Ten Top Tips for Numeracy London

These tips, from ZooBooKoo , are designed to help parents develop a positive attitude towards numeracy for their primary school children.

1. Get real
From a young age and at every opportunity encourage your child to count out loud: eg apples in the shop. Build up to working out how many items you need to buy. If there are four in your family, and you will each eat two apples in a week, how many do you need for the week? Extend this to working out how many miles to go when travelling and other every day situations.

2. Number line
This is a line with numbers - usually to 20 to begin, continuing higher in schools. It visually demonstrates to the child increasing and decreasing quantities. Many of us learn visually. Learn to use it with your child. Make your own on a large sheet of paper - it could be a colourful snake, a long scarf etc, and work through lots of examples saying if you start on six and add two, how many do we have? Try subtracting too.

3. Number bonds
These are as vital in the early days as the times tables are later. They form a building block for the harder sums. Ensure your children know their number bonds by heart. Number bonds are paired numbers. For example, the number bonds for 7 are 1+6, 2+5, 3+4 and 0+7.

4. Times tables
Probably the most important building block in a child’s numeric development. It is a key stone to all other mathematical challenges, not to mention incredibly useful in real life. Listen to them on a CD in the car, chant them, sing them, forwards, backwards, test each other, practise the easy ones they may have forgotten. Make it second nature for them - this is a gift for life.

5. Activity place mats
Extend meal and snack times into useful together time. Before the meal and after you can have fun with write-on wipe off activity maths mats, or you could buy or create your own with number bonds and times tables on. There are even some Magic Mats which have invisible answers that the children can reveal by rubbing a magic box with their finger.

6. Dice games
Keep a dice game in your bag for those ‘waiting’ moments in restaurants or at the doctor. Many are great fun and are wonderful for reluctant mathematicians (education by stealth).

7. Think in 10s
Think in 10s. You may do this instinctively but if not then start now. So 22 plus 13 is 22 plus 10 plus 3. Or 58 minus 39 is 58 minus 40 plus 1. It is so much easier to take away or add quickly in 10s and then add or minus the single digits. Practise this with your child.

8. Height chart
Run a height chart at home. Make or buy one. Discuss growth, working out the amount grown and the differences between siblings and parents. Ask relatives and friends to be measured.

9. Pocket money
When your child is of an age where you feel they can have or earn pocket money, run a points system. Points are gained through the week for good behaviour, special moments of kindness or thoughtfulness, tidying up ...

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