Why Does Your Child Hate Math?
"The number of smart kids I have seen who hate math is remarkable," said Suzanne Sutton, the creator of
N
ewtonswindow.com
, a Rockville-based Web site that offers parents strategies for making school fun for kids. "We have this great culture around reading, with reading for pleasure and bedtime stories, but we don't have an equivalent for math. It's not seen as recreational." Children don't hate math but they do hate being a failure and the peer pressure that comes with failing.
We want our children to love math, or at least feel confident in their abilities. Today, with all of the emphasis schools and employers are placing on STEM
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science, technology, engineering and math
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courses and skills, we know that children need to be comfortable with math.
So how do parents get children to embrace numbers as eagerly as "Sesame Street's" Count Von Count, who told The Post, "I fell in love with numbers when I was 1 year old, then 2 years old, then again at 3. And at 4, and 5, and 6 and 7 .
.
. ah-ha-ha! I love counting!"?
Here are some suggestions from experts on inspiring kids to love math:
● Never say you weren't good at math (even if you weren't).
None of us would dream of saying that about reading. But math? Eh. We say it all the time.
●
Adopt a more math-centric vocabulary.
If your child is working a puzzle, instead of suggesting he turn a piece to make it fit, ask him to rotate it
When you're looking at shapes with your child, don't just ask how many sides a triangle has but also ask the number of angles, to increase their knowledge of math vocabulary.
● Weave math into everyday activities.
Whether you are measuring flour and sugar for cookies (fractions!) or counting apples as you drop them into a bag at the grocery store (one-to-one correspondence!), find ways to incorporate math in your daily life., said Rose Moore, the Pre
K-12 mathematics coordinator for Fairfax County Public Schools.
In many ways the recommendations above are key parts of the Mathnasium method of teaching number sense and numerical fluency. When children become comfortable with the language of math and make math a part of their daily life, the changes that can and will occur can transform a child that hates math into one that is "crazy about math".
Article by Mari-Jane Williams, from the Washington Post article;
How to get Reluctant Children to Embrace Math,
March 14, 2014
Synopsis by Don McLaughlin
