Year 1 child struggling with maths despite strong phonics, any advice?

[Dobbysocks]

6 year old in year 1. Amazing at phonics and well ahead with this. Really struggling with maths. Finds basic adding and subtracting confusing. Counting in multiples of 2s, 5s and 10s even worse. Fine with the word problems and shapes. Have tried every day maths when cooking, playing, lots of number games, number blocks tv. Nothing seems to help him. I’m really worried he’s going to fall behind. School have said he’s not where expected at this stage for maths.

Dreading this term where division and multiplication will be added in.

Any advice? Anyone have a similar picture in year 1 and then it got easier as time went on? We do as much as we can at home weekly but I don’t want to go down the route of a tutor with such a little one. (Which is what was suggested by school)

“Despite strong phonics”

Maths and phonics have bugger all to do with each other

Advice:

do adding as literally putting together two groups of objects. Eg I have three counters there’s two over there how many in total. Focus on visualising what it looks like - can he eg draw out pictures of the counters?

subtraction you can do similar just put a cloth over the counters. then representing it visually you draw out the counters and then cross out or mark out the ones that are going.

if you get numicon or tens and units you can extend this to bigger numbers.

Numberblocks is a really good resource from the BBC. Keep plugging away with number bonds to ten. Don't worry about anything ( or anyone) else for now, hes got to walk before he can run. See if your school uses Nessy - the number sense program for that is also excellent.

OP is stating that Maths is a specific challenge, rather than there being a general need for her child in relation to learning.

OP, you sound like you are doing lots of practical things which is great.
Have you tried ordering numbers and then matching quality to numbers. From there you can work on 'one more' and 'one less', building from there.

Always try to match the practical to the visual quantity and matching that to the actual number visually.

Sometimes there problem is not the mathematical concepts, but recognition of the numbers the quantities represent.

Good luck - it's usually just a blip. X

DD was the same in Y1. She managed times tables through rote learning i.e. she could get full marks in a test because her memory is fine but had no idea what it really meant and struggled with everything else. I would say carry on as you are with lots of maths in every day life- measuring when baking, count out sweets and do one more/one less or share them with a sibling, pay with cash to work out change, cut a cake into fractions, repeat those timetables and repeat them again, play board games that involve counting or money e.g. uno or junior monopoly. DD caught up by Y4. Some might disagree with me but I think the worst possible thing you can do at this age is push too hard, force a tutor on a reluctant 6YO and make them hate it.

Also OP left field suggestion but have you considered starting DC on an instrument? Music uses the same part of the brain as maths apparently and there’s a lot of overlap in terms of patterns, sequences, fractions etc.

Practice - some kids just need more practise than others to get the basics.

We got in on-line but that site gone now to new users - but numicon and a Y1 maths book - many out there - and find 10-15 minutes a day to sit down and do some and start where he is confident and then work up and go over the basics again and again and build up slowly.

We also did the extra fun activties with maths as well but practice in form of written sums like in school is what made the obvious difference though sure it all helped.

School missed with one of ours they hadn't grasped place value but with some work turned out that was the issue the on-line site and numicon at home sorted that and that was start of Y2 - it was big block of understanding that needed explicitly pointing out to them.

Count up in steps of 2x table.
Cgp books are good

I am aware. I used the AI generated title. But thanks for an attempt to make me feel daft and leave no advice.

Oh don’t be so sensitive!

Thanks for this. Is it number cards you’re thinking of?

As was said above, I mentioned phonics to highlight how he has the capacity to grasp concepts quite well so it’s not a learning need.

Not being sensitive at all. But if you genuinely have nothing to add other than comments that are critical, perhaps no need to comment? If you’ve any suggestions that are helpful, then happy to hear them.

Numberblocks, lots of manipulatives and real life maths as you've been doing such as noticing patterns in door numbers, dividing pizza into parts and counting steps etc but honestly for some children the only thing that works is time.

I would avoid work books and making it into a chore. He's 6 and seems to have no learning needs so with some support and patience he will be fine.

Thank you. We’ve got some number bears and cups so maybe just using these with those activities would help.

This is really interesting. He’s very keen on music and has asked for guitar lessons so maybe will help.

I’m with OP sick of idiots on here derailing threads. Do you really have nothing else better to do on a Sunday ?

Op I was in similar position, flash cards help. I also used favourite toys, you have x amount of cars I take two and accidentally leave them in the car how many do you have left? All of sudden they got the concept for some reason when emotion was involved. We play a lot of board games and use two dice and that has helped with addition.

Persevere.

Usually when this happens it’s because there is one little thing at an earlier stage which they haven’t quite grasped, so and maths is all building on simpler skills. I would go right back to year R skills and make sure that they are all solid.
So concepts like more/fewer, conservation of number, one more/one less, 1:1 number correspondence.
And ignore the earlier poster who said that maths and phonics aren’t linked, they absolutely are and the fact that he is strong in phonics, shape and word problems indicates a specific gap in understanding number.

Learning to play music stimulates the same part of the brain that develops understanding of maths:
psycnet.apa.org/record/2000-03755-001

You could be describing my DD at that age.

This was years ago.

After she had finished school I found out that there is a thing called dyscalculia, which explained perfectly her inability to e.g. remember the number pairings that make 10, work out how much change she'd get from £1 if she spend 86p etc. All the basic concepts.

Like dyspraxia but for numbers.

Yes, they'd be great

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head here. He’s not secure with number bonds and finds it hard to visualise quantities. We do try lots of things to help but it hasn’t ‘clicked’ yet and I definitely don’t want to get a tutor. I don’t want to put him off maths or apply that sort of pressure but just want to help him where I can.

Please do look into dyscalculia. My poor DD struggled all her school career with me just not getting why she couldn't do maths.

If it's number bonds - then look for games along those lines

BBC bitesize -topics Number bonds

We got numericon cheaper through the primary school - but rods are similar - but there kits like these LITTLE BUD KIDS House of Number Buddies Maths Game, a Number Bonds Maths Toy with Maths Rods and Addition & Subtraction Flash Cards