Quote by Yorks_blonde
Never would have thought I would be giving a maths lesson for parents on a swinging forum!
Children are taught lots of different methods for the four rules now. They are supposed to work by helping children understand them rather than the 'old fashioned' way of teaching I experienced at school which consisted of "do it this way because I say so and you don't need to understand it".
I have found a website that explains how each method works A lot are based on children's place value understanding. That is that the 4 in 643 is worth 40 not just 4. You need to check with your child's school though because a lot of schools found that the number of different methods taught was confusing children (surprise surprise!) and chose just certain ones to use.
Whichever method your child's school uses, one of the best things a parent can do to help their child in maths is help them to learn their number bonds by heart. That is addition and subtraction facts up to 20+20 (so they can say for example that 6+8 is 14 without having to work it out) and their times tables up to 12x12. Times tables especially will help older primary children because they will then be able to work much more confidently with fractions, percentages, ratio and lots of other maths concepts.
By the way, from a personal point of view, I don't think there is anything wrong with the methods we were taught at school, but it does help some children to be able to use them when they understand how they work.
Right off to it now... 7 x 8 is???:lol:
errrrmmmm,,,,, 42.
WOW you are fantastic - not only have you taught me the new maths, but found the answer to life, the universe and everything.
