Need a good maths app that practices real basics - Y2 but v behind

[drspouse]

DS is in Y2 but honestly I think he's come backwards on maths since Reception (when he said it was his favourite subject). He is totally resistant and if there's the slightest hurdle he gives up.
He can just about
Add up if he uses manipulables and you keep a close eye on him to make sure he isn't counting wrong. He could probably do this up to 100.
He can't remember that you don't need to count the first number again if you know what it is (e.g. you'll say, here's 5, and here's 2 more, how many have you got? and he'll start by counting the 5 again).
Subtract ditto
Count up to 100 but with a few glitches. When I say he's going backwards, he's started writing e.g. 61 as 16 and he STILL (not sure he ever stopped) reads 60 as Sixteen and 16 as Sixty, sometimes.
Count in 2s up to 20.

He can barely
Remember what + and - and = are
Count in 5s - probably to 20? though I heard him saying 5, 10, 15, 16.
Remember a few of his number bonds (e.g. he can just about tell me that if he has 3 apples and I give him 2 more, he'll have 5, without counting).

He can't at all
Count in 10s
Remember what x and division sign are

School have My Maths for homework but it only works on a desktop meaning that we sit DS down on the computer chair, he can't do a sum on the screen, we get him to try with the manipulables, he loses his place on the screen, he gets frustrated and gives up (he is also awaiting assessment for ADHD and has a microsecond's attention span and floor level resistance to frustration...)

They have another system we have a login to but when we tried the maths on that it went much too fast for him (it has fish and bubbles? I can't remember the name though).

Everything I've tried has oodles and oodles of practice with single digit names and then leaps ahead with about 2 goes at adding single digits which zip past much too fast.

We use top marks maths games, some are tablet friendly. My son asks to play this website as a fun activity, he doesn't even realise it's 'learning' games.

The issue with maths instructions being too hard for children to read has been around a loooooong time - my DM was a maths teacher in the 1980s and was complaining about it then and lo and behold it has not gone away.

My yr 2 dd can read and understand the instructions but still struggles anyway. The maths is quite tricky for their age.
I think they need to be doing pages of practice. I find say mathletics quite slow to use and will take 10-20min to do the 10q. But then i do think dd has adhd too and pda. So not a great combination as she doesn't want to be told to do the maths and resists. Loses concentration. But we can manage 20+mins doing it. It's frustrating as she could probably answer it very quickly and would overall learn so much more. But im just grateful that i missed this with the reading as she enjoyed it.
She didnt enjoy writing in yr r and that was a huge battle she would do a 'd' starting at the tail etc but also couldnt push to shape an a or o etc.
She seems to retain info it's just painful to get her to do what she is supposed to (in general too). However she cant see that 10x table you can just add a 0, or easily skip count by 2s from an odd number.
So will struggle when doing 2digit additions as cant easily add say 7+8 to then do column addition later.
Mathseeds does some actual teaching and she prefers it to mathletics. There is a list on the mathseeds site of what is covered in each section.

RMEasimaths is brilliant. I use it from Reception on and it levels up with the child.

Doodle maths is a lovely app too.

I am not sure about maths instructions being too hard these days, there are so many youtube videos explaining step by step how to do the maths. I think it's way easier these days, compared to the days I was a child.

I like Maths Whizz

IDL is great, we bought it for our school and it's good for even the most basic of maths. It tests them at the start and pitches it exactly. Not sure if you can get individual subscriptions but worth a look. I think it's to support children with dyscalculia but good for all children x

I would second hit the button for practising number facts.

Are you using BBC Bite size
its GREAT

I always recommend squeebles +/- app and squabbles x tables app. The +/- one just gives you straightforward questions, after you have done a set you can play a little game. The tables one goes through a table one at a time interspersed with little games and repitition then you can do tests for each table and earn stars to play another mini game. I used to get DD to do 2 tables tests each night and aim to beat her own score.

There are a couple of maths based squeebble apps and it may be worth buying the collection.

If he's resisting, forget the apps and workbooks, give him actual objects to count. Lady the table, count out the cutlery. Counting out biscuits, sweets. Learning number rhymes and songs. Make up reasons why, eg you've got a lot of 10p pieces, you want to know how many pounds, can he stack them into press of ten, how many stacks have you got.
Somewhere along the line, his school has killed his love of maths, so you have to do stealth maths.

Lay the table, I don't know what ladying the table involves.

If he has 1:1 support at school I would guess he has other issues too? It also means he will be getting a lot of formal instruction and teaching and whilst parental support is fantastic, I would try and keep it low key and not overwhelm him.

Practise counting in 2s, 5s and 10s as you walk along or in the car, really bed in place value ie: if you see a sign for 15 get him to tell you how many tens and how many ones.

Try games designed to stimulate working memory (have a google) this is often an issue in children struggling with maths, ie when a child is adding a 5 for example onto a given number, they can forget how many they are counting on seconds after they have read it.

TT rockstars is a great programme, just make sure the tables are set to (a combination that suits your ds) 2's 5's and 10's

picking counting is fine - we need to do something more advanced than that!
He's fairly resistant to stealth maths unless it involves sweets as a reward.
But he loves his apps.
We tried Maths 4-6 with DD last night and she got the first level with support so it should be fine for him, absolutely no harm in repeating stuff.
I'm going to try and get him to do the Mathseeds test also - that's the one with the 14 day free trial.

He does have other problems (poor writing, generally poor motor control, lack of impulse control, poor attention).

I am pretty sure that practicing working memory games has been shown to improve those games... and not much else! I do think he needs practice with the actual skills he's actually supposed to be learning.

I have given you a recommendation. The site I recommended was the one that Noble, the secondary Maths teacher on MN said her dcs loves.

I think from what you say, MathsSeeds could fit the bill. Surf around a bit, you can often get codes to extend the free trial to five weeks. The lesson plans are all on the webpage so you can pick one to start with that fits (or just go with the 'placement test).
MathsSeeds is good at explaining concepts and all instructions are audio. It is a bit short in actual practice, and every now and again an exercise comes along that hasn't been properly introduced and you need to figure out yourself how it works. I used to sometimes 'cheat' DS across an exercise if he got stuck - it is supposed to be linear in that it builds up, but it is also fairly cyclic and revisits/practises old topics in each lesson. Spaced repetition style. It is not perfect of course but does a pretty good job.

You could look at the Dragonbox apps too. Their strong selling point is that they have zero words - the 'instruction' is all by 'showing'. So it is fairly concrete. And it doesn't feel like 'work' at all, they are games and on the side you find you're picking up maths skills.
'Numbers' is excellent for developing number sense, and getting a 'feel' for number bonds too. It's a bit like virtual lego.
'Big Numbers' focuses on column addition/subtraction. As such it may be a bit advanced yet. However as each column addition consists of a series of single digit additions, it is also great practice for lots and lots of single digit additions.
Also it may help develop a sense of place value, which should support the 'counting in 10s' thing and similar.
Big Numbers is a world developing game, where you start with a single apple tree, collect the apples, which you can then invest (e.g. new apple trees) and so on until you have a big world with a fishing pond, gold mine, trading shop, etc. The difference to other world developing games is simply that you have to add up the resources you collect (whereas usually the game does that automatically). Carrying is made very 'visual': 10 single apples go into 1 bag of ten apples, 10 bags go into one crate, all in their place value column. Apart from that it is just a game like any other, and thus very appealing! (And you really do not need to understand column addition to be able to play it. DD played it before she could add/subtract at all! Just for the game playing element. Because it really is fun.

Those all sound good - we tried the placement test for Mathseeds last night and he did worse than I expected because - surprise surprise - he wasn't paying attention. We'll see if we can do that each day for a week and get a realistic idea of it.
The website looks better though there are apps, but it seems to work on Safari on the Ipad so that's OK.

He also liked Maths 4-6 but annoyingly if he clicks away or the app crashes, it starts the level again.

I contacted the Maths 4-6 people about an issue with the app a few years ago and they were very helpful - it might be worth emailing them about the problems you’re having with the app and seeing if they’ve got a fix.

I might do that - DD if supervised can concentrate well enough not to randomly press buttons but DS can't.
(Plus I leant on the Home button of the ipad myself last night..)

I know you rather cut her off, OP, but I think pickingdaisies is right: 'give him actual objects to count' really is the way to go.

Effective maths teaching/learning always involves movement back-and-forth between more and less abstract: early years, from physical objects (e.g. 2 bicuits here) to abstract (the number 2), later on from abstract (the number 2) to more abstract ( algebra ; e.g. a variable one of whose values may be 2 etc.), and so on to abstract algebra and beyond.

Any time a child gets stuck, move down a level of abstractness. (And if stuck at that level, move down another level, and so on.) So, in early years, if a child is stuck sorting out number bonds, move straight back to the concrete stage (how many biscuits? ... how many more if ...? Let's count and see ...).

(Roughly speaking, that is one of the major things 'Numicon' and such is for: reinforcing learning about the abstract using the less abstract -- the concrete/physical.)

'Stealth maths' in this context should not be thought of as sugaring a bitter pill, but rather as allowing a child to see what is going on with the numbers in everyday situations the child is familiar with. Rote learning can be useful, but generally only when it is based on an understanding gained at a level of abstraction below the level of what is being learned by rote.

I know this can be difficult to swallow for parents wishing their child to 'get on' as quickly as possible. If it helps, my experience has been that children who worry away at getting to grips at a certain level are the ones who do well at later material. Try to make the maths itself fun and interesting (no sweets as reward!)

Maths is interestingly difficult, and a lot of the most interesting and difficult matter is near the bottom level of the abstraction league -- the basics , in other words. Let children who enjoy getting to grips at this level busy themselves away with it as much as possible and do not rush them on, in the hope and expectation they will keep the interest alive (and perhaps turn into mathematicians!)

To exemplify the interest and difficulty of getting to grips with maths at the lower levels of abstraction, here is a bit of fun I had a (six-year-old) grandchild interested in recently. What is the number 2? We know all about 2 biscuits (there they are ...); 2 people (you and me); we can write '2' or 'two' (or 'deux ' or 'mbili ' etc.); but what is this thing the number two? Where is it? What sort of thing is it? What is the difference between the number 2 and the numeral '2' or the word 'two'? Between the '2' in '21' and the '2' in '12'? And so on.

Any answers?

(This six-year-old thinks place value is just the neatest thing in the world, btw -- and I think she's right. Try adding in Roman numerals if you disagree; and also think of how long it took humanity's greatest minds to think up and disseminate that scheme before you pooh-pooh how long it takes a six-year-old child to appreciate it for what it is!)

I do know what you mean but, for example:
We have a game where people get on a bus with + signs or - signs. He refuses point blank to add the number on the bus to those getting on. Same with two dice. He either just counts them (often inaccurately) or waits for you to do it.
If I try to get him to count 5p coins, he gets to 15, says 16, I say "wait it's...." and we have a total refusal to do anything else.

Is he ready for the iPhone /iPad (and I imagine android but don’t know) app “Maths Bingo”? It is just arithmetic and add the first level is 5+2 sort of level. You can choose which is the 4 operands you want to include. It is very engaging - finishing a set earns a little creature that lives with his fellows in a pen and can be pinged around. Ideal for some quick practice in the car.

I can try that (there is an Android app but it just crashes) but he'd need someone sitting with him and making sure he attended.