Door-2-Math Blog

No, I’m not talking about the store at the mall, although this article could also be titled Gap for Kids! I’m talking about the  ‘math amnesia” commonly occuring when a parent sits down with a child to help out on homework or to explain a math concept. Exhausted as you were the night before, you swear that you covered simplifying fractions with Johnny.  You remember every fine detail!! The joke you made trying to lighten the homework mood, the pen you used that ran out of ink, down to what was on the other side of that piece of recycled paper you used to explain how and why you can go about simplifying a fraction!!  Johnny, on the other hand, remembers nothing.  Zit. Zilch. Zero. For a split second, you thought that maybe those health experts don’t know what they’re talking about!! After all, all that fish you cooked ought have enough Omega-3 fatty acids to help at least one brain between the two of you!!  Then you think, wait a minute, this has happened before.  Here comes Johnny’s math amnesia again!!

If the scenario sounds familiar, you’re not alone.  Since day one of my math coaching business, I’ve been hearing about this frustrating ‘math amnesia’.  So what can a parent do?  ‘Know thyself’ is where we start.  What you might not know is this:  how you go about helping Johnny the night before largely determines what he’ll remember today.

I know, I know.  It’s probably not what you’re expecting to hear or you may passionately disagree.  But hear me out.  Hear me out because you care about Johnny’s amnesia more than being right.  Think about this: who was holding the pen last night?  Who was doing most of the talking and showing?  Who was doing most of the writing?  Who was asking most of the questions?  If your answer to any of the above question ends up with ‘I was’, then you know why you are not the one with amnesia!  You did all the work, and why would you be the one ‘can’t remember?’

Johnny didn’t do any of the work and that is why he doesn’t remember.  Often what happens is a parent does most of the talking, and most of the writing and after the explanation, the parent comes away thinking that he explained the material well and the child should now know it and is utterly amazed when a child gets a bad grade on the same concept! This is where the gap comes in. The gap is the difference between what the parents think the child gets to what the child actually gets. Take the physician dad I had in my office the other day.  Mary, his daughter is a brilliant young lady who was struggling in her 5^th grade math.  Since the Dad expressed desire in learning how to work with his daughter at home, I gave Dad the exercise of explaining how to convert units
from the English system to the Metric system, which was what Mary was working on that week.  Just as I’ve seen over and over, within minutes, Mary’s pencil ended up in her Dad’s hand, and Dad rotated the paper he was writing on away from Mary so he could see better.  From where I was observing the entire exchange, the father was completely absorbed in demonstrating to himself that he understood the step involved in unit conversion!  Another 5 minutes gone by before he looked up and concluded:

‘Now, Mary, isn’t that simple?

‘Yeah, Dad.  So what’s the answer to this question?’

‘Well, 55 miles per hour is of course 1.4 km per minute.’

‘Okay, Dad.’

Now, when this happened at home, imagine  Dad’s surprise the next evening when Mary asks the exact question again.  In Dad’s mind, he knows for sure that he went over this Mary the day before and he is genuinely puzzled about her apparent math amnesia.  What he didn’t know that he didn’t know is this:  he explained the math concept to himself the night before. Not Mary.  Once I explained what was happening to his math instructions, a light bulb went off and exclaimed: ‘No wonder!’  By the time the program ended 6 months later, Mary’s math confidence went through the roof with straight A’s.

So what can Johnny’s parents do if they do intend to work with him at home on his math homework?  Here are a few simple rules can shrink the gap, and reduce the apparent math amnesia:

¨       Don’t grab pencil.  This is probably one of the best things you can do for your child while offering help on math homework.  By grabbing the pencil, you effectively taking away the child’s tool for being engaged.  A lot of parents ask, ‘but how can you explain then?’  Exactly!  It’s a lot discipline on your part to not grab the pencil, and in doing so, you’re giving Johnny the time and space to think it though on his own.  Don’t have the patience?  Find someone who does.  Your child’s math confidence is at the stake.

¨       Give follow-up homework.  I know, you might be thinking ‘but I was trying to reduce the amount of homework in the first place!’  Follow-up homework is important for two reasons: re-enforce what Johnny just learned and condition him to think through on his own before soliciting your help.  Who among us is not after self-sufficiency for our children?

¨       Occupy yourself while helping.  One of the best thing that has worked for me while I help my own 3^rd grader on her math is this: sit by her desk, facing her and with a book in hand.  This accomplishes a few things: first, I’m not standing, so I give myself more room to be relaxed; second, I’m facing her, so I can not possibly write as well upside down and I might as well not grab her pencil in the first place and third, if she needs more time to go through her mistakes and find her way, I’m can read while giving her the time she needs.  Oh, trust me!  Even on a good day, it’s TOUGH!  I know that while our children are resilient and can forgive our mistakes, I also know from working with other students, their emotional bank can only bail us out so far!  One more outburst than they can handle, we might just lose them all together.  Once the math wall is drawn, believe me, it goes up like crazy!

So Moms and Dads, next time you sit down with your child to help with homework, bite your finger nails if you have to, but do not grab that pencil!

Isn’t parenting fun?!?  (if they did come with a manual, I seriously wonder how many of us would jump in feet first!)

When talking to parents about helping their kids in math, a frequent “block” in a parent’s mind is that “I wasn’t that good in math myself, so how can I possibly help my child!”. From working with kids from kindergarten age all the way up to college, I have learned that even though a parent may not “know math” their help can lead to a large improvement in grades and confidence. ‘Wait a minute,’ you say.  ‘If I don’t understand it myself, how can I teach it to my child?’

The object of teaching to get someone else understand it while knowing math well is to get oneself understand it.  Finding and turning on a light switch in an unfamiliar surrounding is almost always harder than turning on a kitchen switch in your own house.   So, in a way, you’re right – if a light switch is foreign to you, then help to turn it on for someone else would be more difficult, but not impossible. Richard Feynman was a Nobel Prize winning CalTech physicist. Yet if you read his autobiography, he attributes much of his intellectual and reasoning skills to his dad, a uniform salesman who did not have a college education.   Apple computer chairman Steve Jobs is famous for helping to create breakthrough computer products like the iPod and the Macintosh. Yet he never finished college, and seldom if ever designed an electronic circuit or wrote a computer program. Among his formidable capabilities he has a unique skill of inspiring his engineers to create breakthrough products.

Let’s get back to our children’s math.  While working with numerous students and parents over the past years, I have observed that how far behind a student is does not always indicate how quickly they catch up and regain math confidence. I’ve had students that were receiving B’s and C’s when they come in struggle to pull up to A’s and B’s for a whole semester, and I’ve had students coming in with D’s and F’s shoot up to A’s in a matter of weeks. The difference between these two groups of students is the success buckets. To prepare your child to succeed in math, more primal needs have to be met first and certain learning skills have to be developed. Helping your child to collect these success buckets is where parents can shine regardless of their own math background. Four of the most important ‘success buckets” are:

• Success bucket #1: A child is able to express emotional needs and a parent meets those needs. This includes the child asking for attention in an age appropriate manner, expressing sadness, loneliness etc. The parent’s role comes in teaching the child these skills and responding to those vocalized and unvocal zed needs. So as not to digress into child psychology and parenting issue, from personal experience as a mom and a math coach, these skills are crucial.
• Success bucket #2: Good work habits are taught and established. This is where a child has a designated time and place to do homework each day. This is where a child has tools to deal with frustration. This is where the habit of checking work is ingrained.
• Success bucket #3: Individuality is vocalized. How is this different from bucket #1? Give them words to say I need more attention otherwise they think something is wrong with them if you think something wrong with you collect evidence that I’m dumb by not doing math. Individuality is not the same as letting them roam free, presidents have advisors but presidents decide, children’s opinions are important but they don’t decide fine balance, in a battle the general decides where to go parents biggest power is to say I was wrong.
• Success bucket #4: Curiosity is encouraged and nurtured. Following your child’s lead is key here. When they read a book, hear about something from friends, see something on the Internet or just have a question out of the blue, this is a opportunity for the parent to nurture the curiosity. For example, we tried playing chess with our daughter Alexa several times but each time she wasn’t ready for it. However, when several of Alexa’s classmates started playing chess during recess at school, she took an interest to it. Taking this opportunity, my husband bought chess software for her and started to encourage her interest. As a result she won a ribbon at school and now has a lifelong activity that she can do with her friends.

Those ‘success buckets’ prepare the young minds to learn and absorb math when math material becomes more demanding, which usually starts in 4^th grade when the concept of fractions is formally introduced.  Combination of those 4 success buckets alone can significantly contribute to a child’s chance in succeeding in math. As can be seen by the success wheel in fig. 1, the combination of these four success buckets, in my opinion is responsible for at least 75% of a child’s math success.

Now, ‘Wait a minute,’ you say.  Knowing math well and teaching it well only counts for 25% of the success?!  That’s right!  So without knowing even a bit of math, this is how much influence you have in determining how successful and rewarding your child’s math experience can be!

To understand why a parent’s knowledge in math does not determine a child’s math success, allow me to give a real life example.  Just a few weeks ago, Byron, my 5-year old son, invited two of his closest friends from school over for a play date. As a rule, if you come to math doc’s house, you leave with a free math trick.  Meet Bryon’s friend #1, I call him ‘Ian’.  Ian is a precocious fun, intelligent 5-year old who comes from a working class background.  Both of his parents are small-business owners – ‘appreciate the importance of math but didn’t like math much,’ as his Mom commented to me one day.   Friend #2, I’ll call him ‘Joe’, is a smart, humorous and active youngster.  Both parents hold professional degrees and are highly regarded in their field.  The combination of Joe being one of those children that need lots and lots of attention and parents busy careers made a big difference.

I was giving both Ian and Joe some tricks on how to speed subtract.  At first neither kids caught on, but within 5 minutes, the kind of ‘success buckets’ they have from home became apparent:  with a well-filled emotional ‘bucket’, Ian didn’t take it personally when the beauty of the math trick eluded him.  He concentrated well and asked load of top quality questions like ‘so, what you’re saying is subtraction is no different from addition.  Tell me how that comes again?”  Whereas, Joe gave up very quickly, murmuring to himself over and over ‘wait, I don’t get it, math is too hard!  I never get it in school either!”  One child commented the topic of math itself while the other internalized it into how smart he is or is not.  Because Ian was able to separate math from himself, second round of explanation produced a delighted ‘oh! I get it!” from Ian, and further frustrated Joe.

Sensing the need to separate the two, I offered some ice cream flavored Skittles (yeah!  Really, they do make them!) to Joe and used fingers, toes and Skittles to show him the trick.  Every time he said, “I’ll never get it”, I responded with “I know this is hard for you.  It was hard from me too when I was your age.”  As the sweetness of Skittles taking over, I could tell, Joe was not fighting himself anymore, and the questions he asked moved from ‘how can Ian get it so fast’ to ‘but, I thought 7 needs 4 to become 10?’ (which, counting our toes together, he quickly recounted to ‘oh, wait, 7 needs 3 to become 10).  At the end of our little math lesson, Joe commented, ‘I guess math is not so bad if you have Skittles.” (and yes, he did get the trick in the end).

So, far from being powerless in helping your child in math if math is not your cup of tea, you, the parent, can guide a child to emotional maturity in a way best trained psychologist can’t.  Much like mother’s milk is the best baby food there is, give attention and unconditional acceptance and help to vocalize a child’s individuality is best done by a parent.  That is not to say any of these is easy.  But consider the dividend on your investment of 10 years – if by the time they enter the 4^th grade, your child has all the ‘success buckets’ in hand, and just how much knowledge will be scoped up in those buckets?  Who is to say that among our ‘success buckets’ holders is not another Isaac Newton?

Happy Zen Math!

(C) Feenix Pan, 2007. All Rights Reserved.

For most children, math is the most difficult subject in school. Once a child falls behind, it becomes harder to catch up. Resulting frustration affects self-esteem and impacts other areas in life. In order to get into college and have a successful career in fields as diverse as engineering, medicine, architecture, and finance, it is essential to have thorough understanding of a of math topics. Sometimes parents feel at a loss on how to help their child in math when he or she is struggling. It can be frustrating because sometimes a parent does not feel comfortable with math, or the teacher and the school are blamed. Also, it can be easy to take the frustration out on the child and blame the child’s laziness for the poor math grades. However, realizing that a parent is the single most important influence in a child’s academic career, there are many positive methods of fostering success in math for the child. As a professional math coach and a mother of two, I have identified seven ways that parents can help their children develop math-ability, regain confidence in learning, and accomplish the goals they set for themselves. Here they are:

1. Own your own worry – If your child is not doing well in math, empathize with his or her situation. Share your worries, don’t blame. Provide him or her with opportunities to ask for help.
2. Share your experience – If you had similar challenges with math or another subject when you were young, tell your child. By acknowledging your own difficulties, you let your son or daughter know you understand.
3. Listen to your child - Each child learns and studies differently. Ask how you can help create a positive learning environment. Rearrange chores so homework can be done when energy levels are high. Provide a quiet, uncluttered place to study. Offer a glass of juice during the study session.
4. Grow seeds of confidence – Every child is good at something, be it sports, music, story telling, art, curiosity, or even math. Build self esteem by acknowledging and praising accomplishment. Find ways to include math in your son or daughter’s world of strengths and interests. Musical scales, for example, are built on mathematical principles. Ask any true sports fan and they will tell you that one of the best ways to enjoy the sport is by keeping statistics on the team and the players.
5. Support the teacher - When your child blames poor math performance on the teacher, find a positive way to deal with the complaints. Teachers who feel they are being blamed have little motivation to help a child overcome obstacle to mastering math. Ask for input on how you can foster successful learning. Recruit the teacher as a member of your son or daughter’s math success team.
6. Let your child teach you - Nothing raises a child¹s self esteem like explaining a difficult topic to someone and having them “get it”. Ask your child to research a topic that challenges or interests them, and then explain it to you. Praise a job well done.
7. Find a mentor for your child – Find a person who is proficient in math. More importantly, choose one who enjoys making difficult math topics easy to understand. Ask them to mentor your child with the extra attention needed to achieve success in math, learning and life goals.

There you have it.  Chinese say that ‘how you do one thing is not you do everything.’  In life, not that we can excel in all things, but that our character is demonstrated in the way we confront, interpret and get through both our successes and failures.