The Eleventh Republic - countdown to summer holidays

[StaffAssociationRepresentative]

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Ds still gets letters and numbers back to front but is a brilliant reader and I.think spells by memorizing the look rather than learning it. We have had lots of issues with maths and tables and processes. He just doesn't get the abstract or see patterns.

I guessed this might happen in reception: every other kid used the counters to, well, count. Ds pretended they were sea creatures.

Doesn't help that his younger sister can supply a maths answer in half the time.

Thank you Neuro I really appreciate that. I've printed off that domino sheet to try with him. Interestingly his younger sibling is learning things like doubling in maths and they use number lines and talk about repeated adding - maybe more like the way you used to use, is what his school up here is doing?
I still count quite a lot on my fingers but my memory's good so I have the tables stored in there for 40 something years
Apologies for detailing our thread

Sorry didn't see those posts (distracted by Neuro's wine glasses which were making me thirsty )
Asuitablecat I think I'm going to have those issues as dc2 gets older as he doesn't have the same problems.
Parrot I haven't heard of a multiplication grid - I think something like that and some hard cash v bucks as an incentive might work.

Parrot, that way helped me too!

I went off one one there sorry! Been chained to my laptop all day.

As I struggled I've often thought of the reasons why, which that (bloody hard) training did explain.

Time was a challenge for me too.

Mis check it has all of them, that was a random google!

Aw bless your ds Asuitable!

I don't know how you get access but times tables rockstars is supposed be be good? Ds shuns it but is pretty good at working out / memorising tables.

This is a multiplication grid. When I was in y6 we had to fill in blank ones against the clock. It's good because if you don't know it you can count on from what you do know and work out the rest. I found I started memorising those.

I don’t know my tables by heart but am fast at mental maths and with bigger numbers pretty good but I’ve realised the way I do it in my head is pretty weird compared to others and the way they teach.

But yeah if you say some multiplications like 7x8 it will near instantly be 28+28 in my mind. I use the ones I have instant memory of as the chunks itms.

It’s weird because I have a great memory of facts, stories, info I find interesting but can’t do numbers by rote. Ds is enjoying seeing if I can do big number sums in my head faster than he can do them on the calculator and is impressed but if I tell him the process I worked it out by he looks at me like I’m an alien.

And I've just remembered that the multiplication grid method is how we were teaching long multiplication under the strategies. No idea if they still do it but I do know they push written methods early on.

Written methods were where I went wrong tbh as I forgot how to do them. The strategies tried to develop mental methods more. I can't comment on what they do now though and being in send we only go so far.

I have completely forgotten how to do long multiplication on paper and just have my weird sort of chunking method. My working out would look like that bit times that is, then that bit is this etc and then add all the bits up.

It’s probably best ds gets back to a proper maths teacher soon! I’m trying to encourage him to show working out but by his process but he doesn’t seem conscious of his process itms? I don’t think I was until I started teaching and had to work out my own ways of thinking to relate to other people’s.

Right. That’s my new mission. Relearn long division and long multiplication and remind/teach ds and get him using it.

@NeurotrashWarrior

Oops x3 copies...

It was nice to be told I was right about something though 🤣🤣😂

The thing is though, your chunking method is good mental maths. Bit clunky but the more you do it the better it gets. The partitioning methods are good too for mental maths.

I think they do loads of bar models now. Or at least white rose does. I couldn't get my head around the 2014 gove maths till ds1 started doing it.

mrs!

Incidentally, I forked out for a nessy app that really wasn't what I thought it was but it's been interesting! It looks at those working memory aspects of dyslexia and shows scores. 4 part instructions, remembering a number backwards etc.

Bar models are different, aren’t they? They’re a pre-algebraic way of modelling a problem rather than a written method, so you’d still need a written method if you couldn’t do the arithmetic mentally.

The 1999 NNS had written and mental strands I think. Although I think we ditched most of the written methods in favour of just teaching the formal written methods.

By the time they get to year 6 if they have not "got it" then I just teach steps through the calculation. As in, step 1: draw out the long multiplication sum and put the place holder in. Step 2 : multiply the 1's digit by the 1's digit etc

My own ds is dyslexic dyspraxic and goodness knows what else but he likes to know the steps and he knows it gets the answer. I find the same for a lot of kids in my class.

Also, teach divsion using factors. So much easier than long division! As long as they know their primes, then they can skeleton table and long division those.

I am enjoying watching the people who teach maths regularly do their maths thing and I will pretend to not be lost at all myself oh no no no
I was good at maths at school, but teaching it requires more skills than doing it!

I've been enjoying it too . I have an A in A-level Maths. Also a recurring nightmare where I'm in an exam and turn the paper over. It's always Pure Maths. My subconscious knows something.

I was heading for failure in maths a level - about 6 of us were. So, they got a volunteer IT teacher to teach pure maths to us. She learned it 2 weeks ahead of us, then taught us. She was amazing. I got a C in the end, and went on to do civil engineering at uni, where I basically did bits of pure and mechanical maths until I was 22.

We’ve done English this morning looking at tools of power. I am letting ds free type and then editing it with him. He doesn’t understand commas as a means of parenthesis which I explained and he claims no one has ever taught him. Baffled that the obsession with spag that he was taught under hasn’t translated to actually being able to construct sentences. I know it’s not just him because obviously I mark other kids work.

My English teacher at primary would go through my prolific writing red marking it with missing word, too long sentence, use punctuation etc and then I’d go away and rewrite it and go get my next edits. I think that process was how I learnt to write.

Baffled that the obsession with spag that he was taught under hasn’t translated to actually being able to construct sentences.

Don't be. Most children don't get it. I hate SPAG, it's taking all the fun out of writing. In SPAG lessons children do really well - it's English but it's right or wrong - but they can never transfer the skills.

I'm using The Writing Revolution this year in my writing teaching - going to not refer to proper SPAG terms for the first part of the year. Naughty.

In my old school we never taught proper SPAG in years 3 and 4, we just taught them to write. To enjoy writing. They still used grammatically correct sentences, because we talked about why it was correct or not for the reader/effect on the reader, rather than whether they'd used a fronted adverbial or whatever. Then in years 5 and 6 we taught them to pass their SATs SPAG test.

I have a hypothesis that we were so obsessed with getting children in early years to write independently and get stuff down on paper that it screwed stuff up further down the line. If children haven’t got what a simple sentence is and the punctuation sorted, then expanding those sentences and using the correct punctuation for that is going to be impossible.

Perhaps more time spent orally rehearsing sentences and keeping transcription to phonics sessions would help. It would probably free up more time for telling and retelling stories too.

When I was taught this stuff in the 1970s and 80s we had very little direct instruction on SPaG at all (except in French/German/Latin and with the exception of one primary teacher who was very keen on 'P'. However, because I read a lot, I picked up the rules unconsciously. Later on, when I started writing and editing I taught myself some specific tools I needed, such as the punctuation of speech. My 7 year old has some learning challenges and yet is already supposed to know how to punctate speech. I'm not sure it's progress. She says she hates books and will only write for fun things such as word games. I feel like I had a lot less pushing but ended up with much more enthusiasm.

ohthegoats I got through A level Maths (Pure, taught myself Stats out of a book) thanks to my friend Helen's dad. I never met him but he'd help her, then I'd ring her up and she'd explain it to me.

Spag doesn't get fun until a level, when you can really pull it apart.I'm the spagless generation, so didn't r e ally get a sniff of it until a level mfl.

It definitely doesn't make kids better writers knowing labels.

Reading, reading and more reading to improve writing - not knowing a load of terminology.