Primary Maths – How can I support my child?
As a maths teacher, tutor and mother I regularly encounter parents whose lament is ‘everything is done differently now, I can’t help my child with maths’. It may well feel like this but rest assured it is all the same maths, repackaged, re-branded and with some new terminology. The difference is in the way we are asking children to think about the maths.
The first thing to realise is that there is no need to panic; you can still support your child’s mathematical development using the skills you learnt at school. However, before explaining how to do this you first need to be familiar the focus of the new curriculum. The aim is for children to develop fluency and mastery. Mathematical Fluency is a deep understanding of number, place value and the relationship between the four operations. For example knowing that if 3 + 4 = 7 then 7 – 4 = 3 and 7 – 3 = 4. Not only must the child understand this but they must be able to explain why this is the case. Mastery in mathematics is achieved when a child can apply skills they have learnt in unfamiliar situations, not relying on rote learning but instead solving problems using a fundamental understanding of mathematical systems and applying different methods to solve the same problem.
Here is an example of a dialogue I might have with a child who has achieved fluency and mastery:
Tutor: What is 23 x 5?
Child: 115
Tutor: How did you work this out?
Child: I worked out that 23 x 10 was equal to 230. Therefore 23 x 5 must be half of this, 115.
Tutor: If you know that how could you work out 2.3 x 5?
Child: I know that 2.3 is ten times smaller than 23, therefore the answer must be 10 times smaller, 11.5.
Tutor: How else could you have worked this out?
Child: I could also have worked out that 2 x 5 = 10 and 0.3 x 5 = 1.5 and added these values together.
In this example the child has shown both fluency and mastery, a deep understanding of place value and the number system and also shown they can solve problems in more than one way.
So the question is how do you support fluency and mastery? Well, maths is still maths, children still need to learn their times tables, they still need to be able to carry out routine calculations. The difference is that they need to explain why these methods work and justify their answers. As parents we can approach this by continuing to practise the routine calculations to support proficiency but also to look for opportunities to ‘master’ the mathematics by asking our children to justify, explain and extrapolate from their work.
Here is an example of a dialogue you could have to help your child develop fluency and mastery:
Parent: What is 23 x 5?
Child: hmmm…. I dunno….
Parent: Well do you know what 23 x 10 is?
Child: 230.
Parent: OK – well if you know what 23 x 10 is how might you work out what 23 x 5 is?
Child: I still don’t know.
Parent: How are 10 and 5 related?
Child: 5 is half of 10.
At this moment you hope the child has a ‘light-bulb moment’ but don’t worry if they don’t, show them how to work it out and reason it through together.
This all may feel forced to begin with but by taking a little time each day to talk, think and play with mathematical concepts you will find your child’s maths skills develop in leaps and bounds.