Maths

I discovered about a week ago that Matthew did not know how to do multiplication properly e.g
135
x5

he was working it out in his head the logical way as 100x5 + 30x5 + 5x5 and it was taking him ages.


Ok he was doing it, but no wonder he is so slow, I had to show him and he quickly got it when I explained clearly and it was practised. I have being giving him 6 problems every night for a week. He now does them easily in 5 minutes.

They were shown the logical way first but he has just stuck to it (he totally understands the logical way). Last year June time, he came home with a sheet of 20 written out multiplications, to do the long written out way and went off to do them and did them in his head very quicky (they were 1 to 5 tables) and just wrote a list of answers down (all correct) I felt he had not done it correctly although there was no written explanation as to how they were to be done, so I asked the teacher, she confirmed that she wanted them copied out and done the long way. She marked them all correct but there was no "well done" Matthew as he had not done it the way she had told him to. This is how I know the class has moved on where he had not, I nor the class teacher realised that he had done them that way because he had not understood. I do feel it should have rung alarm bells for her as she must see this sort of things from time to time. His new teacher says he is slow to do his maths and I can see why if he tries to do 20 harder multipicatons in this fashion.
Good news he did 6 sums in 5 mins last night 6/6 and tonight 6/6 in 3mins 30s, so he has it sorted now. I just wish if they see him struggle they could send a little note home and then I can sort it, but this has never happened, is it really too much to ask? My biggest bug bear is the lack of communication, it is not both ways.

But where are the teachers that this was not discovered last school year? When moving on to long multiplication he would be totally lost! Must investigate divisions next (sigh).