@Theydontknowweknowtheyknow
My son can't remember sequences. He has to count to remember that 11 is before 12.
He can't remember his times tables. No sooner remembered then they are forgotten. He has no feel for numbers and can't seem to break them down into factors.
Rob: How old is your son? If he’s six or seven this is not that unusual, if he’s ten then you have more of a challenge on your hands. For young children, it’s great to build counting into your everyday routine, so that numbers become absolutely routine. I like counting steps with my youngest. When we go upstairs we count up (one, two, three…to thirteen) and when descending we count down (thirteen, twelve, eleven…down to one). That’s made her familiar with twelve being a higher number than eleven. When my son was younger, he used to love rocket countdowns, which we’d do together (Thunderbirds was great for this). Factors are a more challenging concept. Again, staircases can be useful. If you have 12 stairs then you can count up them in twos, threes or fours (giant steps) and still end on the top step. But if, like me, you have 13 stairs, then twos, threes and fours always leave one step left over. That’s because 13 is a prime number, it has no factors except 1 and 13. So in my household, the definition of a prime number is a staircase where you can only climb it with one single ginormous step.
Mike Askew adds: With times tables, he may benefit from finding other routes to the answers. Find something he can remember - most children can recall doubles, or five times or ten times a number. So, say he knows ten times six is 60. Then nine times six is going to be 6 less than 60, which is 54. You could write down the facts that he knows onto slips paper and put these together in an old envelope. Then practise and reinforce the facts that he does know to build up his confidence, adding one or two new, related ones, each time.