Place Value

Place value underpins everything children do when working with number in primary school. Understanding place value means that children are aware of the size of a digit from its placement within a number - is it 7 hundred, 7 thousand, 7 million etc.

Due to the need for teachers to teach the vast curriculum in primary school, ensuring that children reach year 5 and year 6 with this key understanding is sometimes not possible. Although children can move on and attain relatively high levels without a secure knowledge and understanding of place value, it can often be a stumbling block for further progress. Without a full understanding of place value, children will struggle to order decimal numbers, remember units of measurement conversion rates, calculate with negative numbers and they will get `lost` when calculating a detailed multi-step word problem.

Quite often, calculation methods, or in some cases `tricks`, are used to mask this lack of understanding, and it works to a point, but painting over the cracks only lasts for so long. I am aware that a lot of tutors provide children with shortcut methods to solving calculations, and they may well work, but ask a child who doesn`t understand place value to explain why their method for answering division got a certain answer and they wouldn`t know where to start. Will they be able to apply that method when the division is hidden in a word problem? Almost definitely not.

It is a simple concept to understand but my experience in year 6 has shown me that not fully understanding place value can prevent so many other concepts from being learned. When I work with children, I will not use shortcuts and strategies until a child fully understands how and why they work through their knowledge of place value.