Falling behind in Maths - year 2

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As it says really: DD is in year 2 and is struggling with her Maths.

She always seems to be a step behind - when her class was working on time tables, for example, she was still struggling with adding, and now they are on fractions and she's starting to be fine with times tables but fractions are totally beyond her.

It doesn't help that I have no idea how to explain it to her so the extra work she was given over the holidays was very little help.

How much should I worry about this? I don't think it's a disaster in itself that a 6 year old can't do fractions, but I worry that if she gets behind she'll never catch up again.

Thanks for everyone's advice 🤗

What sort of things are you doing to practise at home? Does the school buy into any apps to support fluency in maths?

Thanks for your reply!

We do all the weekly homework and the catch-up homework that the teacher sends. There are apps but we tend not to use them because I'm not a fan of screen time.

Could you consider a tutor at all? If not then how about getting some workbooks and working through them at home together?

Oh and we do mental arithmetic sometimes as well so we practice times tables sometime and counting, money etc... Just the sort of everyday maths really.

We found having number cubes (100 cubes that stack in 10s ) was really helpful for grasping multiplying and dividing. It’s a big leap from practising with objects to numbers in your head. Keep it visual/tactile. Pizza or cake is good for fractions, or sharing out sweets - use their innate sense of fairness!

Like this

Heinrich buy the cubes!! Get some Numicon - best maths tool.

you can add divide subtract times and do fractions - it’s visual and tactile and makes maths easy

Agree that Cake, pizza and chocolate bars / smarties are all good for basic fractions.

Slowly and carefully with maths. You can make good use of the 6 weeks in the summer to solidify concepts whilst others in the class are busy forgetting. Start with physical objects and introduce written along side whilst still using the physical objects.

Ask the teacher how they explain, (though sometimes a different explanation helps things click).

Schofield and sims maths workbooks are helpful.

Big fan of our cubie subscription box. 10 mins of math a day organised around national curriculum.https://cubie-education.com/

mine are Y1 and a bit like yours - just a half step behind. This has made a real difference, and had positive feedback from teachers on their progress. Some of the books are ‘new’ concepts, but lots of consolidation practice (same function but done lots of different ways). Our school doesn’t do homework though - not sure I would do this AND homework sheets every night. My kids do enjoy it though - sometimes they ask to do extra.

Thank you all SO much for the great suggestions! I'm going to look into them and choose one to follow, especially over the summer holidays.