Tap the Train bar. Then read its top off the scale: how many children does it stand for?
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.
Step 1. Find it. Tap the bar the question names.
Step 2. Read it. Now read the scale and choose how many children that is.
What to say if they get stuck
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.
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.
Where read a bar-chart value sits in the 11+
The 11+ does not test these skills in isolation, and practising one in the wrong order wastes the practice. These are the skills the curriculum map connects this one to.
How read a bar-chart value differs from the skills beside it
The same exercise practises one other skill, and telling them apart is often the difficulty rather than the exercise itself. On this page the skill is: read one category value using the bar-chart scale, and it stops where excludes comparing several bars.
Questions parents ask about read a bar-chart value
Answered from what the skill map records about this skill, not from a template. Every answer here is on the page, and the same questions are the page's FAQ structured data.
Read one category value using the bar-chart scale. It is one of 55 named maths skills in the 11+, in the data strand, and this page carries 1 interactive exercise that practises it.
There is a specific mistake recorded against this skill: counts grid intervals as units without decoding the scale. 11+ papers are written to offer exactly that answer, so a child can be confident and still lose the mark. When it keeps happening, the fix is the misunderstanding rather than more questions.
Point at the next move rather than explaining the whole rule. Find the Chimneys bar first, then follow its top edge across to the scale on the left and read the number there.
Once it is secure, the skill map opens compare bar-chart values. A comparison requires accurate scale reading.
The skill map draws the line here: Excludes comparing several bars. A question past that line is testing a different named maths skill, which is worth knowing before you spend a week practising the wrong one.
The data strand holds 9 skills that are tested together, and the pages next to read a bar-chart value are read a line-graph value, read a table cell and calculate an arithmetic mean. Each has its own exercise and its own link, and none of them needs an account.
Use Bar Reader, embedded on this page. It is the exercise the skill map attaches to read a bar-chart value, it runs in the browser with no account to make, nothing is scored, and nothing a child does here is recorded or sent anywhere. It also has its own link, so you can send it to a child without sending them anywhere else first.
One wrong answer is a slip, the same wrong answer every time is a habit
A free diagnostic looks at which mistakes repeat across all four subjects, not just whether read a bar-chart value was right on the day.
