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I’m often asked by parents if there is anything they could (or should) be doing in the home environment to better support their child’s maths learning. The trigger may be a disappointing school report, the start of a new school term or simply an inherent belief that their child could be doing better than they are currently doing.
And the answer is a resounding “Yes, you can help.” And the good news is that it needn’t be difficult or time-consuming to have an impact if you put a few of these tips into practice.
Maths ability is not set in stone and parents can help in very practical ways. Here are the 3 ingredients to get you started!
Learning maths is like building a pyramid. Maths skills such as counting, addition, subtraction etc are the foundation building blocks that make up the base. If one maths skill doesn’t quite sink in, it makes the foundations shaky and new skills become harder to learn.
This is what causes children to start to lose confidence and fall behind. So early awareness of a potential problem is key so it can be addressed before confidence is damaged.
However, it can be tricky to really know how your child is doing in maths – even after you’ve read the school report!
So here are a few tips to help build an accurate picture of your child’s maths strengths and weaknesses (forgive me for stating the obvious here).
Maths, very much like sports or music, is a skill that needs practice. But don’t just take my word for it:
For the best outcome, the ideal plan includes a mix of different approaches to maths practice to develop true maths fluency. And by that I mean:
Here are just a few ideas:
Gardening – most kids love to help out in the garden so it makes a fun and memorable learning opportunity. Counting, measuring, reading temperature, sorting are all easy mathematical activities for younger children. Older children may enjoy planning a gardening project – introducing scale, evenly spacing out seeds, checking temperatures and measuring plants as they grow.
Games and puzzles – I’m particularly keen on the value of maths puzzles when it involves the whole family and younger members can be involved in working through and finding creative solutions. Check out these fun activities on the Komodo blog for free ideas.
A healthy mindset towards learning maths includes self-belief, confidence and the resilience to keep learning even when it gets tough .
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