Maths · Reading values off a bar chart
Bar Reader
Tap the Train bar. Then read its top off the scale: how many children does it stand for?
Free to use and free to share. There is no sign-up, no score, and nothing a child does here is recorded or sent anywhere. What you may do with it, in full.
Loading the interactive exercise. Nothing you do here is saved or scored.
Why this works
The Train bar stops level with 30 on the scale. The lines on this chart go up in 5s, and only every other line carries a number, so the bare lines in between are the ones you have to count through. The top of the bar sits exactly on a line, so you can read it straight off. Keeping your finger level as you cross to the scale is what stops a reading landing one line out.
Helping a child through Bar Reader
It runs in 2 steps
- 1. Find it. Tap the bar the question names.
- 2. Read it. Now read the scale and choose how many children that is.
Hints, least revealing first
- Find the bar, row or slice the question names before you read anything. Getting the label right matters as much as the reading.
- The scale does not always count up in single steps. Work out what a single line is worth before you read anything off it.
- Keep your finger level as you slide from the board across to the scale. Drifting up or down by a line is the commonest slip there is.
When they finish it: “Read straight off the scale.”
What usually goes wrong here
- Counts grid intervals as units without decoding the scale.
This is the wrong answer 11+ papers are built to offer, so it is worth watching for directly: a child who does this will look confident and still lose the mark. If it keeps happening on read a bar-chart value, the fix is the misunderstanding rather than more questions.
2 11+ skills this exercise practises
Each of these has its own page, with a worked example on it. 1 of the 2 names the mistake that skill attracts.
- Compare bar-chart valuesCompare two category values on a bar chart.
- Read a bar-chart valueRead one category value using the bar-chart scale.
You can reuse this. Here is exactly how far that goes
Tutors, teachers and editors keep asking, so this is the answer in writing rather than by email. You do not need to ask permission, and you do not need to tell us.
- Embed it
- Put the exercise inside your own page with the code above. It stays playable, and it keeps working when we improve the engine behind it.
- Print it
- Print the page, or print the exercise off the screen, and hand out the copies. No limit on how many.
- Use it in class
- One child or a full set, in a school, in a tutoring session, in a homework club, or at the kitchen table.
- Put it in something you charge for
- A paid course, a paid tutoring session, a paid workbook, a members-only site. You owe us no fee and you do not need to ask.
- Reuse it in your own writing
- Quote it, rewrite it, translate it, cut it up, or build something different on top of it. Treat the wording, the worked examples and the question ideas as yours to work with.
The one thing we ask is a link back to the page you took it from, so a reader can find the live, playable version and the rest of the 11+ skills next to it. That is a request, not a condition: nothing above depends on it.
This covers the interactive exercises and the teaching notes on these 11+ pages. It does not cover the Trace Learn name or logo, and it does not let you present your version as something Trace Learn published.
Embed this exercise
Paste this into your own page and the exercise runs there, playable, for your readers or your students. It is 900 pixels tall by default and as wide as the column you put it in; change the height if your layout wants a different one.
The embedded copy has no header, no footer and no sign-up prompt. It records nothing about the child using it, on your page just as on ours.
One exercise is a start, not a plan
A free diagnostic across all four subjects shows which maths skills to practise next, and in what order.