Worked example
31 October 2026
Bar graphs are a helpful way for children to see and compare information quickly. When your child learns to use bar graphs, they can answer questions about real-life situations, like how many books friends have read or who has the highest score.
Example question
A bar chart shows the number of books read by four children in a month. Anna read 5 books, Ben read 3 books, Cara read 7 books, and Dan read 2 books.
Step 1: Look at the bar heights to see how many books each child read.
Step 2: To find who read the most books, compare the bar heights. Cara's bar is the tallest, so she read the most books.
Step 3: To find how many more books Anna read than Dan, subtract Dan's books from Anna's: 5 - 2 = 3.
Step 4: To find the total books read by all children, add all the numbers: 5 + 3 + 7 + 2 = 17.
The answers are:
- Cara read the most books (7).
- Anna read 3 more books than Dan.
- Together, they read 17 books.
Key insight: Your child can now use bar graphs to compare amounts, spot the biggest or smallest, and work out differences or totals. This skill is useful for many types of maths questions. There are more practice problems just like this to build confidence.
