Home learning
Short activities you can do in the car, at the shops or in the kitchen. No printing, no special equipment, no worksheets.
Want to know what your child is expected to learn in maths this year? The Mathematics Hub families pages explain it year by year, free.
School words, explained
Teachers use a lot of shorthand. Here's what the common ones actually mean.
- Decoding
- Working out a written word by sounding out the letters. It's the first job of reading — understanding comes after.
- Phonics
- Teaching which sounds letters and letter groups make, in a set order. Most Victorian schools now use a structured phonics program.
- Phonological awareness
- Hearing the sounds inside words: rhyme, first sounds, syllables. Kids need this before phonics makes sense.
- Fluency
- Reading smoothly and at a natural pace, with expression. Re-reading a familiar book builds it.
- Number sense
- A feel for numbers — knowing 8 is close to 10, that 5 and 5 make 10, that 47 is about 50. It's the foundation for everything else in maths.
- Subitising
- Seeing how many without counting, like the dots on a dice. It's a big early maths skill.
- Place value
- Understanding that the 4 in 42 means forty. Most later maths difficulties trace back here.
- Regulation
- Noticing big feelings and managing them — with help from an adult at first (co-regulation), then on their own.