ) + 5 = 14
6 o 10 = 40 : 6 + ( 7 + 8 + 9 ) + 10 = 40
9 o 11 = 30 : 9 + ( 10 ) + 11 = 30
1 o 10 = ? : 1 + ( 2 + 3 + ... + 8 + 9) + 10 = 55

I agree completely that the children would not have been using algebra.
I found it useful as an adult to express it that way.

I still feel that the example problems from the East Asian countries are more challenging than those from the USA or the UK and that they are testing pattern finding skills in an interesting way.

I am East Asian and I agreed to Out!

I came across the couple of similar questions like your example above( slightly harder) during looking for 11+ Verbal reason practice and I found some of them are challenging. I was hoping we are moving to UK, it is supposed to be less competitive, I am clearly wrong.

I am still collecting papers, books, materials and try to plan how to tutor her over the kitchen table the next few months. It wont be easy and I dont know where to start.

Actually I wonder whether a young oriental Carl Gauss might have been able to find a general formula for the above-mentioned problem whilst still at primary school, given that he came up with his formula for the sum of the first n integers when he was eight years old.

I think the East Asian maths problems linked are very challenging if it's completely new to a child. However once you have seen a problem, next time you have one added possible solution in your list of things to try. Hence regular practice with exposure to these sort of questions will improve the success rate massively. A child in the UK will probably be very unfamiliar to these sort of question format, so hard to directly compare.

That said, getting solid foundation maths skill is one of the top priority of primary education in East Asia, and parents are very keen to support their children until they achieve it.

I don't think it was lack of time for sustained practice. Partly it was a pedagogical choice. It's the idea that children will be bored by sustains practice and so won't learn as well or need a 'wow' activity to engage them in learning column addition.

I'm not sure it just applies to maths either. IMHO the same issue applies to phonics and so it may well apply to other areas of the curriculum.

Mrz, your linked channel "techmath" is awesome.Thanks!
We enjoyed watching lots of maths tricks.
I really think kids these days are so lucky.

Yes Rafals, perhaps a pedagogical choice and Mrz, perhaps a misunderstanding of the demands of the Numeracy Strategy plus a fear of Ofsted about 15+ years ago. Sadly still prevailling in many of the schools in my borough.

Clearly you need to ensure that the practice is appropriately matched to the childs current skills/knowledge, etc and that it is progressively challenging.

But personal experience has shown me that for primary-aged children (excepting those who are naturally gifted at maths), confidence comes with lots of practice, and if ypu keep the sessions short and sharp, they do not find it boring but reassuring as they can actually see their skills and recall improving over time.

We piloted the Numeracy strategy but decided not to follow it (many schools didn't seem to realise neither the Lit or Num strategies/frameworks were statutory).

In our borough, there was a mass panic about the NC literacy and numeracy because of Ofsted/SATS/league tables and being in a massively "deprived' area which led to good solid practice being replaced by what they appeared to prescribe.

It meant that there was "no time" in the day for reading aloud to children But lots of time introducing them toa myriad of different ways to solve maths problems, which were unconfidently and badly taught and left most children very confused

the sheer number of different methods and the limited time for teaching them before moving onto the next one led to a sort of 'Jack of all trades, master of non' issue.

We ended up ditching a lot of them because we felt that it was better for the kids to have 1 or 2 methods for calculating they could use confidently rather than 5 or 6 they could sort of use on a good day.

The big diff. I find with Japan is that kids do a lot more practice of everything they learn. They also get sent home with summer holiday homework, which in maths will include regular practice of maths facts and problems.

Take China's magic results with a pinch of salt; they tend to be "Shanghai" rather than China as a whole. China as a whole is a vast and often very poor country. Which is not to say that there are not certain things that the west could learn from, of course.

And YY to the above comments about the nonsense of teaching kids a million different ways to solve problems.

I think the idea is "We want kids to THINK mathematically!" but in my experience, really understanding is something that develops through the process of just doing loads and loads of problems. If pupils are wasting loads of time bumbling about learning different strategies (and painstakingly covering pages with numbers and arrows and diagrams to "show that they are using XYZ method to solve the problem"), then they will be left with very little time to actually do lots of problems.

I personally think introducing lots of different way is actually not a bad idea. I think it will encourage the children to understand concept more deeply.
But problem is, they don't seem to practice each one thorough enough so that the children master it and be able to use it. They just seems to move on to next one, so it just become wasted time for many.

I was astonished when ds was taught these methods from reception teacher. She was a maths specialist and inspired my ds so much.
add 10s then minus 1(or 2, etc.)
so, 19 + 59 = 19 + 60 -1 = 78, or

minus 10s then add 1
56 - 38 = 56 -40 +2 = 18.
I don't think I was never taught this way when I was a child, the way I was taught was very rigid. I was impressed by English way.

irvineoneohone I absolutely agree with you. Mathematics should not be taught as a subject where formulas or fixed approaches are to be applied. Mathematics is a means to problem-solving and children to be taught that a problem can be solved in various, different ways. Only then can the child assimilate and appreciate by himself or herself which way is most optimal and effective for problem-solving.

I think overloading children with different methods too early is detrimental and better to teach one method initially. If a child/rent isn't grasping that method then try other ways (with them) until you find a way they understand. So much time was wasted on teaching different methods.