3 Simple Tips to Help Your Child Get Good at Mathematics
Most young, and many not so young, children battle with math at school. And most parents are at a loss as to how to help them. I grasped math from an early age at school and studied math at university. My career was based on math and math stats. So I want to share my experiences in helping my three daughters do well at math at school with you here today. And it is easy if you know a few secrets about how the brain works to solve number problems. It is a simple matter of training the brain to think by numbers.
Math is a very logical subject. If the basics are grasped early on, the more complicated math that comes along later at school will be easier to grasp. So I will focus on the basics and show you how to help your children develop some early problem solving skills. And it is never too early to start introducing these skills to your children. Of course, a good grounding in math will stand the student in very good stead later on in life.
First Tip: Start on the Basics early on
The basics of a good grounding in math is the famous four; addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. To help the child’s brain start to grasp the basics and make them second nature, it is important to start early and get them to repeat over and over the multiplication tables they will be given at school. Work with your child to learn the tables off by heart. Help them with their math homework every night. Set them little math problems at every opportunity. For example, when you are out shopping, ask your child to add the prices of two items together. First let them do it in their head, then let them check it on a calculator, or the cell phone. Subtraction can be practised in the kitchen by asking simple questions like:
If we have 24 knives and 24 forks and there are only 16 knives and forks in the drawer, how many are in the dishwasher?
When you take you children out for a meal, or a milkshake, let them pay and bring you back the change. Ask them to check the bill and ensure the change is the right amount.
Second Tip: Make Problem Solving Fun
I used to use every meal time to set my daughters problems to solve, which involved them thinking and using math. And often the youngest of the three got the answers first. For example:
Suppose 4 people get onto a bus at the first stop and another 5 get on at the second stop. Then at the third stop 5 more people get on and 3 get off. How many shoes are on the bus on people’s feet? Answer is 24, because you must count the bus driver .
I used to have a few little trick parts in the problems I posed to make the girls think before they answered and they found this great fun. So make problem solving fun and use meal times, when the family is together, to set a few questions for the kids to think about. Of course, you will need to know the right answers.
I also found that teaching my daughters about money and saving and getting them to set savings goals, helped them with their number problem solving skills.
Third Tip: For older kids, use number puzzles to encourage their mathematical mind to develop
Most newspapers now include on their puzzle pages both Sudoku and Kenken puzzles which require the use of numbers. The former requires one to fill in the gaps in a 9 by 9 square, with no number repeated in any row, column or 3 by 3 square. The simple ones are great training for kids and books are available at newsagents filled with number puzzles. KenKen is a fairly new number puzzle, using the four basics I mentioned in the first tip, and also requires filling in the missing numbers. Encourage your kids to do these puzzles and reward them for completing them. Even photocopy them and have a timed race to see who can finish first. Kids mostly love competition.
There are also hand held computer games such as marketed by Nintendo that help train the brain to think through math problems. And even the well known game of Monopoly will help children with their number skills.
We didn’t have these computer games when my girls were younger, although we played Monopoly a lot, so I used to make up number puzzles on paper for them to solve.
There are so many opportunities in everyday life to ask your kids to think in a problem solving way and the more variety you bring into it the better.