Many years ago, when I was a child the ‘more than’ and ‘less than’ signs were not introduced until I had passed the eleven plus and gone to Grammar School. Today, children in Year 3 are expected to recognise and understand the signs. As they are so similar this is somewhat ambitious, but I have published a page to 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.