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How to Help Your Child at Home with Maths and English

This article has been designed to give you some ideas as how you could use Maths and English at home to support your child’s learning.

There are many ways you can help your child in Maths and English at home. Everyday activities such as cooking or shopping will help your child enhance their reading, writing and numeracy skills. For example ask them to find the cheapest pasta in the supermarket or spell the items on your shopping list. All of the ideas in this leaflet encourage your child to use the skills they are developing in school.

English

Reading at home can involve:

• Listening to your child read out loud.
• Reading to each other.
• Encouraging your child to read and talking about what he/she has read.
• Encouraging your child to read with expression.

It is helpful to:

• Talk to your child about what he/she thinks might happen next.
• Discuss your child’s reading preferences.
• Ask your child’s opinion of a book.
• Talk to your child about what you have enjoyed reading.
• Show interest in what your child is reading.
• Ensure that there is plenty of reading material at home.

Handy Hints for Spelling:

• Look carefully at the word.
• Is the word spelt as it sounds?
• Does the work look right?
• Do you know any words like it?
• Can you break the words into smaller parts.
• Which is the most difficult part of the word?
• Go to the local library.

Maths

You can encourage your child to use maths in everyday activities. Children of this age like to be independent. Invite your child to plan and work things out, and to take charge of a project.

Cooking a meal
Let your child plan and cook a meal for the family, with your support where it is needed. This involves a lot of maths. Your child can plan a menu and the shopping list, deciding on amounts, working out values for money and calculating change.
Cooking involves weighing, measuring, calculating and thinking about times and temperature.

Ordering a takeaway
Use a takeaway menu to order a pretend meal or one that you plan to have one day soon.
You could ask your child:

• Where does the best value pizza come from.
• Do you need to pay extra for delivery?
• Do they send a free salad?

Shopping
Using money and working out the change.
Ask them to find the cheapest priced item. When buying items on offer ask them to guess how much you’re saving as a monetary value or a percentage.

Books for Cool Readers