DS1 just turned 8 in YR3. He has just made the leap from state school to our local selective.
He loves it there, he's enthralled with facilities and all the learning.
However school are starting to say that his maths are a bit behind (he's not the only one in his class though).
There's never been any complaints about his maths at state school. Teacher there only said he just needed more time, but his maths were good.
I suspect that a lot of his peers have flying speed of processing and compute maths fast. DS1 tested very low on speed of processing and working memory with EP. DS2 who is 5 and half and thinks fast, blurts maths results before DS1 which is a bit tricky for his ego.
I'm helping a lot at home (on top of SALT, handwriting etc).
He was struggling with learning his times tables by rote so I'm sitting down with him and teach him the whole grid at the time, following advice for Visual Spatial Learners:
files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ875427.pdf
It has really worked and he seems to be really enjoying learning this way.
I'm superficially aware of Richard Skemp's Relational Understanding of maths concept and I'm interested in reading recommendations along his school of thought.
In a nutshell, I'm looking for more 'big picture' maths learning methods. I'm completely sympathetic to his learning preferences because I'm dyslexic and the penny won't drop until the parts find their place in the whole picture.