Accelerate Math

The core of mathematics is reasoning - thinking through why methods make sense and talking about reasons for the use of different methods, (Boaler, 2013).

Family Math, explore math ideas as part of your family life

Family Math is an emerging movement to promote math activities within the context of family relationships and everyday life, from the supermarket/shop to the playground, during breakfast, bath time or bedtime.

The goal is to support young children to strengthen their math awareness, understanding, and confidence. Families can support their children’s math learning in fun easy ways, by playing math games, playing with puzzles, even sorting clothes!

Idea 1: Practice "Number Talks" at Home

"Children's and parents' understanding in mathematics improves when they are able to make connections between school mathematics and real world mathematics." (Adams, Waters, Chappie, & Onslow, 2002, p . ii)

Idea 2: Make math fun and encourage curiosity

Play games that encourage mathematical reasoning in a fun way (no pressure).

Do not show frustrations with wrong answers, instead encourage your child to find new patterns and new ways of solving a problem.

Remember, as adults, we are already using abstract methods when we approach math, children will eventually get confused if abstract methods are introduced too early.

children always need more concrete, real, hands-on, or explicit math foundations to support them towards effective abstract mathematical thinking.

Games, math stories, and connecting real-life situations to math as well as hands-on math activities are some great yet fun ways to build concrete mathematical thinking

Click here for a full list of math activities for parents and children

Play Uno as a family!

Introduce Monopoly to your children

General Advice for Parents,

from Professor Jo Boaler, Youcubed, Stanford University

  1. Encourage children to play maths puzzles and games. Award-winning mathematician, Sarah Flannery reported that her maths achievement and enthusiasm came not from school but from the puzzles she was given to solve at home. Puzzles and games – anything with a dice really – will help kids enjoy maths, and develop 1 number sense, which is critically important, click here for a full list of math activities for parents and children

  2. Always be encouraging and never tell kids they are wrong when they are working on maths problems. Instead find the logic in their thinking – there is always some logic to what they say. For example, if your child multiplies 3 by 4 and gets 7, say – Oh I see what you are thinking, you are using what you know about addition, to add 3 and 4, when we multiply we have 4 groups of 3…

  3. Never associate maths with speed. It is not important to work quickly, and we now know that forcing kids to work quickly on maths is the best way to start maths anxiety for children, especially girls. Do not use fashcards or other speed drills. Instead use visual activities such as these ones.

  4. Never share with your children the idea that you were bad at maths at school or you dislike it – especially if you are a mother. Researchers found that as soon as mothers shared that idea with their daughters, their daughters' achievement levels went down.

  5. Encourage number sense. What separates high and low achievers is number sense – having an idea of the size of numbers and being able to separate and combine numbers flexibly. For example, when working out 29 + 56, if you take one from the 56 and make it 30 + 55, it is much easier to work out. The fexibility to work with numbers in this way is what is called number sense and it is very important.

  6. Perhaps most important of all – encourage a “growth mindset” let students know that they have unlimited maths potential and that being good at maths is all about working hard. When children have a growth mindset, they do well with challenges and do better in school overall. When children have a fixed mindset and they encounter diffcult work, they often conclude that they are not “a math person”.

      • One way in which parents discourage a growth mindset is by telling their children they are “smart” when they do something well. That seems like a nice thing to do, but it sets children up for difficulties later, as when they experience failures eventually or fail at something they will inevitably conclude that they aren’t smart after all.

      • Instead use growth praise such as “it is great that you have learned that”, “I really like your thinking about that”. When they tell you something is hard for them, or they have made a mistake, tell them: “That’s wonderful, your brain is growing!”

      • Click here for a full list of math activities for parents and children

The difference between high and low-achieving students...

"The difference between high and low achieving students was not that the low achieving students knew less mathematics, but that they were interacting with mathematics differently.

Instead of approaching numbers with flexibility and using ‘number sense’ they seemed to cling to formal procedures they had learned, using them very precisely, not abandoning them even when it made sense to do so.

The low achievers did not know less but they did not use numbers flexibly – probably because they had been set on the wrong path, from an early age, of trying to memorize methods and number facts instead of interacting with numbers flexibly (Boaler, 2009).

Click here for a full list of math activities for parents and children

Nurture a love for math, prevent math anxiety!

If you struggled with math as a child, reframe your mindset positively!

A study revealed that when mothers told their daughters they were not good at math in school, their daughter’s achievement declined almost immediately (Eccles & Jacobs, 1986). In a new study, neuroscientists Erin Maloney and colleagues found that parents’ math anxiety reduced their children’s learning of math across grades 1 and 2, but only if parents helped their children on math homework (Maloney, Ramirez, Gunderson, Levine, & Beilock, 2015) If they did not help them on homework, the parents’ math anxiety did not detract from their children’s learning.

The parents’ math knowledge did not turn out to have any impact, only their level of math anxiety.

Avoid negative messages we know to be harmful, such as “math is hard” or “I was never good at math in school.” It is critical that when parents interact with children about math they communicate positive messages, saying that math is exciting and it is an open subject that anyone can learn with hard work, that it is not about being “smart” or not and that math is all around us in the world.

Children identify with their parents and parental math anxiety will often and sadly convey the idea that math is hard for them or they are just not a “math person.” Adults try to be comforting and sympathetic about math, telling girls in particular not to worry, and emphasizing that they can do well in other subjects. We now know such messages are extremely damaging.

Teachers and parents need to replace sympathetic messages such as “Don’t worry, math isn’t your thing” with positive messages such as “You can do this, I believe in you, math is an open, beautiful subject that is all about effort and hard work.”

https://www.youcubed.org/resources/parents-beliefs-math-change-childrens-achievement/