When maths ends in tears

A child who says they hate maths has almost always decided that maths is something that happens to them. The questions are about strangers buying watermelons, the numbers mean nothing, and getting one wrong feels like being caught.

The fastest thing that changes is not the difficulty — it's the subject matter. A subtraction question about their own football team, with their own name in it, is the same maths and a completely different experience.

Edstronaut writes the questions around whatever your child is currently obsessed with, at the level they're actually working at, and reads each one aloud if they'd rather listen than read.