Charts and Pictograms
In Year 3, children read and make sense of bar charts, pictograms and tables, and use them to answer questions.
Practise Charts and Pictograms
Have a guess, even if you're not sure. Get one wrong and we'll show you why, so every miss is a chance to learn.
Timed practice
The same practice, just with a gentle clock. Pick a length and see how many you can answer.
Good to know
Here are the same numbers shown three ways: a table, a bar chart and a pictogram. Find a value in one, then spot it in the others.
Pictogram
Each picture = 2
- Apple
- Pear
- Plum
- Lime
Table
| Fruit | How many |
|---|---|
| Apple | 6 |
| Pear | 3 |
| Plum | 5 |
| Lime | 4 |
| All together | 18 |
For grown-ups
As well as reading off a single value, they tackle one and two-step questions such as how many more and how many altogether. Each question shows a chart or table to read, building the data-handling skills that run all the way through school.
What is in this topic
- Reading a table
- Reading a bar chart
- Reading a pictogram
- How many more, and how many altogether
How to help at home
The whole skill is reading a value off the picture, so make the picture talk before you talk about numbers.
- Read charts you already own. The telly guide, a sticker album, a tally of who wants which pizza: ask "which has the most?" and "how many more footballs than stickers?" so the maths lands on something real.
- On a bar chart, get them to slide a finger from the top of the bar straight across to the number line and read where it lands. The number is on the side scale, never written on the bar itself.
- On a pictogram, always check the key first: "one picture means 2". Then count in twos, and remember a half picture is 1, not a half.
- For "how many more" or "how many fewer", steer them to subtract: find both amounts, then take the smaller from the bigger. "How many altogether" means add the two amounts instead.
Where children get stuck
The commonest pictogram slip is counting pictures instead of reading the key. If one symbol stands for 2, a row of four symbols is 8, not 4. Children who race ahead count the symbols as ones and land on half the real total. Fix it by saying the key out loud every single time before counting, then counting in twos along the row: 2, 4, 6, 8. A half symbol then clearly means 1, because it is half of 2.
The other sticking point is "how many more" and "how many fewer". Many children add the two amounts when the question wants the gap between them, or they read one bar and stop. Both "more" and "fewer" are asking for the difference, so the move is the same: find both values, then subtract the smaller from the bigger. It helps to say "the difference between 8 and 5 is 3" so the word and the subtraction become one idea.