Don’t take me literally!

As adults often we don’t understand why children don’t understand what we are saying. We can forget the literal meaning of our words. Take a look at these examples below.

Adding Numbers

Teacher: “Add two numbers together to make 5”

Child “You can’t add two numbers together to make 5”

Teacher: “Yes you can, we’ve just been practising our number bonds to 5”

Child “You can’t it won’t work”

(The child demonstrates)

2+2+2+2

The child is right, you can’t add ‘2 numbers’ together to make 5

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Take Away

Take away can be a huge confusion for some children.

The sum with child’s answer: 5 - 3 = 5  

The child is right, if you physically take the 3 away there will only be a 5 left.

This is a more common way that children can confuse take away.

The sum with child’s answer: 

Take the 3 blue dots off the table and hold in hand. How many do you have left? Obviously 3. Because you have 3 in your hand.

More addition

Learning to add with dots:

All is going well, great, lets move to numbers:

2+2=22

Wrong! But in the child’s mind it is right, they were just following the pattern.

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