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Maths can be daunting for some children and extra help at home can really help to boost their confidence and progress at school. A private girls school in Buckinghamshire shares their tips on helping children with maths at home.
1. Speak Positively About Maths
Positivity helps to breed confidence and talking negatively about a particular subject can reinforce the same attitude within your child. This might be as simple as saying you hate maths in the supermarket or saying that you can’t do a maths sum. Instead, demonstrate excitement and be engaged when going through maths homework.
2. Solidify Maths Vocabulary
Another barrier for your child might be not knowing what is being asked. Creating flashcards for terms like multiplication, addition, subtraction and division could help to relieve any confusion or fear. Why not turn it into a game of snap and make it a fun task too?
3. Work Through Word Problems Together
It’s easy to get distracted in the scenario of a question and not know what method to use to solve the problem. For this, read questions out loud with your child and break them down. You might also find that getting them to draw it out helps them to better understand. This could be drawing marbles or sweets to share for a division question.
4. Encourage Them to Not Use a Calculator
Although it might be easier and allowed in class, get your child to work out maths problems without a calculator. Working through a problem mentally helps to improve understanding and allows children to grasp concepts easier.
5. Use Sample Questions
As a checkpoint in their homework, get your child to tackle a sample so that you can determine if more time is needed before completing an assignment. It’s important that unlike when you were teaching, your child does this alone to highlight what they can recall for themselves.