MATH

Top Strategies to Improve Students’ Mathematical Understandings

1.   Make sure they understand what the math ideas are.  Allow children to use manipulatives, to draw pictures, or make charts.

2. Help them practice basic facts.  Practice with flash cards, or call out numbers while you are driving in the car.  If your child struggles with basic facts, allow them time to solve fact group difficulties and then work on memorizing it. 

3. Learn to organize work and to write numbers neatly.  Many errors occur when students can’t read their own writing, copy numbers incorrectly, or do not remember the order of the steps they took. 

4. Encourage your child to ask for help.  Because math builds on what has already been learned, sometimes we just have to back up and make sure they have the basics covered. 

5. Set aside a time to share math homework.   Practice reinforces skills learned in class and it gives us an understanding of what they do and do not understand. 

6. Have your child do more than what was assigned.  Have your child share the steps and “teach” you how he/she is completing assignments. 

7. Encourage your child to solve word problems. To learn to solve problems, they MUST solve problems.  Have your child reread word problems and to draw, highlight or make charts that will allow them to complete steps to solve problems.