Usually fun and math are not used together in the same sentence. More often the not the words stress, anxiety and I might fail are used. At a recent conference Susan Levine a math professor challenged over 100 hundred parents to engage their children with math before the school year started thus helping to ease their anxiety over the subject. In her opinion people do what they enjoy doing. So by making math seem fun will help children learn it.
As more children struggle with math, there are conferences to assist both parents and students.
Socioeconomics affects children and how they learn.
According to Levine during A 2010 study by Levine and her colleagues showed a large difference in the use of number words with preschool children. This difference was associated with family socioeconomic status, with socioeconomically advantaged children hearing many more such words prior to entering kindergarten. At the conference, several speakers noted that cultural attitudes in the United States often work against math fluency in children. How we feel about math as a nation is not great. People in most nations are anxious about math to some extent, but in the United States this anxiety tends to be socially acceptable.
The Science of Learning Center is designed not just to ask about the building blocks of learning but also to impact what happens in the classroom and at home.
Laura Lurns · Learning Success expert
Key takeaways
- The words “enjoy” and “math” often aren’t used together by parents: In many homes, the subject instead is associated with anxiety, stress and trepidation.
- Parents too often avoid engaging their children in mathematical thinking and convey their negative attitudes to their children, and a cycle of math phobia becomes self-perpetuating.
- The Science of Learning Center, which launched last year, is working to make math a priority in homes in many ways.
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