June was a crazy month for Winning With Numbers!

We covered a lot of ground (metaphorically and literally): we drove a lot of miles, we went into a lot of schools, we spoke to a lot of teachers! This has left me convinced of two things:

Firstly, motorway service stations are very expensive! Costa costs!

Secondly, there are a lot of teachers who see the curriculum structure of English and Maths like this:

They can see the crucial curriculum core of a phonics program, but are yet to see the equivalent for Maths. We always enjoy watching the ‘aha’ moment teachers have when we show Winning With Numbers. This is when our ‘It’s like phonics for Maths’ strapline is made real.

The WWN program isn’t just the part of the curriculum called ‘number’, as opposed to ‘shape’ or ‘measures’. Instead, it’s a system...new and deliberate. Implementation brings expert knowledge of the process required to give children quick-thinking responses to basic number operations. The teachers says ‘60+70’, their children immediately respond with ‘130’.

It’s a ‘one-thought’ response!

One of the ways this is ‘like phonics’, is that the phonics program expects the child to decode the word ‘ship’ due to the child’s background fluency with the parts, so, starting with a three-thought response...then becoming ‘smoothened off’ into a one-thought response.

Similarly, the initial three-thought response to 60+70 is both a), successful due to earlier learning - it is the WWN sequence of learning that allows the child to meet each new ‘Win’ with success already waiting to be drawn out - and b), smoothened into a one-thought response by the program, ready to be used as a component part itself later on.

Notice too, the phonics program doesn’t stop and spend time on the deeper understanding of what ‘ship’ means. Reading comprehension isn’t the main concern of the phonics program. Texts taking learners into the purposes, types, history and culture of ships are for another day …and for another curriculum domain!?

The WWN program also doesn’t stop and enter a deep learning, ‘mastery’, approach. Children have already physically counted tens, can visualise tens, and have added tens. They already understand tens! Throughout the program, learners leave each ‘Win’ with both the understanding and ‘the doing’. As with phonics, instead of stopping and ‘going deep’, we press forwards with the program.

It really is, ‘Like Phonics for Maths’. ?????