Jo Boaler, a noted professor at Standford University, encourages parents to help transform the idea that “all children can succeed at learning math.” Here are her suggestions for building math confidence:
- Play math puzzles and games - Any game involving counting and dice will help kids enjoy math and develop strong number sense.
- Understand your child’s thinking - Be encouraging and never tell kids they are wrong. Instead, understand your child’s logic used when making the mistake. If your child multiplies 3x4 and gets 7-tell them you understand they were using addition but multiplication is 3 groups of 4.
- Never push for speed when your child is doing math. We now know that forcing children to work fast when doing math causes great anxiety.
- Never share with your child that you either dislike math or were bad at math in school - especially. if you are a mother. Research has proven that as soon as mothers shared that idea with their daughters, achievement went down for the girls.
- Encourage number sense which is the flexibility to work with numbers. Ex. Instead of adding 29 + 56, take one way away from the 56 and solve 30 + 55 which is easier.
- Develop a “growth mindset” with your child. Instead of telling your child they are “smart” when they do something well try using growth phrases such as “It is great you have learned that,” “I really like your thinking,” “That’s fine you made a mistake - your brain is growing.”
For more resources, visit: https://www.youcubed.org/parents
