My first thought about this article came from number reversals (Numbers written backwards).  See the picture to the left.  This picture comes from an assignment my kindergartner completed recently.  Reversals are really difficult for him,  however, he is wholly unaffected, unaware of them at this point.  He loves to write numbers and letters and more than 50% are reversed.  Yet, he feels good, and confident, about his letter and number writing.  So, how do we critique, re-teach and/or fix mistakes in Math without frustrating or hurting our child’s confidence?

My son completed this assignment on his own, I was not with him.   Later, I looked at the page and saw all of the reversals and wanted to work with him post-homework.  However, the thought occurred to me, “How much should I touch on a piece of work that he felt very good about and that felt complete to him?”

In this case, I touched on it very little.  Instead, I commented on the wonderful job he did with many other numbers and I made a mental note that, moving forward, I would approach number situations with a visual in front of him so he can see what direction the numbers travel as he attempts to write them on his own.

I chose to embrace his confidence over nit picking one small assignment.  This is, in fact, much different than a slightly older child who has an assignment requiring correct answers. Would we allow our child to hand in a Math paper with answers all incorrect?  This often sparks debate.  I know some parents who would want the teacher to see that the concept is not being understood by the child and leave the answers incorrect.  I know others that would prefer to sit with the child and talk the concept through with them and then hand in the homework with the mistakes so the teacher could see the issues.  Still other parents might go over the concept and fix the homework.

There is no correct answer here.  Your familiarity with the concept may drive the amount you get involved.  I hear many parents say that today’s Math is “different” and that is true. There are new methods and strategies being used that were not taught when we were in school.  This alone makes assisting with Math at home difficult.  When we do sit down with our child, how much should we help?  How much do we nitpick and when do we praise what is right and leave some of what is slightly off in an effort to boost confidence?

To help or not to help?

In my profession, working with children that struggle, I often hear from parents how stressful it is trying to help with homework.  Every night becomes a power struggle.  Knowing this, having a child work on additional foundational skills, when not required, could be torture for all involved.  So, how much do we interfere?

Different children require different amounts of intervention.

Those with more than one child at home can attest that each child has very different learning modalities.  Therefore, it goes without saying that teachers, sometimes working with 30+ students, have quite a challenge on their hands. Knowing this, it’s important to remember that children approach learning and homework in very different ways.   If we decide to assist, we must be thoughtful and flexible as we may need to make changes to meet individual needs.

The question then becomes HOW? How do we do this? How do we take away the struggle and leave the child feeling confident and secure in the concept?  The first important task is to make sure you understand the concept the child is learning.  If it is a new method that was not taught when you were young, seek out the teacher, watch the worksheets that come home, investigate the child’s mathematical computer program (if there is one), search Google, and educate yourself.  Then, when you sit with your child, you won’t both be struggling for comprehension.  Next, seek your child out the right way.  Try to find an optimal, quiet time for homework, when they are ready to learn,  Sit with your child and go through the each of the steps.  Approaching the situation confidently, and “in the know”, is the best beginning.

If all goes well and your child gets it, step away for the day triumphant. If it’s a disaster and your child is still struggling, try a new approach or don’t be afraid to write a little note to the teacher.  Sometimes they can assist before or after school.  And they might be open to you going as well to watch and learn.

This is my same child’s numbers two weeks later.  Again, It is a paper he completed at school.  Does he still have reversals?  Yes, he does.  I am not making him fix each one, but rather noting them and keeping them on my radar.  When the moment is right, we’ll sit together and practice some different approaches to number formations.

To me, this is a healthy way to look at children as learners.  We all have individual learning styles and needs.  And at different times.  Right now, my son feels fantastic about his learning and he should.  And I want to keep it that way while at the same time guiding him correctly.

Keep positive, support without criticism and, when intervention is necessary, educate yourself so you can be the best advocate possible for your child.

Struggling:  As a parent, there is nothing worse than watching your child struggle.  The awful truth is that every child, including my own, struggles. So, what do we as parents when our child is having a difficult time comprehending Math?

Some thoughts:  The help is at home.  It will take some time, patience and consistency, but it is doable!

1. Find a nice, quiet spot with space for math manipulatives and materials.
2. Try to work on math at a similar time every day.  I know how incredibly harried days can be. There are lots of extra-curricular activities and distractions, but it will really alleviate stress if you prioritize this difficult subject and give it some tender loving care.
3. Build in mental health breaks.  Don’t try to work through a concept or homework assignment without allowing time for a fun snack, or a 2-minute stretch break.
4. Celebrate the small successes and expect some frustrating moments.  Be ready for both and tell your child to expect ups and downs when working on something difficult.
5. Don’t be afraid to have your child write notes to the teacher.  And don’t you be afraid to write notes to the teacher as well. Communication is KEY! I am a big proponent on letting the teacher know what was tricky or letting him/her know that your child needs a bit of reinforcement on a specific concept the next day.  Also, don’t be afraid to talk about the amount of work coming home. If it is taking an inordinate amount of time, there should be no reason that your child cannot be assigned odd-numbered problems or half of the page so long as all concepts are being covered (Often homework assignments have many repeated problems and doing some of them can cover the concept).
6. Be flexible.  If one way of explaining does not do the trick, try another.  Some children need a visual explanation, others need to have their hands on blocks or unifix cubes, still others need to hear the information.  No one way is right, because every child is unique!
7. Try to be ok with allowing another person to do the explaining. This has happened to me!  While I was in the middle of working through a concept with one of my own children, an older sibling wandered in and explained it so simply I nearly cried. My child looked to the older sibling, had him repeat himself, and show her on the page and she got it.  It is ok if to look to others when your words and thoughts aren’t working.

Tips:

*Have a 100 chart nearby. The visual placement of numbers is useful.

*Keep manipulatives such as unifix cubes or place value blocks nearby.

*Store graph paper, blank paper, lined paper, pencils and a straight edge.  Get the graph paper with the larger sized blocks for younger children. There is graph paper that has larger squares on one side and slightly smaller squares on the other side.

*Most importantly, don’t be afraid to conference with friends who have children of similar age, peers who have slightly older children and have already gone through similar concepts with their children or the teacher.

*Remember, no one way of explaining always works.  When one way is not computing for your child, be flexible and try another.

****Don’t be afraid to use the computer to look up a strategy or method.  I have been doing this for years and do it all the time. *****

Math can be hard, but don’t panic.

Not everything comes easy to us.  This is true for all people.  Being an educator for over twenty years, I have worked with many students who have struggled to conceptualize mathematics.  Each individual brings a different story.  While some truly do have issues that need to be addressed, often children enter school without having had much exposure to numbers; or developmentally they need more time and just aren’t ready.  In these cases, what they need is a patient parent, caregiver or educator to assist them as they learn at their own pace. Keep in mind, we don’t all potty train at the same time. We don’t all walk at the same time. And similarly, we may not be ready to learn math concepts at the exact same time. So, what can we do to help the late bloomers navigate through math successfully?

Your speed doesn’t matter. Forward is forward. Slow and steady wins the race.

Late bloomers can finish the math race too.

As a teacher, there is a curriculum to follow.  As a parent, there are concepts to be reinforced at home to help children “make the grade”.  When a child is not grasping math, it can be frustrating for both the child and the adult.  As an educator, I often find myself calming parents down.  Panic is the first feeling to emerge in these situations.  But rather than panic, what can we do?

Check the foundation.

Rather than trying to play catch up and rushing through the lessons or concepts missed, it is much more productive to back-up and look at the foundation.

*How is number fluency?  Just as there is fluency in reading, you can bet there is fluency in math too.  How well can your child count?

Can they count forwards? Backwards? Can they count by 1’s, 2’s, 5’s, 10’s?

Learning math can and should be fun.  Number fluency has such potential to be exciting for children.  Use several 100 charts, highlight the numbers you are working on and allow the child to count while singing or playing catch.  Think of this fluency work similar to how children sing chants while jumping rope.  It is meant to be repetitive so the child can eventually memorize the numbers. Don’t be afraid to allow the child to look at the highlighted numbers as they practice. Eventually, they won’t need that chart.

For slightly older children the concepts advance, but the method stays the same.  Does your child know their addition facts?  Subtraction facts?  Multiplication facts?  Division facts?  These can be fun too. There are many tricks to be utilized, games to be played to assist in learning these.  Knowing these facts fluently will assist them with math for all of their years in school.  These facts don’t go away but are integrated into much more complex mathematical concepts.

This fluency and ease with the movement of numbers will build a foundation for your child to learn more complex mathematical ideas.

*Is your child comfortable with the hundreds chart? Can they maneuver to the right? The numbers get bigger by one.  Can they maneuver to the left?  The numbers get smaller by one.  How about up?  They get smaller by 10.   Down?  They get bigger by 10.

Understanding movement of numbers and adding and subtracting of bigger numbers with the number chart is foundational.  If the number gets smaller by one, the digit in the ones place gets smaller. If the number gets bigger by 10, the tens digit gets bigger by one.  Similar to puzzles, understanding how the relationships with numbers on the hundreds chart allows children more ease when manipulating numbers.

*How is their number comprehension?  Yes, just like reading, there is comprehension with numbers too.  Do they understand just what 5 looks like?  Not just how to write the number 5, but how many is 5?  Can they comprehend that 95 is bigger than 93?  Is there an ability to visualize number amounts?  Do they understand how many pennies are in one quarter? What does half of something look like?

This image and ability to visualize the number is important.

Acquiring these foundational skills does not happen overnight.  But it certainly doesn’t happen any faster if everyone involved feels panicked and frustrated.  What has to happen to move forward?  I have found that, ultimately, we have to move backwards a bit to finally be able to move forward.  Without the foundation set and secure, adding more new unknown concepts will only compound the challenges with math.  Instead, take a breath and remember the tortoise and the hare.  Now be the tortoise.  Slowly assist your child in building the important foundation that will benefit them in their mathematical life to come.  

Math really is fun.  It can be misery trying to teach it, but magic when you integrate it into your child’s everyday life.  

It’s a mystery to me why some children have a natural affinity for numbers while others show no interest or may even resist them.  It may be no different than why I chose to participate in gymnastics as a child while my best friend’s sport of choice was soccer.  We veer toward subjects and activities that come easily and steer away from those that are confusing or tricky.  As a parent of four young children and a learning specialist, I know how difficult it can be to get a child to participate in something they think is hard or boring. Pushing concepts on young children will prove arduous to both the adult and child, so what are some fun ways parents and educators can engage young children with math?

Too often we turn to the computer for answers, .  Or the apps on a smartphone.  While some of these are fun, my children already spend enough time in front of screens.  There are many workbooks that reinforce math concepts, but if your children are like mine, they aren’t going to be motivated by more ditto sheets.  Instead, I propose thinking more organically about numbers and mathematical concepts; they are hiding within so much of what we do everyday.  Very often, we can explore mathematical language and concepts without it ever seeming to our children that we are “working on math”.  If there are two words that don’t go over well with children, the top two might be “work” and “math”.

Some examples of how to bring math into everyday life:

*Put a timer on the microwave. Tell your child how much time you’ve put on the timer. Challenge them to pick up their toys or clean their room before the timer beeps. If they finish early, do a countdown with them while watching the numbers on the clock. You could even hold up fingers for the 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 countdown.  If it was not enough time, talk about how much MORE time could have been added to the timer.  If it was too much time, how much LESS could have been used.

*Have your child study their cereal box in the morning.  Any aged child loves to look at the colors, the characters, and the games or stories on the back of the box.  But cereal offers many other rich math opportunities:

-Talk about the numbers they see in the ingredients. Discuss which character on the box is “bigger” than another. Take the cereal box apart, cut the pieces and measure them with a ruler or just lay them next to one another and decide which is taller and which is shorter.

-Pull a handful of cereal out and count.  How many “marshmallows” are in the cereal  (if you like the junk cereal variety)? Separate by color. Sort piles of like shapes. The amount of opportunities to get the math brain curious is limitless.

*Near your child’s bed, create a Mathematical bulletin board. My youngest son sleeps on the bottom bunk in a bunk bed. I created a beautiful (not too visual so as to keep him awake) collage of mathematical concepts for him to peek at before he closed his eyes at night.

After we read, I count with him. We find numbers. We look to see which number is “bigger”. We play riddle games. “I’m thinking of a number”. When he is tired, I never force it. When things get old, I switch it up. It is fun because he never knows what is going to be on the board next.

*Is your child physical? Make movement mathematical. How many times can you throw the ball back and forth or roll it if catch proves difficult. Create a dart board (out of plain paper) with numbers on it. Make paper airplanes and see what numbers you can both hit.

Get a jump rope and sing a number song or count. Kick a soccer ball and keep tally marks on a sheet of paper to track how many goals are made by each player.

*Cook and bake with your child. Both offer very rich opportunities to sneak numbers in. There are fraction opportunities but also looking at temperature on an oven. Talking about how long the item needs to cook. How many minutes does the batter need to be mixed? Etc.

*Play games. Dice games, card games, matching games. There are a plethora of board games that include mathematical concepts.

-Sleeping Queens (A family favorite- enjoyed from my 5 year old up through both parents!)

-War: an easy way to compare numbers. You can add and have each player turn over two cards. The bigger number after you’ve added keeps all 4 cards.

-Rat a Tat Cat (Another family favorite that involves your wanting to keep the “low” numbers and get rid of the “high” ones)

-Shut the Box: Roll the dice and close the doors on the numbers you roll. Try to “shut all of the numbers” to end with the lowest number.

-Memory: Who could forget Memory? What a wonderful game. The cards can have shapes on them or numbers. While playing and matching, talk about the shapes they see, count the images on the card together before making matches.  

These ideas are not new and this list is far from complete- there are so many more hidden opportunities to learn math. They are things that many parents are already doing with their children everyday. However, when it is not obvious that Math is being taught, it can be easy to overlook the Math hidden right in front of you. Before you turn on a computer or buy a workbook, try to find the hidden math in your everyday life. To insert mathematical language, concepts and games into their life can make all of the difference. After working in a few more of these ideas, I think you’ll see your child building a math brain from everyday life.