IHETC School
Mathematics — Primary
The child has the technique down and still fails the problem, because they hunt for keywords (« altogether » ⇒ addition) instead of picturing the situation. A strategy that works until year 5 then collapses. The cure is not more arithmetic: it is having them describe the situation before writing anything.
What is at stake in this subject
At this age mathematics is not abstract: it describes situations. A child who sets out an operation without knowing what it represents will pass drill exercises and fail the first word problem.
- Number system and number sense
- The four operations
- Simple fractions and decimals
- Quantities and measurement
- Solving word problems
They can calculate, but cannot choose the operation
The child has the technique down and still fails the problem, because they hunt for keywords (« altogether » ⇒ addition) instead of picturing the situation. A strategy that works until year 5 then collapses. The cure is not more arithmetic: it is having them describe the situation before writing anything.
How the tutor works on it
The tutor starts from a concrete situation and asks for a restatement before any calculation. Faced with a mistake, it does not correct: it asks for the result to be checked another way, which surfaces the inconsistency without humiliation.
- It changes angle when an explanation does not land
- It never gives an exercise answer
- It has the pupil check rather than correcting them
- It goes back to the missing prerequisite, even from an earlier year
Parents' questions
Should times tables be learned by heart?
Yes, without guilt: automatic tables free attention for reasoning. But they come after understanding what multiplication means, never instead of it. A child reciting tables without knowing what they describe will block later, at exactly the same point.