Not meeting expected level in maths - HELP!

[Nothappyrabbit]

DS, in year 1, bought his school report home and is not meeting the expected level in maths. I have been working on this at home with him since Christmas and feel so deflated that he still hasn't met the required level. He is a bright boy and understands maths concepts, adding, subtracting, fractions, can multiply etc BUT if I ask him something as simple as what is 5 + 1? He is still working it out on his fingers and cannot do mental maths at all.

What can I do to help him? Any advice much appreciated.

Mine too, except he's not meeting expecations in anything. It's utterly utterly depressing and a bit soul crushing because every bloody day, for the past 2 years, I've slogged away to help him after school. I've worked on his reading and spelling and it's improving, but too slowly. He's one of the very youngest in the class and has always lagged behind along with the other two youngest. His memory is phenomenal - he just utterly hates school and getting him to engage is like pulling teeth.

The fact is though, they are only young still. I was trawling through past posts about maths help programme online and ones that seem good are the Maths Factor, Mangahigh, etc, so I've signed mine up for the MF...and fingers crossed he'll like it. I think it's just a case of rinse and repeat, make games of things every day, include them every day in things like recipe numbers, etc.

Does your school use these? Our teachers are very enthusiastic about how useful they are.

www.amazon.co.uk/EDX-53833-Base-Ten-Pieces/dp/B07C59JSTY/ref=asc_df_B07C59JSTY/?hvlocphy=1006762&linkCode=df0&hvptwo&psc=1&psc=1&hvnetw=g&hvadid=256119100714&hvpone&hvlocint&th=1&hvpos=1o1&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl&hvqmt&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&hvtargid=pla-538493639019&hvrand=17601673142226909058

Mabel yes, I have things like that at home. Counting things out he has no problem with, it's when he has to work out things inside his head that's the problem and I don't know how to help that.

Op, children acquire maths skills sequentially. Start with concrete, so would use counters, toy cars, bears, cubes etc to do the calculation, next comes pictorial, so uses pictures of objects to calculate, finally comes abstract, i.e. mental maths using just numbers.
Trying to get your dc to calculate in the abstract if they can't do it with concrete objects won't work. Btw, using fingers is concrete.

Just keep working at it. School thought dc just missed meeting in yr 1 (summer birthday) and they passed the SATs in yr 2, with around 102. I did do a lot of work with them from xmas yr 2.
I think i should have done more from where you are.
For my dc the issue is mainly the add/sub because of the insistence on jumping to get the answer. Im convinced moving to column add/sub will help. Mine also just isnt very fast with single digit add/sub etc.
Imo there are often some kids that are really good at maths (or reading) and they make the others lose confidence and this will happen more to the youngest.
Im going to work over the summer to TT to try to get ahead for next year.
I also find it is really bitty for concentration as you have to return after each Q.

BUT if I ask him something as simple as what is 5 + 1? He is still working it out on his fingers and cannot do mental maths at all.

My younger two needed a lot of practise to remember number bonds and times tables. They understood the concepts - but often had to work out what they were.

Practise - they did mathsfactor so got lots and lots of practice - though in early years they also used Numicon as their school was big on it.

DS is now super-fast with these facts which helps with actual maths and DD2 is fast and did finally learn last few timetables 88 and 67. The same facts came up again and again in different areas of maths and they fianlly started to remember them rather than to have to work them out again.

I wonder if “came” from me – I have dyslexia and a poor working memory so I’m good at maths but bad at mental arithmetic – pen and paper I’m sorted.