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5 Easy Steps To Make Your Child A Math Star!

5 Easy Steps To Make Your Child A Math Star!

These steps are intended for parents of young children ages 3-6 years old.  Every child can be great at math! What does it take to become good at math? Starting early gives your child more time (in some cases, years) for practice and processing. When children start early they are encouraged to continue and the process becomes self-fulfilling. They see learning is fun!

START PRACTICING EARLY
  1. Introducing math at 3 years old is a great age to begin. Research states that starting early between ages 3-6, has a direct impact on future academic success.
  2. Children who start math early nurture intrinsic benefits including confidence and enjoyment.
MAKE MATH REAL
  1. Include math in everyday activities your children enjoy. Here are some examples:
    • Count your steps while taking a walk.
    • Pick up leaves and count them.
  2. Introduce addition by adding things like cups of water at the dinner table, apples and oranges in your shopping cart, shoes and socks in your closet. How many do you have all together?
  3. Introduce Subtraction:
    • Count the pieces of mail in the mail box. Subtract the opened mail. How much mail is left?
    • Count the cookies in a bag see how many cookies are left after one is eaten.
    • Count eggs in an egg carton and subtract the empty spaces as the eggs are used.
USE EFFECTIVE TOOLS
  1. Use tools that provide repetition, frequency, and consistency and work easily into your schedule.
  2. Popular tools include:
  • Flash cards
  • Math board games
  • Math books
  • Incremental, introduce topics step=-by-step, age appropriate math books
  • Apps and Software.
    There are various qualities, opinions and research on technology and its learning effectiveness. Evaluate the technology your children use and understand it’s play vs. education value.
  • Younger children can do work while their older siblings do their homework. Regardless of the tools you choose, go slowly to encourage your child and make the time fun.
PRACTICE OFTEN
  1. As adults, we know what it takes to get into physical shape or acquire a skill. Learning to dance well, or memorizing lines in a school play takes time, practice, perseverance, consistency, and a great attitude. This holds true for our children when learning.  There is no quick fix to learning and of course that applies to math too!  Children need time to learn new math facts and new math concepts.
  2. When a child learns a new concept on a given day, it does not mean they will retain it the next. They may need to review 10s of times until it ‘sticks’.  This is completely normal and part of the learning process. It takes time for new concepts to go from short term to long term memory. It takes time to acquire greater understanding so these concepts can be used automatically in higher level problem solving.  
CREATE A ROUTINE
  1. Find a routine that works for your family and stick to it as much as possible. If you get off track, no problem, just adjust and resume when you can. Remember, mistakes are good! Fixing them, even better. It is important to know what you don’t know and this is an important part of improving.

Have Fun!