Struggling with Maths - would a Maths app help?

[hookedonharibo]

Hi, I have a DD in Y4 and a DS in Y5, my DS has ASD but is in a mainstream school. Both are doing okay in everything apart from Maths. They can do the basics which they've learnt by rote (times tables, addition, subtraction etc) but can't apply what they know and they're at the point where it's becoming a problem and they both say they hate Maths. The school are doing what they can but should I be thinking about paying for an app like IXL to try and help them in a (hopefully) fun way?

My ds use IXL for both maths and English, but not for actual learning, but just to make sure he doesn't have any gaps in knowledge. It doesn't teach you any concept. It's very repetitive, and not fun way of learning,
though my ds loves it.
Actual learning, he use other websites .

Thanks @irvineoneohone It sounds like IXL may be not the right thing! Can you recommend any websites to help with the concepts?

For maths, I recommend Khanacademy

This site has very good video tutorial for each topic/concepts and practice questions.

Also these videos are very good.

www.mathantics.com/

DD is in Y6 and while she was good in doing actual sums she struggled knowing what operation to use and how to understand the concept of word questions like "Phil has 3 bananas, Donna 2 apples. Toghether with Kim they have 10 pieces of fruit. How any pieces does Kim have".

For us only a tutor helped. DD got intense 1-to1 sessions where she learned tasks how to find the relevant information in such concepts and what operation to apply. Since then her struggles got less, she still panics if she doesn't get it straight away but the tutor is worth the money.

We use apps, workbooks and websites at home to practice what has been covered, luckily DD loves doing them. That gives her the mental maths knowledge but to understand a concept they are not the best in my opinion.

Yes, @reluctantbrit my DD panics and doesn’t know how to tackle questions. Good advice, thank you.

Could you not play with them with maths? I used to do my dd's math homework sums at the same time as her and we would have a competition to see who finished first and who got the most right answers. But even a lot of board games require basic maths.

Try mathplayground.com. lots of great games on there for practising skills.
Snappymaths has lots of games and is helpful as they can be chosen by difficulty. It also has hundreds of worksheets to print.
Both are free.

Their is also Maths Seeds, which is part of the Reading Eggs site. Its pretty good, although might be for younger kids.