My 6 year old DD cannot add or substract :(

[Krizlibear]

Hi! I have a 6 year old DD (just turned 6 last month). She is happy and bright, reads very well, no problems with that whatsoever. But she has zero concept of adding and substracting. She understands that number X means X candies etc but there it ends. We’ve tried everything - with candies, with fingers etc but she just doesn’t get the concept of ‘+’ and ‘-‘ on paper or in real life. She will start preschool this autumn (in my country school starts when children are 7, before that they attend kindergarten and/or voluntary preschool). What should i do? Or do i expect too much from her? Can your 6 year olds do maths?

She’s only just turned 6 and they can change so much month to month at that age so I wouldn’t worry too much yet, but keep an eye on it and try incorporate some addition/subtraction into daily life (1+1 = 2 shoes! 2 chips plus 2 chips = 4!). I’d imagine 5-7 is the general age where children learn this type of maths but open to be corrected on that.

I still remember being in primary school and just simply learning the times tables by memory, but I 100% did not understand why 5 x 4 = 20, I just wrote them down and learned it off by heart. Maths didn’t click for me until much later.

Without knowing the age related expectations in your country it’s difficult for people to give advice.

I wouldn’t be concerned about maths symbols but if you said I have one sweet and you have a sweet and physically show her the sweets could she tell you how many sweets there are all together?

My son is 6 and has just finished year 1 - he knows how to add, subtract and group numbers ready for multiplication. I wouldn't worry about it if your child's formal education doesn't start until they're 7, they'll soon pick it up!

If you have 2 sweets on the table, she can tell you there are two? And if you put another group of 2 sweets down, can she recognise that there are now 4 sweets altogether?

Also, does your preschool give out information about what they expect the children to know before they start?

In general, talk about numbers all the time when you are doing your daily activities, make it part of normal chat during your day.

I wouldn't worry about it at 6. It'll likely just fall into place one day. My 6yo is good at maths but can't read. She can read the odd word but couldn't read a book. They all develop skills at different rates.

My daughter never "got" maths either. When all the other kids were whizzing through the Kumon exercises she was stuck not recognising the basics e.g. what pairs of number make 10.

Years and years later, we discovered there is a thing called dyscalculia. If we had know about it then we might have considered an assessment.

What are the expectations of her age group where you live? Here, 6yos are typically adding and subtracting, but if she hasn't been formally taught maybe there's no expectation she can do that.

As others have said, I would just focus on basic number value stuff over the summer. Can she count her sweets, does she understand that 10 sweets is more than 5, and that 10 is much more than 2 but a little more than 8. Things like that. Then start with the "If we have two sweets each, how many altogether" type stuff.

But mainly, don't push it. You don't want her stressing over anything numerical or hating it. Once she's started school you can raise it with her teacher.

Yes mine can, but they have been in formal education since 4 and nursery since 9 months. No doubt she will catch up but her education will be way behind that of other countries.

I suggest you put her to watch Number Blocks made by BBC. It is very well made.

@Krizlibear - I would recommend looking into building her maths fluency and literacy. She needs to "fall in love" with numbers - please don't worry about abstract operations now. It's not unusual for children to struggle with these at this age. There's a really good channel called "build math minds" on youtube that discusses this well. I would also look into CPA (concrete -> pictorial -> abstract) approach - if this is how she learns then you can work with the school on this style when she starts.

Nor could my eldest at 6 (even using counters, fingers, sweets etc). By age 7 (thanks to observant and knowledgeable teachers advocating for him/us) we had a formal diagnosis by a educational psychologist of dyscalculia.

Look into dyscalculia. I know I know people don't like the modern trend and also no one can diagnose from the internet. If I'd had that understanding as a child it would have made such a difference.

Also of course try all the other good options.

I agree with the fall in love with numbers comment and on an abstract level, I love maths and numbers, there is beauty in them.

But it won't help unless there's a strategy for when the numbers rearrange themselves and disappear.

The concept of 'the fiveness of five' is useful. Google it for resources and ideas. Essentially it is about understanding that five laid out in a row is the same as five in a circle.

Please be careful that any extra stuff you do with her is fun - maths anxiety is very real. I'd do lots of practical stuff - cooking, painting, collecting stuff - counting within 10 to start with then one more. Three smarties on the cookie - one more. How many more? Does she count on or start from 1 again?? And mention everything to the teacher when she starts school. It's the understanding of number and the language that is more important than reading the symbols right now. And don't stress her - hard, I know!

Yes I would start with "one more" or just counting, and keep it light and fun, and definitely get her watching numberblocks - it's brilliant! Does she know the concept of bigger/smaller? I think addition and subtraction probably have a lot of sub-skills they need to recognise first and we just don't think of that when we think of numbers because perhaps children normally pick these up very naturally. I certainly found this with reading. My eldest picked up reading very easily starting with phonics. My middle one needed to actively be taught how to separate letter sounds, recognise things like rhyming, and break words down into pieces. Phonics is still beyond him and he's nearly 6 now. (We suspect dyslexia but since he's not at school yet, it's too early to say).

IME of a country where they start school closer to 7 - it feels very strange when you're used to the English school norms but they do get there! To the poster who suggested that the children will be behind - this is just funny. I wouldn't exactly think of Germany, Austria, and the Scandinavian countries as being behind academically! The UK is actually one of the outliers in school starting age being so young. Most places in the world start formal education at around 5 or 6. It all works out.

If you can access it, numberblocks.

I would also lean into her interests maybe candies aren't doing it for her but she'd like play out scenes with superhero dolls who take magic jewels from eachother.

Bring maths into life. Like setting the table. How many knives do you need. Line up her dolls. Get a cup for each..how many do you need. Leave maths signs as she needs to grasp maths in an informal way first.
Saying all that l have taught children with dyscalculia and its a huge struggle for them. So keep an eye on it.
Even though they only start formal school at 7 she will be doing lots of informal maths at preschool which should be the same as early years in the UK

As she doesn't start school until 7 I wouldn't worry too much about it. Use numbers in your everyday life, but don't focus on adding and subtracting.

I struggled massively at school with maths, but as this was the 60's and 70's there was no help available. It is only now as an adult I realise that I have dyscalculia. But at the moment your child is so young and not yet at school, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.

Sorry OP this is not a helpful response but it made me think of this

Is there any guide as to what children should know before school OP?

Do you use cash at all? I know most of us use plastic these days but having pocket money in cash, going to the shop and working out the change can be really useful for children learning numbers.

Back in the 90s there was a scheme, I think in Brazil, to bring education to street children. The children were useless at maths in the classroom but on the streets they could sell things from a stall, work out the total and give the right change.

There was a study looking at how this worked

Thank you all for the lovely wishes, tips and support. It seems that I overpanicked a little lol. She has always understood the concept of adding / taking away / counting forwards and backwards, it’s just that no one had taught her adding and substracting on paper with mathematic symbols (+; -; =) before. We have now done it for a few times and taught her how to use her fingers for reference. It seems like something has ‘clicked’ for her now :) At the moment we are practicing adding only (up to 10). In a few days we will try substracting as well. It is obvious that she isn’t a shining star in maths, she doesn’t pick it up as naturally as some other kids may do. But her strenght seems to be reading - she reads exceptionally well, whole books with both lowercase and uppercase letters. And that she picked up only by herself, we never had to taught her. But I guess she’s got more of those mommy’s genes lol. Math was hard for me too but I also was an excellent reader. When it comes to our education system then I guess my country follows the Scandinavian model? I’m not sure lol. In my country, children aged 2-6 go to kindergarten but it is voluntary. They also study there and prepare for school. Formal school starts at 7. My country is always on TOP 10 at PISA tests. We have a very good education system. I was very surprised that some kids in UK can already multiply and divide by age 6. In my country we start with it on second grade (age 8-9).

I’d be a little worried if she can’t grasp the concept at all and it totally escapes her. But my kid is a number fiend and was doing basic maths at three (add, subtract and multiplication), so that may skew my view. My daughter is showing similar signs of being number-focused.

Also i don’t think she has dyscalculia. It would be too early to diagnose that anyway. And yes, she does understand the concept of ‘bigger / smaller / equal’ with symbols ‘<‘; ‘>’; ‘=‘. That was tricky at first but i approached playfully saying that the symbol ‘<‘ is like a mouth of a crocodile and crocodile always wants to eat bigger number / amount. Then she understood quickly ;)

Yes, having had DC go through the German system, I've been surprised by the different order of things but it all seems to work out OK in the end.

One thing which I really like actually is that here they teach History in chronological order, so they start with the Stone Age and then move through everything else in order. It's brilliant and makes so much more sense to understand what world events, technologies, discoveries influenced the next development etc. I feel like at my school we just did history events at random, and (to me anyway) once you go past about a hundred years back, everything just sort of felt like "a very long time ago" so I don't really have a good sense of what happened when, except for the more recent stuff like the Victorians and the World Wars.

Greater than and less than symbols, I remember learning at year 6 in English primary school, so age 10/11, and I was top set for maths.

I don't think you need to worry - she will cover symbols at school.