Sharing : How to guide your child in Maths Problem Solving?

Dear Parents,
   Some parents have approached me, asking me how they can teach their children model drawing at home.
Though model-drawing is introduced in P2 (in our current publisher's (My Pal) books), I feel that it is good if the pupils (and parents) know the transition from pictorial to model.
  
   I went through Test 4 in Maths Test book last week. I asked a lot of questions to let pupils understand what they know (from the question) and finally what they need to find. One strategy I got pupils to do was to highlight (or draw boxes and circles) when we broke the whole word problems into smaller chunks. (as shown in the picture below).

  With this, I hope parents can reinforce problem solving at home, using the same strategy so that pupils will not be confused. A very common (and big) mistake is to equate more to plus. Some pupils are taught, "when you see more, you plus" or " when you see fewer, you minus". This will cause the pupils to make mistakes during problem solving.

  Get the pupils to break down the problems into smaller chunks, by asking themselves :
- how many does Peter have?
- how many does Jane have? ( it is 3 more than Peter, not just 3)
- if Jane has 3 more, it means? (Peter has 3 less)
- what do I need to find? (find how many Jane has, Jane has more, so I need to find MORE, then I plus)
- how to show this in number sentence ( 3 + 8 )

Find the one that has more --> then I plus
[Mistake : I see the word 'more' --> then I plus ]