Reading for information:
Part Two

By Lucy Lloyd Williamson
The Lloyd Williamson School

  

Numeracy ideas in everyday information literature
Two: Road maps of Britain

Large, paperbound road maps can make an excellent classroom resource and can be utilised across the curriculum. They can often be found cheaply in discount bookshops. If your budget only allwos for one or two copies, they can be used for investigations by the quick-finishers and to stretch more able children.

I have set down a variety of uses and links to the Numeracy Strategy -- use them as a springboard for your own ideas.

Year One

10 Understand and use the vocabulary of comparing numbers.
 

In pairs, ask the children to find specific page numbers. (can be done with any book)

Year Two

87, 89 Use mathematical vocabulary to describe position, direction and movements.
 

Explain that when reading maps we often need to continue following a route on to another page. Choose a page to start on and give a list of instructions. The challenge is for the children to finish on the correct page e.g. 'Start on page eighteen, go North on to the next page (e.g. map may tell you to go on to page 24) go west on to the next page etc.

Year Three

63

Solve mathematical problems or puzzles.
 

a)

b)

 Note colours of roads on a road map. Why do you think they are coded in this way? How are the roads coded by letter?

Using the page reference map (often on the back cover or inside front cover). Ask the class to find a specific city on the map and tell you which page the city can be found on (without using the index)

Year Four

78 Solve mathematical problems or puzzles, recognise and explain patterns and relationships.
 

Use the route planning page. Give the class an outline map of Britain. Ask them to mark the motorways and their numbers. Describe the resulting number pattern (motorways form London are numbered M1, M2, M3, M4, motorways in between are numbered correspondingly going clockwise e.g. M26 is after the M2 but before the M3) What happens with the M5, M6 etc?

Year Five

109 Recognise positions and directions: read co-ordinates in the first quadrant.
 

Give the class the name of a town or city and, using the index ask them to find it in the atlas. (If a written exercise check their answers by asking the students to write down another town within a 2cm scale distance of target town.)
93, 95 Suggest suitable units and measuring equipment to estimate or measure length.
 

Measure a motorway using a piece of string, measure the string and convert the answer to 'real' distance.

Year Six

115, 117 Solve a problem by interpreting data in tables.
   

a)

 Using the distance table. Take a distance, measure the quickest route you can find on the map. Is your distance measurement and the distance table measurement close?
   
b)
 Using the distance table. Take a distance, measure the quickest route you can find on the map. Is your distance measurement and the distance table measurement close?
93, 95 Suggest suitable measuring equipment to measure length.
     

Using the route planner map and then the main map when more confident, ask pairs of children to choose the simplest route between two places. Compare and discuss their results. Encourage the class to repeat exercise starting with the more major roads.

Lucy Lloyd Williamson is one of the authors of the Numeracy Big Board series.

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