This week I am highlighting a worksheet on the ‘more than’ and ‘less than’ signs. Children from Year 3 onwards are now expected to recognise and understand these signs. This is very different from most adults experience, who would not have met these signs until much later. As the two signs are so similar this can be quite a tricky idea for children to remember. Hopefully, this page will help.
> means ‘is more than’
< means ‘is less than’
From year 1 children have been used to working with the terms ‘more than’ and ‘less than’ but this does not mean that they will understand and use the signs (especially as to many children it looks like the same sign flipped on its side). The way I remember it is that the arrow always points to the smaller number.
A key point in trying to become familiar with the signs is to read out loud number sentences so just as you can say that
3 +4 = 7 (three add four equals seven)
you can say that 3 + 4 > 6 (three add four is more than six).
This page can be found in our Year 3 Counting and Number category.
