What is it that one child does that makes her whisk through the school years and successfully follow a career of her choice and another an ever struggling and insecure child who will never be able to cope with schoolwork and eventually end up a miserable dropout with barely the ability to count?
If your child is having problem coping with math at school, you are not alone! You just must visit educational forums and blogs and you will be amazed at how parents are desperately trying to find answers to this perpetual problem.
Parents with children as old as18 seek help and guidance. Many are usually verbally bashed and labeled ‘incapable’ and ‘abnormal’ and unjustly accused of being unworthy to raise children. How many parents out there are going through this same experience every-day?
There are millions of untold stories that would make one shudder at the thought of what the future holds for many young adults. I have seen parents with children unable to cope with math at school. To see their frustration and utter helplessness disturbed me to the extent that I wished I could do something to help them.
I was convinced that regardless of how badly a child performs at school, she can still catch up and do better if she were taught the right way. It’s pretty hard for a kid to grasp everything that is taught in class.
By the time she gets home she can hardly remember much of what was taught. How can this child be expected to do her homework without stress? She would need help and parents can’t help as teaching methods have changed since they left school.
However, they try to help with whatever recollections they have of the topic at hand, but is it fair to the child? Something had to be done to help those students.
Rolling up their sleeves, a group of teachers decided to find a solution to this problem. After seeing 5000 families with school children, conducting research, and working with kids over a period of 10 years, they finally discovered a solution that could help solve this nagging problem.
The main feature of this math learning method is that students need not practice or answer many math questions to understand math. So the pressure is down! All they must do is to go straight to the solution andlearn how the question is to be answered.
They realized that children do not like pressure. They want to learn at their own pace. A tutor is O.K but on the other hand, they do not wish to have someone ‘breathing down their neck’.
They discovered that children don’t like to be patronized, so to speak, and would bear the brunt of a reprimand rather than attempt questions they were not confident enough to answer.
It was debated whether children who viewed step by step solutions prior to answering a question responded better. It was found that it gave the student more confidence and he was more prepared to co-operate and finish his homework.
This layback and tolerant method of learning encourages students to look forward to finishing their homework and progress in math.
Richard Pidial is an experienced teacher, and co-founder of schrool.com a math learning site that teaches math with a twist.