Developing problem-solving skills can be one of the most challenging aspects of preparing for the 11+. To help your child with problem-solving, there are valuable techniques they can learn. Below we have included recommendations for how you can support your child’s problem-solving skills.
Building Curriculum Consolidation & Thinking Critically
Having a secure subject mastery across the maths curriculum underpins effective problem-solving. Your child needs to have a strong understanding of the maths behind the problem.
Children can get fixated on the information within worded problems that aren't always relevant to solving the question. For example, whilst you can encourage your child to underline the important words in the problem, this is not useful if your child is unsure of what the important words are or cannot differentiate what topic(s) they are being tested on. Having a strong understanding of key mathematical concepts will support your child in these problems. They will be able to recognise what they are being asked to do and disregard the surface details. To support your child with this at home, you can encourage them to cross out the words in the problem that are not relevant to solving the question. You can also get them to replace a detail such as 'a bag of marbles' with an alternative to show them that these details don't change the underlying maths.
For example, Jane has a bag of marbles. She gives 2 to her friend, Lisa, and another 3 to her sister, Lucy. Jane has 4 marbles left. How many did she have to begin with?
In this question, ‘a bag of marbles’ can be replaced by ‘a pack of pencils’, without changing any of the underlying maths in the question. The operations required to solve the question don’t change, even when the surface details are different.
On Atom Nucleus, we recommend that your child practise their maths using the Learning Journeys on their Student Portal. Your child's Learning Journeys are adapted and tailored to their ability. The Learning Journey will cover the Key Stage 2 maths curriculum. It will stretch your child in the areas where they are confident, whilst revising the areas they find challenging. This will ensure that your child feels prepared and confident to approach anything they could be tested on in worded problems. The knowledge can be applied to a wide variety of problem-solving skills.
Strategy
Your child must have a strategy or process that comes to mind when tackling longer, worded problems. This will ensure that they are efficient in breaking down a variety of different problems and identifying the steps required to solve them. George Polya (1973) proposed 4 stages in problem-solving:
- Understand the problem
- Devise a strategy for solving it
- Carry out the strategy
- Check the result
You can support your child to embed these steps by using a simple acronym that they can then follow when approaching any problem. It may be useful for your child to produce a colourful poster of these steps for them to refer to when practising worded problems. For example:
RUCSAC
R – Read the question and underline the key information
U – Understand: think about what to do and write the numbers you will need
C – Choose how you will work it out
S – Solve the problem
A – Answer
C – Check
Practice Open-Ended Problems
Open-ended problems have many correct answers, which means they can be approached in a multitude of different ways. These types of problems are valuable for your child’s revision, as they encourage children to explain their thinking and steps. also to evaluate what they think is the best method to tackle the question.
A good example of an open-ended question is the following:
Which is the odd one out in the following numbers? 2, 11, 27, 64, 100.
This question is open to interpretation. For example as 2 is the only even prime number or 64 is the only square and cube number, etc.
This style of question encourages your child to think for an extended period and activates their cognitive thinking. Cognitive thinking refers to your child’s ability to learn and remember new information, and then use this knowledge to show their understanding.
When solving these types of problems, take the time to ask your child to explain how they solved the problem and the reasoning behind the method. It's also a valuable opportunity to encourage your child to reflect and explore any other answer options that could also be correct.
Practise Logical Reasoning
A simple and easy way of practising logical reasoning at home is by getting your child to solve puzzles such as jigsaws or a Rubik's Cube. These types of puzzles can be solved in different ways as different children will connect the relevant information together in their own sequence of steps. This is a fun task for your child to complete, and a great way of adding variety to their learning at home.
When practising this, encourage your child to take their time with each step as opposed to guesswork. This will strengthen your child’s problem-solving skills by improving their ability to evaluate information. Then use this to carefully decide what to do next.
If you would like your child to practise Worded Problems on Atom Home, you can set them a Custom Practice in this area.
