Helping your child with maths—parents can do a lot more than they think     036

This is an area where many parents lack confidence. They think if they explain something it would be different to what it can the teacher is showing the children at school, and so their son or daughter would become even more mixed up. Parents generally want to help but are not sure what they can do. Actually parents can do a very great deal of good, and with almost no time being necessary. Here are eight ways to help, and mostly, you can start right now.

Show your interest   This can be done in so many ways. Look at your child’s maths books, talk about what is being learned at school, and make sure homework is being done. Be enthusiastic about maths, but not every minute of every day!

Number facts   Spend five or ten minutes each day helping your or 10 child practise facts like 14 – 5 = 9 and 8 +9 = 17. Even younger children must make a start at practising number facts at their own level. Daily practice will bring about amazing results. These days at school with so many new things to teach, children have less time to learn number facts. As well, children spend less time simply working out sums. Sums as maths content now covers a much wider range of topics. The result is that for many children extra practice is needed and this is where parents can really make a difference. There are many ways to organise how you teach number facts. The good news is that there is no best way as long as what you do is organised, you revise regularly, and the child is motivated. Division number facts should not be dealt with until the child understands division.

Homework  This help your child remember what was taught at school. It also makes them faster at their work and prepares them for the next lesson. Encourage your child to complete homework as often as possible, even doing some of it twice, and even doing a little extra work of his or her own. The key aspect of this is for you to understand what is being done at school, and if possible this should be revised immediately, so your child goes to school the next day happy, confident—and capable.

Mathematical games and toys   Play games with your children which use maths, for example, Monopoly. Any games which use a dice or involve counting are beneficial. Puzzles and construction sets are also useful. Most local libraries have educational toys suitable for younger children which can be borrowed.

Talk the language of maths   Daily life gives plenty of opportunities. In the car ask, “Who can guess when we have travelled one km from here?”  In the shop, “Will we buy the two litre or the four litre ice cream?”  At the table, “Please drink the other half of your milk.” Young children especially need to know and use words such as bigger, corner, extra, longer, share and under. So you can literally talk your child into doing better at mathematics. The same thing actually applies English, but that’s another story.

Create a maths environment  Children need to be making and doing things at home. Activities such as cutting paper, putting water and sand in an out of containers, drawing lines, making patterns, and putting blocks into boxes all help develop maths concepts. Encourage your child to describe what he or she has done and what has been discovered. It is very helpful to have a clock and a large calendar on the wall.

Encourage your child to help you at home   Adult activities like cooking, sewing, carpentry, concreting, car maintenance etc. are very educational for children. Let your children see what you’re doing and encourage them to help from time to time at whatever level is possible. Apart from learning such skills as measuring, your child will appreciate that maths is real and is an important part of life.

Take it easy on the harder parts of maths   From time to time parents will see their child is having difficulty with, for example, equivalent fractions, so they jump in and explain things. This may seem like a good idea but very often it can lead to frustration for everybody, bad attitudes, and nothing learned. The reason for this is very simple—your child may not be ready to learn the particular concept. You see, everything in maths is like a brick wall where each brick is supported by the brick below it. So if you suddenly start talking about the top bricks, but there aren’t any middle bricks, then you are not going to build the wall.

This means if you explain it simply, and your child just doesn’t understand it, then leave this topic for a while until your child’s mathematical maturity catches up. Do not keep persisting. Praise your child for trying and then just forget about. And when you do try again, use physical things to teach with. This is called ‘concrete material’. So when teaching division for example, use counters, coloured rods, cakes, biscuits anything actually. Something you should have done right at the beginning.

A very good example of this principle is teaching children how to tell the time. If the child is mathematically ready to be taught then the whole thing can be over in 15 minutes. If the child is not ready then both parent and student are in for an unpleasant lesson. Now progress seems deceptively easy at first with the child understanding ten o’clock, five minutes past ten, twenty minutes past ten, and even half past ten. Then comes ‘twenty minutes to’ or ‘a quarter to’. Whoa, now the wheels are falling off, well and truly. Understanding time beyond the half hour really does involve wheels within wheels.

So slow right down. Consider only the minute hand. Once beyond the halfway point encourage the child to see only that the time has now moved a very long way and is heading to a new hour. Say: ‘The time is nearly half way past two o’clock. Now it is half way past two o’clock. Now the time is going to the top again.’ Be very sure about the meaning of the words ‘halfway’, ‘past’ and ‘to’.  So often parents plunge ahead assuming that each word is understood properly, and so often the child simply pretends to understand.

Work your way through the whole telling the time sequence, letting your child actually move the hands and say what is happening. If progress is being made—and I am talking here of progress over a number of days—then fine. If the child still cannot understand then repetition is going to be counter-productive, upsetting for everyone, and it will make it harder for next time. So finish the teaching sequence on something positive, something which has been learned, progress which is encouraging to the child—and then leave the whole business of telling the time. After your child has matured mathematically, moved forward, perhaps over a period of weeks or months, then try again. Be content with gaining even small steps.

Actually telling the time is of far less importance than enjoying mathematics, and using it in everyday life. This is really your teaching purpose at home so don’t get distracted with particular topic areas. It is so easy to introduce negativity into the learning process.

Another problem parents may have is the opposite—your child is learning easily and making rapid progress. Every time you explain something the child understands, remembers it, can put it into practice independently over time, and doesn’t forget. Wow. So now you decide that your child is on his or her way to becoming a mathematical genius and in fact is ready to learn the entire maths syllabus right up to Year 12. Well, not a good idea. Be happy with what has been achieved, give your child a little practice over the next few days, and be content with the progress made. So then lots of ideas—over to you. And good luck.

All content copyright—Mark Thackray—Australian Educational Services