Helping your child with Mathematics - Some general principles

There are a number of general principles which you might keep in mind when you are helping your children. The following are suggestions prepared by Matt Sexton, Professor Doug Clarke and their colleagues at the Australian Catholic University - Mathematics Teaching & Learning Centre:

• Building on success is important. Create the impression that being successful in mathematics is desirable. Reward effort and try not to criticise errors.

• People learn, not so much by being told things, as by working things out for themselves and linking new ideas to ideas they already have. You can help by asking your children questions, letting them work out answers for themselves, and then discussing their answers with them.

• Children need time to think and time to answer. When asking your children questions or talking to them about mathematics give them time. Be patient. Wait for them to answer. Also explain to older children that they need to give younger children time to answer questions, rather than always answering for them.

• Encourage children to talk. Talking about mathematics is an effective way of learning and the family is one of the best places to talk, especially when a mathematical situation arises naturally.

• Use mathematical words when you describe things. For example, instead of saying 'the big red bucket," you might say the "10 Litre bucket". Instead of saying "the large packet of rice," you might say "the 2kg packet of rice". In this way children get to hear quantities being stated as an everyday way of describing things.

• There is no hurry. Children develop their mathematics skills gradually and there is no urgency about developing any particular skill. On the other hand neither can all of the skills wait until the end of their schooling. It is necessary to work progressively on helping them to learn mathematics. In other words start now, but there is no particular need to accelerate your child's development.

• Help your child's teacher. Your child's teacher is vitally interested in your child's mathematical development. Talk to the teacher about how your child is going in mathematics and find out whether there are any ways that you can help your child. Supporting teachers if they recommend any home-based activities is highly desirable.

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• And most importantly - have fun with your child while exploring maths!

I encourage you to keep visiting this blog as each week I will be posting some suggested activities that you can do with your children. Some are general and some relate to specific aspects of the mathematics curriculum.

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