I am a maths and key stage 2 co-ordinator in a school for dyslexic and dyspraxic children in central London.

The majority of our children lack confidence in many areas of the curriculum and due to their dyslexia and dyspraxia many have difficulties with maths.

Our aim is to teach them in line with the numeracy strategy, while using our specialist knowledge to take account of their ways of learning.

Along with many other children, our pupils find it difficult to develop their mental arithmetic. We have put a lot of thought into finding ways of helping the very young ones learn number bonds to 10. I also wanted to help the older ones, starting with number bonds to 20, to 50, to 100. We could chant them in class. We could write them down. We could discuss them and find patterns. We could also make it fun by playing a game and having a competition. With this in mind, I developed what has become a very popular game.

I made sets of numbered cards, 0 to 10, 11 to 20, and so on to 91 to 100. I have now been using these cards for some time and my Year 4 children are very enthusiastic.

The cards can be used in a variety of ways. I find playing in teams galvanises children to use all sorts of strategies to win a point. As my maths group has only 12 children, I divide them into two teams of six. (We use these teams to encourage friendly competition when we want to practise a variety of skills or recall rules.) I first choose a child from each team (carefully matching ability) and ask them to stand up. I then give an instruction, such as the following:

“Find two cards that total 30.”

“Find two cards that total 50.”

“Find two cards that total 100.”

The first child to bring me the correct cards gains a point for their team.

At first there was panic as children said, “I don’t know!” However they soon began to develop strategies.

One of their first discoveries was that they could pick up any card lower than the given one and then work out the difference. I quickly realised I had to remove the 0.

After a while I introduced other rules, including that the number 1 should not be used.

I then went on to expand the use of the cards to develop further mental arithmetic skills. I controlled the level of difficulty by deciding which cards to use. There is no end to the variety of instructions that can be given, for instance:

“Find two cards that total 42.”

“Find three cards that total 74.”

“Find two cards with a difference of 13.”

“Find two cards that, when multiplied together, give a total of 36.”

“Find two cards so that one can be divided into the other and give an answer of seven.”

“Find two cards, so that one is half (or double) the other.”

“Find two cards, so that one is a quarter of the other.”

I decided which sets of cards to use with each game, depending on what work we had been doing. In some games I banned various numbers, such as multiples of 5 or 10, depending on my particular aims.

Initially, I did not need to use many of the higher denomination cards to ask for high totals. After all, you can add together 31, 22 and 45 to give 98.

The children soon learned to build on their skills. For instance, if the children had learned to “Find two cards with a total of 52” then, in answer to, “Find three cards with a total of 82,” they might well find a multiple of 10 first, for instance 30, and hand me 30, 35 and 17.

Cards with higher denominations can be used when you want children to find numbers totalling more than 100.

They are very useful if you want children to work on subtraction. For example, “Find two cards with a difference of 75.” Depending on the ability of the children, the higher numbers are useful for division. You can use just the cards from 51 to 100 or choose any sets of cards.

There are many enjoyable and useful desktop games available. However, I have found that the children I work with enjoy games where they can move about. By spreading the cards over the floor the children seem to be energised and enthusiastic about taking part. They also gain a lot of encouragement from their team members.

I would urge other teachers to try these number games. They can last as long as you like. There are endless possibilities - you simply make up your own rules.

Mel Lever teaches at Fairley House School in central London