Primary School Prep DIY Guide-Reading-Page 5
SESSIONS 
Keep sessions short.
Show no more than five topics per session.  
And no more than one sum per topic, except quantity recognition, in which you should do five flash cards
For example, a session could be:  
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Show your child five quantity recognition flash cards from 1-20 
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Then show one addition equation  
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Show one color  
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Show one fraction flash card 
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Show one greater than, or less than flash card 
REPETITION 
As you decide which flash cards to show for each topic, have a balance between introducing new math facts and repeating old math facts. So, for example; the math fact for addition could be a repeat of the flash card “two plus two equals four”. However, the “greater than” or “less than” topic could be introducing a new fact of “six is greater than four”. 
 
Repetition is important but your child will get bored if you don’t mix repetition of old facts with the introduction of new facts.
 
ENVIRONMENT 
Please make sure that when you are doing the sessions, you are in a quiet area and that there are no distractions.  
ORDER TO INTRODUCE TOPICS 
When starting:  
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Start with only quantity recognition – five cards per session, up until you get to 20 dots. Don’t do anything else, just do that. 
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Then, you can start to introduce “greater than” or “less than” with dot cards between 0-20 for a period of time. There is no hard and fast rule; it could be 2 weeks. 
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Then, introduce another topic, for example; addition. 
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After two weeks, introduce another topic, for example; subtraction.  
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Then, after another two weeks introduce another topic from the first stage of topics. 
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Every two weeks, introduce a new topic until all the topics have been introduced, but as already stated, do not do more than five topics. Rotate the topics when you have more than five topics. If you find that five topics are a bit too much, then reduce the number of topics. 
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Then after six months to one year, depending on how old your child is when they start, you can introduce stage 2 topics.  
 
For those with access to Primary School Prep Done 4U all the topics are already arranged and introduced sequentially. All you need to do is press play every day.
Transition to numerals 
After at least one year to one and a half years of quantities, you then introduce numerals.
 
You introduce the numerals in the same way that you introduced quantity recognition.  
You also need to make up new flash cards for all the topics you showed during the quantity recognition stage, but instead, use numerals to represent the quantities.
 
So instead of “’two dots’ + ’one dot’ = ’three dots’”, you would write on the flash card, “2 + 1 = 3”
 
For fractions you put the numerical representation of the fraction. 
You would show it to your child in the same way that you showed your child the quantities.
 
Don’t wait until they are getting it before you move on to numerals.
 
Primary School Prep Done 4U will automatically transition your child to numerals after about one year. All you have to do is press play every day.
Show, don’t explain
 
There will be a temptation, especially as your child gets older to try and explain math concepts to him or her. Please don’t do it. They will get it by you just showing them the math fact over and over without explanation. When they see the flash card for a half or a quarter, they will eventually get it. You do not need to explain to them how to work out a half or a quarter, they will get it from what you show them. If they continuously hear the equation, “2 + 2 = 4”, they will eventually get it. Please don’t start off trying to explain to them how to work what “2 + 2” is.
 
Digital  
I would like to impress upon you how important learning math digitally is. What we have shown you above is how to do it manually using paper resources. However please do not underestimate how challenging this will be.   
What will help you and what will help your child, is  if  in addition to teaching using paper resources like the flash cards we refer to above, you also make use of a digital medium such as videos, etc. You Tube is a good, free resource. If you search online, you may also be able to find other websites that offer free online math programmes.  It will save you a significant amount of time and it will also help your child learn quicker. Also, with videos, math can be made more fun with songs and other special effects. Digital resources will also help with repetition. In addition, there are topics that are easier to teach for babies and toddlers, such as sets, picture graphs and likeness and differences.  
 
The challenge we have found with finding things on YouTube and online is the fact that we could never find complete programmes. Something will help with one topic but there were no continuation videos. Also, a lot of the videos on YouTube and elsewhere, spent lots of time trying to explain the math concepts to the children rather than just presenting them with the information. We knew that this would not work so it limited the number of videos that we could select. 
 
However, those that access primary school prep done 4U will have access to math videos that are fun and interesting and incorporates the teaching principles we share, such as presenting the children with the information rather than spending a long time explaining it to them. It also introduces the topics in appropriate stages necessary to develop a baby/toddler’s math ability. It saves you, as a parent, time and stress because all you need to do is press play each day.