Primary Teacher UK

Numbing the Pain of Numbers – Teaching Kids Math

Most kids consider it one of the most puzzling subjects they have to study, but no matter how hard it seems, there’s no cutting corners on this one – Mathematics must be learned and learned well if we’re to achieve any form of success in life. You don’t gain a sudden mastery over the subject when you’re well into teens if you’ve never done well at Math all through your formative years because this is one subject that mandates a very strong foundation and a passionate love for numbers and the abstract. Teaching primary schoolchildren Mathematics comes with its own challenges, and if not done right, can end up jeopardizing the kids’ chances of doing well in the subject all through life. Here are a few pointers that will come in handy when you’re faced with an eager bunch of kids waiting for their very first Math lesson:

• Use Objects: Counting on fingers and toes or using pencil and paper are techniques that make their entry much later in the process, but the use of objects to teach basic Math like counting is a tried and tested method that delivers desired results. Starting with their toys is a good idea because of their familiarity with these objects.
• Games Help: Kids are often at a loss to understand how Math has anything to do with the real world, and the best way to explain the relationship to them is through games. Board games like Monopoly focus on buying and selling property and handling money in the process while card games teach the concepts of probability right from childhood. Computer and video games designed to teach Math are also a great help.
• Tell Stories: Show me a kid who doesn’t like stories and I’ll show you a lion swimming in the Thames. Narrating stories that require your students to keep track of numbers as the tale progresses does wonders in boosting their mental thought processes.
• Money Concepts: Set up an imaginary shop, give your students money and send them on a shopping expedition. This is the best way to teach them about adding and subtracting and making sure they receive the right change. You could also work in a few small multiplication problems by asking them to buy two or more of the same item.
• Routine Matters: While there is an ongoing debate on the best ways to teach Math, some routine methods that form the basics of understanding the subject cannot be given up altogether. Only by mastering these principles and learning to use them with ease and without much thought in solving higher order problems do we become adept at the art of processing and working out solutions to complicated Mathematical problems. If the basics are not strong enough, it’s going to be a constant struggle to keep pace as the lessons progress. Each concept is going to be an uphill struggle, one more difficult than the next, and when it gets too much to handle, that’s when the love affair with Math collapses and a hatred of the subject starts creeping in. 

By-line:
This post was contributed by Kelly Kilpatrick,who writes on the subject of an online degree in classical studies. She invites your feedback at kellykilpatrick24 at gmail dot com.

Educational Games Introduce Fun To Facts

Educational games and puzzles are being used to overcome one of the biggest drawbacks of teaching; how to quickly grab the attention of the class at the start of the lesson. Boys tend to take much longer to settle down and some children are notoriously late. Ten minutes of the class can be lost before teaching really gets going. But now there are options.

A daily dose of maths games can boost maths attainment according to a study carried out in Scottish schools.
Learning and Teaching Scotland (LTS) - the main organisation for the development of the curriculum - analysed the effect of a "brain training" game. It also found improvements in pupils' concentration and behaviour.

Less able children were found to be more likely to improve than the highest attainers and almost all pupils had an increased perception of their own ability.

LTS worked with Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education and the University of Dundee to see if the pilot results were replicated on a wider scale. Researchers found that while all groups had improved their scores, the group using the maths game had improved by a further 50%. The time taken to complete the tests dropped by five minutes, from 18.5 minutes to 13.5 minutes. The improvement in the games group was double that of the control group.

The study found reduced absence and lateness in some classes. Derek Robertson, LTS's national adviser for emerging technologies and learning, said the results offered the first independent, academic evidence that this type of computer game could improve attainment when used in an educational context.

He said: "Computer games help flatten out the hierarchy that exists in schools - they are in the domain of the learner as opposed to the domain of the school. "

"This intervention encouraged all children to engage and get success in a different contextual framework; one in which they don't know their place."

The educational games used in the trial were one of the growing numbers of computer games developed with education at the core. Modern technology; harnessed to present a platform that is interesting, appealing to the young mind, sets the challenge. A form of learning in disguise acceptable to a wide range of ability, age and both girls and boys is paying dividends in accelerating learning.

The games can be played in class and at home. They are having a marked effect in settling the class at the start of the lesson, and the number of late arrivals has noticeable reduced.

Technology in the form of a chemistry game or physics games generates  the practice activity essential to learning retention. Compared to conventional text and exercise book activity that can be one dimensional, computer games have the major advantage of capturing peer support. Children also learn from other children. How else do they pick up the detailed operation of a mobile phone? Certainly not from their parents or the school national curriculum. So the next time see a child buried in a computer game on a PC, laptop or Nintendo take comfort this is a great way to help them learn.

Settling the class down can be eased with lesson starters; computer games that set a quiz based on the subject, or a combination of questions and clues to open the next level of the game. Some games even let the player design the next portion of the game.

The help of parents, fundamental in supporting the teacher to enhance the schooling of their children, can take the form of educational games as the easiest  entry points. Playing the same game or puzzle at home as in school is the most effective way to help. You do not to need to be proficient in the subject background and you never know how much you will enjoy the challenge. The reward can be enjoyed by the child, teacher and you.

Alistair Owens keen2learn

Specialist Maths Teachers

The Government will invest £24million over the next three years to set up and begin implementing a major training programme for 13,000 existing primary school teachers to become specialist maths teachers over the next 10 years.

Mr Balls said he would raise maths standards in primary schools by paying specialist maths teachers up to £8,000 in incentive payments and rewards to train towards gaining a Masters in maths teaching.

In his review Sir Peter Williams calls for an urgent shift to reverse the "can't do attitude" to maths - he said today that he wants every pupil to leave primary school "without a fear of maths". The key aspects of the recommendations are:

There should be a maths specialist in every primary school in 10 years

• At least 1,000 maths specialists should be trained every year for the next 10 years so there is one in every Primary School in the country;
• This person should be a ‘maths champion’ and have deep mathematical subject and pedagogical knowledge;
• Implementation should commence in 2009;
• The programme should be targeted initially to narrow attainment gaps;
• Teachers should be offered an incentive to train as a specialist maths teacher and a one off payment on completion;
• There should be a fast-track training programme for teachers who have specialised in maths teaching during their training.

From a young age children should play with shapes, time, capacity and numbers

• The Review supports goals set out in the Children’s Plan to increase the proportion of graduate practitioners in early years settings;
• Children’s natural interest in numeracy, problem solving, reasoning, shapes and measures should be fostered from an early age;
• Children should be given opportunities indoors and outdoors to explore, enjoy, learn, practise and talk about their developing mathematical understanding;
• Children’s mathematical experiences must be fun, meaningful and build confidence. This will promote positive attitudes and deeply rooted learning;
• DCSF should commission a new set of materials on mathematical mark making and supporting children’s mathematical development through play are needed to support early years practitioners’ CPD.

All children should be competent in basic maths by the age of seven

• There remains a core of pupils who fail to achieve level 3 in mathematics by the time they leave the primary sector at age 11 and effective intervention at an early age could break this trend;
• Intervention for struggling children should happen before the end of KS1;
• Intervention should be led by a qualified teacher and should involve one child;
• Economic factors and social deprivation contribute to learning difficulties in all subjects, including mathematics;
• The use of video techniques in intervention should be investigated.

Children should do more mental maths in the classroom

• Too little attention is paid to building good attitudes to maths – there is a need for culture change both in and out of the classroom;
• The use and application of maths should be incorporated into the wider curriculum cutting across subjects to embed learning;
• A new focus is needed on the use of mental mathematics and would particularly help under-attaining groups of children;
• Teachers need to do more to stretch the most able pupils in maths with more open-ended problem solving tasks to help them see “big picture”;
• More needs to be done to kindle children’s interests - Jim Rose’s review of the Primary Curriculum should consider including the cultural and historical story of science and maths to generate interest in the subject

Parents should work with teachers and help foster their child’s interest in maths

• Parents’ attitudes to maths has a significant impact on their child’s numeracy skills;
• The “can’t do” attitude to mathematics in England needs to be urgently reversed;
• Activities such as cooking at home can help children learn and understand maths;
• Schools need to work with parents to dispel myths about the mystery of mathematics and give both children and parents a good grounding and positive attitude to this subject;
• Teachers should work with parents to bring them up to date with the methods used to teach mathematics currently;
• There is clearly a link between parents’ with low level skills and their children’s under-attainment in mathematics.

How do we solve the maths problem?

The British are uniquely happy to admit being bad at maths, says a report by the BBC. Why is that and how can attitudes change?

Imagine a famous television presenter joking that they couldn't read. It's an unlikely scenario, such would be their embarrassment, yet no such reservations exist for mathematics, with self-confessed innumerates popping up regularly.

"I've always been rubbish at maths" is usually accompanied by a cheeky grin. The subtext is "I'm no boffin."

A report this week by think-tank Reform laments the drop in numbers of people taking maths A-level, at an estimated cost to the economy of £9bn.

The report suggests that people are put off maths because they couldn't 'do' times tables at primary school. Surely, the role of the teacher and their enthusiasm for the subject raises the profile of a subject and ultimately raises standards?

Maths fun!

Here's a few more maths sites with some interesting resources on them - the first is useful for work with the gifted and talented pupils in your class.

www.mathsnet.net - This british site goes from KS3 up to A-Level but has some excellent puzzles and games that can be used with KS2. There is also a very good section on Logo and Spreadsheets useful for the relevant ICT units. For those more talented Year 5 and 6 have a look at the KS3 section.

Link: http://www.mathsnet.net

www.mathplayground.com - This is an American site - so we have grades instead of keystages and classes. The logic puzzles and games are the highlight to this site. The time flash cards are fairly boring, but enjoyed by children to see who can get the most right answers in 60 seconds.

Link: http://www.mathplayground.com

Tutpup

Tutpup have emailed me to mention their children's maths game site. They soft launched in the UK and initially schools were not even on their radar, but when one signed up 200 students in a day they had to do some rapid rethinking. The whole site and service is free to students and schools and unlike many other games sites they don't collect any personally identifiable data or act as a disguised marketing tool.

All of the games are competitive and head-to-head. The children create an account (Note they cannot use their own names. They choose a unique screen name, a combination of a colour, animal and number e.g. BlackDog10 or PinkSnail2) and then can then play against each other by putting in their username.

I've played the games online a few times now and I love them. It's not the most stimulating environment for asking questions but playing against someone else makes up for that.

Link: http://tutpup.com/

Interactive Clock

Being able to tell the time is an important and invaluable skill; it is essential to have a good understanding of time when learning history. To help cultivate these abilities 3D History have published an interactive clock on their web site and included some activities to develop these vital skills.

There are synchronised Analogue and digital displays. You move the hands on the analogue clock and the digital clock echo's the time. The time is also displayed in words. The digital clock and the words can be hidden to provide a very clean screen free from distraction.

The digital clock comes with an AM/PM indicator that you can switch on or off and also a selectable 12/24 hour mode.

Link: http://www.virneth.co.uk/apps/clock.htm

Mathsblog.co.uk

Mathblog.co.uk has been going for a few months now and is building up to be a useful resource. It is aimed at parents who are trying to support their children’s maths education at home, but is just as useful for teachers looking for worksheets and games. In particular there are hundreds of free maths worksheets for Reception to Year 6 plus a great selection of online interactive games for reception children to practice their counting and simple addition and subtraction skills. The aims of the site are threefold:

1. to provide free maths resources for primary children (age 5 to 11)
2. to provide independent information about maths resources, including books, software and sites on the internet, both pay and free sites
3. to provide up to date news about primary maths in the UK.

Have a look at http://mathsblog.co.uk

Mr Magorium’s Box of Tricks teacher downloads

There are some new KS2 fun resources for the end of term from the National Schools Partnership linked to Mr Magorium's Box of Tricks. The magical resources can be downloaded from www.nationalschoolspartnership.com/boxoftricksresource.

There are four booklets (all as PDF files) which can be downloaded: numeracy, literacy, magic and creative. Between the four booklets there is enough material to provide a whole weeks worth of work, finishing in a magic show on the Friday afternoon. What a great way to finish for Christmas!

Numeracy skills particularly important for disadvantaged children

Children from disadvantaged backgrounds who are given a good grounding in numeracy in infant school are more likely to succeed in English as well as maths at the age of 11, new research suggests. The key importance of numeracy for children from poor families has been highlighted by a study which tracked the progress of almost 10,000 pupils between the ages of 7 and 11. The study’s author, Kathryn Duckworth of the IOE, said that the “predictive power” of maths test results at age 7 was quite striking for disadvantaged children.

“It might be said that children from poor backgrounds who did well in maths at age 7 and then went on to get good results in English and maths at the age of 11 simply had a higher IQ but it is more complicated than that. I checked the children’s recorded IQ scores at age 8 and found that they did not provide the explanation. It is possible that doing well in maths at age 7 acts to heighten children’s self-confidence and aspirations. It may also encourage teachers to offer them more support, which then translates into successful performance at age 11. A good result in English at 7 is obviously essential too, but not quite as important for future progress.”

Kathryn Duckworth emphasised, however, that her research should not be used to justify separate educational “treatments” for particular social groups. Instead, it provided support for the Government’s policy of personalised learning. “Assessment needs to provide a rounded picture of children’s development and support learning as well as measure it,” she said.

Kathryn Duckworth’s study, "What role for the three Rs? Progress and attainment during primary school: Wider Benefits of Learning Research Report No 23", can be downloaded from http://www.learningbenefits.net/