Door-2-Math Blog

Worried about losing academic momentum during the summer break, parents often ask me “How do I get my child motived to do more homework?” But without understanding the underpinnings of homework struggle, any ‘Band-Aid’ solution just backfires. This article focuses on different stages of homework struggle, how to identify where a child is at and suggests some solutions.

Frequently, poor report card grades and resistance to homework are the only indications for many parents that their child is having trouble with math at school. When a parent notices a child struggling with homework, typical assumptions are that either the child is “lazy” or they do not understand the material because the teacher didn’t teach it right or that the math class is too difficult. These are the conceptions that I started with when I began helping students to overcome the math barrier, but over time I have observed that instead there are 4 different levels of homework struggle that a student goes through. From the least to the most worrisome, the 4 stages of math homework struggle are:

1. Poor understanding on math topics alone;

2. Unresolved math ‘trauma’ from any past/current instructors (professional or otherwise);

3. Lack of sufficient work habits;

4. Ineffective parent-child communication where math become a medium for power struggle.

Stage 1: Poor understanding of math topics. This is the easiest to identify and typically happens in 2^nd to 4^th grades. A good indicator of this symptom is that the child is doing well in other topics. There are a few fundamental topics that can be difficult to grasp and often kids get stuck on one of these. The topics are subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions and word problems. Seek to identify or find some help to identify which topic it is, and at this early stage, many math resources are available to remedy the problem.

Stage 2: Unresolved math trauma. Kids are very impressionable. It can only take one negative experience with math in the 3^rd to 6^th grade to turn them off on math for the rest of the school career. This could be an insensitive teacher making derogatory comments, peers, or even family members. After this experience the child will think they are no good in math and will have a mental block with homework. To identify this problem think back if any memory stands out of your child being distraught with a teacher a peer or a family member and interview the child about this experience. Often times just talking about the experience will make the child feel better and improve their outlook on math. If this doesn’t work, professional help may be needed.

Stage 3: Lack of sufficient work habits. Statistics show that over 90% of what we do, we do out of habit. Anyone who had quit smoking will tell you that breaking down old habits, forming the new ones is time-consuming to say the least. Awareness, expertise, tenacity all has to come together to successfully deal with this 3^rd stage of homework struggle. If a child does not have a set time and set place for homework each night, this is a very good indication that work habits are to blame for math struggle. If your child simply does not know how to get homework done daily, you might have to sit through and help him establish the routine one day at a time. Until new habits forms, your shoulder is all your child can lean on.

Stage 4: Ineffective parent-child communication and power struggle. This is when math struggle stops being about math and a student tries to use math struggle to level the parent-child field. Symptoms include the child withholding information from the parent or repeated arguments and tears over math. In this case two problems have to be solved: repairing the math damage that has been done plus the concepts missed, and repairing the parent child relationship. A math expert can help with the first but the second will require more work and is beyond the scope of this article.

So what can you do to avoid reaching 4^th stages of homework struggle? Err on the side of over communicating, over reacting, over anxious, over protective. Sounds like an oncologist? You bet.

Happy Zen Math!

MathDoc@Door-2-Math

In terms of K-12 math, 6^th- 10^th are the four most important years for a child. Before 6^th grade, math classes cover rudimentary arithmetic topics such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, decimals and some fraction. Those topics mainly deal day-to-day tasks such as paying the bills, how much tiles to buy for a 2,400 square foot house or how much tip to leave the waitress if the meal cost $34. Beyond 10^th grade, math classes dive into conceptual modeling of simplified real life events and making simple predictions such as what a boat’s bearing is after it traveled NW for 1.5 hours at 30 knots per hour then turned SE with the same speed for another 1.5 hours.

The mathtopics that span from 6^th – 10^th grades is the connecting/gate material through which one is allowed to advance from the rudimentary “survival math” to “understand the world around us math”. Unfortunately, this gate material is covered when kids hit pre-puberty and enter teen years. Social, emotional, physical and psychological transitions are all hoisted upon those young shoulders at the same time. If an 11- or 12-year old did not acquire enough personal skills to ask for help or did not have adequate support structure at home by the end of 5^th grade, this transitional period can literally crush the child. Some withdraw into themselves, some seek peer protection of the worst kind, some turn violent, and some gave up completely.

For parents who, for whatever reason, didn’t or couldn’t or wouldn’t get involved before 6^th grade, letting go of 6^th – 10^th grades is the worst mistake they can make. That is when the road of math gets too dark and too treacherous for their kids. Once kids get off this road, they lose options to pursue their dreams. 6^Th – 10^Th grade is the period when many give up of becoming a doctor, a vet, a biologist, or an architect. Unbeknown to many, in those four years math begins to separate kids into the ones with freedom to choose their own career paths and the ones without such options.

Want to preserve your child’s freedom to choose? Here are some guidelines to follow:

- If you have a 6^th grader or younger, get involved. Get to know his/her world. Don’t meddle in, arrange his/her world to your like. Just be a fly on the wall. Discuss with your significant other or decide beforehand on your own, what life lessons/principles that are important enough to you to pass on to your child. Keep in mind at all times that teaching lessons and making contributions of any kind without being solicited first will put a strain on your parent-child relationship.

- If you have a 6^th grader, evaluate and assess the quality of your parent-child relationship. Listen to your gut feeling: Is it strong enough to help him/her through the next 4 years that set the stage for his transition to finish high school and starting college?

- If you have a child older than 6^th grade, brace yourself. Know that to guarantee him/her the freedom to choose, you will need to be the academic general contractor – not that you need to sit down and teach math or biology or physics or whatever the tough subject happen to be, but you need to find the best help you can afford to get him caught up and/or get ahead.

Getting good grades already? An A is an A, right? Think again. Get to know the grading policy. To my shock last month, one of my straight A students from a local school has been peer-grading all 4 years of her middle school math and neither of the parents had any clue that the teacher does not ever teach in class. All material was spoon-fed and all tests werepre-taken, taken and re-taken. Think any college worth its salt will give kids 3 chances to take a test?

When the road to math is getting too dark and too treacherous, seek help. Take charge. Our kids’ future career freedom depends on how we make their math our current priority. To download a complimentary k-12 Math Milestones guide from Dr. Pan, click here.

Happy Zen Math!

MathDoc @ Door-2-Math

Parents often come to me and say “If I had known that my child was struggling in math 3 years ago, things would have been a lot easier”. But the early signs of math struggle are easy to miss and with budget cutbacks and large class sizes, it would take a very dedicated and astute teacher to alert the parent.
There are things however that you as a parent can do to spot math trouble early even if the last time that you took a look at math was in high school. This series of questions is a simplified version of the procedure that I use during an assessment, and will give a rough idea at what grade level (between 3^rd and 8^th grades) that the child’s math is at. The important thing to get from these questions is not whether your child gets the right answer but how she goes about solving the questions. This is the part that a standardized test cannot tell you. If from this series of questions, you feel that her math is 2 or 3 grades below grade level, then letter grades on her report cards do not tell you the whole story. In fact, her math foundation and learning process itself may well be in jeopardy.
Question #1: 1/7 and 1/8, which one is bigger and why. (1/7 is bigger)

If a child draws a picture to explain that 1/7 is bigger since 1 slice of pizza is larger when 7 people rather than 8 are slitting it, then visual learning is that child’s dominant style. If the child converts both fractions to decimal forms, then analytical is the dominant style. If, on the other hand, a child stumbles on it, then I know that math foundation has holes at roughly 4^th grade since that is when the concept of fractions is usually introduced. If a child gets the right answer, but is unable to explain it other than ‘that’s what my teacher told me’, then I know memorization already got hold of this child, which foretells tremendous trouble down the road as one simply can not memorize his/her way out of math.

Question #2: Tell me how you’d add 1/7 to 1/8 and why. (1/7+1/8=15/56)

If a child arrives at the correct answer by using common denominator and is able to explain why common denominator is used (to get both fraction into the same ‘size’), then I know the math understanding is beyond 6^th grade. If, however, they add both top and bottom of the two fractions like (1+1)/(7+8) = 2/15, then I know the math has not moved beyond 5^th grade at best.

Question #3: A family meal cost $76, how much do you leave for tip if 15% is what your family normally tips. ($76 * 0.15 or $11.4).

If a child arrives at the right answer, I challenge her to see if it’s possible to perform such operations without paper and pencil. If a child does not convert 15% to decimal form, then I know the problem started right around 6^th grade.

Question #4: Half of what number is 7 times 3 and why. (half of 42 is 7×3)

If the answer is correct and is solved with proper pre-algebra process of using variables, then the understanding is beyond 6^th grade. If a child simply uses arithmetic to arrive the answer, then the transition between arithmetic (K to ~5^th grade) to pre-algebra (~6^th grade) didn’t go well. If the child simply gives up because ‘that’s a word problem’, then there is a phobia to be reckoned with first.

Any families you know can benefit from this article? Please forward it. I’d appreciate it.

Happy Zen Math!

MathDoc @ Door-2-Math