Success in School Begins with Involved Parents

As a veteran elementary teacher, I strongly believe that a student’s home environment has strong effects on his/her achievement. I would even go so far as to state that the most important factor for success in school and life involves parents expending time participating in activities with children that enhance learning.

No teacher can effectively educate a child without support from the parents. Support at the elementary level means spending time with their child, reading to their child, talking with their child, providing a stable home for their child.

Strong schools have supportive parents and an involved community.

Why is it that some children seem so curious and eager to learn? How do you raise capable, confident children who seek intellectual challenges? How do you support your children’s learning so that they grow to be imaginative, creative, intuitive, capable, competent, self-motivated, persistent, and know that effort is necessary for achievement? As a parent, I’ve asked myself this question numerous times. As an elementary school teacher of many years, I continue to hear parents ask those very same questions. Good! They have begun their journey!

Simple Things That Parents Can Do

• Read to your child at least 20 minutes every day. Help your child see that reading is important. Suggest reading as a free-time activity. Make sure your children have time in their day to read. Turn off the TV. Set a good example for your children by reading all kinds of things (newspapers, magazines, books, etc.) yourself. Keep good books for everyone all over the house.

• Have them read to you. If they have not yet started to read, have them “read” the pictures to you. Discuss what you’ve read.

• Give your children writing materials. and write letters, lists, journals, and messages together.

• Recognize and encourage special talents. If you can, enroll your child in a reasonable schedule of sports, dance, music, or other classes. Or just encourage her/him to play chess, beat a drum, or otherwise pursue her/his abilities.

• Take advantage of community services. Investigate libraries, Boys and Girls Clubs, the Y, and community-center classes.

• Expose your child to many learning opportunities outside of school. Visit museums or nature centers, go to concerts or the theater, take advantage of community events.

• Ask and encourage questions. Use reference materials and the library to pursue interests and answers.

• Talk to your child about current events. Broaden his/her view of the world.

• Hold real conversations with your child all day long. Talk with your children as you do daily activities together – while doing chores, riding in the car, at the dinner table. Listen to and talk with your child about things that are important to you both. Tell stories and share problems. Reflect on lessons learned through daily experience (including your own!).

• Ask questions about things your children are learning and doing. Encourage them to give you lengthy answers. To avoid the “What-did-you-do-today?” Nothing” syndrome, ask “What did you do first?” “What did you like best?” What did you like least?”

• Involve your child in planning a family activity. Design a garden, think through a household repair task, or plan a family trip.

• Talk about people you admire and why. Expose your child to adults who might serve as role models or mentors.

• Discuss the value of a good education. Talk positively about the school experience.

• Have high expectations for your child’s academic success. Encourage them with praise for hard work and a job well done. Show interest in his/her progress at school. Express interest in and high expectations for her/his education after high school, and for his/her career choices.

• Set goals and standards that are high but appropriate for your child’s age and maturity.

• Involve your child in planning a family activity. Design a garden, think through a household repair task, or plan a family trip.

• Engage your child in fun reading, writing, science, and math activities and projects at home.

• Restrict the amount and kind of TV your children watch. Research has proven that the more TV a child watches, the less success he/she has with reading. Watch TV with your child, and talk with them about the things both of you like and don’t like about the shows.

• Inform friends and relatives about your child’s successes.

• Keep track of your child’s progress in school. Visit your child’s classroom to learn how your child is doing in school and how you can help in the classroom and at home.

• Assign chores and household tasks and hold them responsible for doing them well and on time. These are things that must be done without pay or allowance. They are done because all family members are expected to contribute to the family. The goal is to encourage your child to be self-reliant while having structure and rules. Work together to set the rules.

• Eat meals together. Talk while you eat. Take turns reading aloud to the whole family at the end of the meal.

• Help your child be organized. Being organized will help your child control his or her learning activities. Turn a cardboard box into a special school box to hold all school things when your child comes home. The box would keep homework, books, supplies, and other things needed for the next school day. Have your child decorate the box with pictures, words, and artwork and his/her name to make it their own.

Play games of all kinds together!

Do Not Teach Math Until Sixth Grade?

I just read the most amazing article! When Less is More: The Case for Teaching Less Math in Schools by Peter Gray. Could he be right?

Teaching Elementary Math Can Be Fun!

I firmly believe that the more fun both teacher and child have during a math lesson, the easier the concepts will be to teach, learn, and retain. Believe it or not, there are fun ways to teach math!

Like almost every elementary teacher in the United States, a group in Massachusetts is actively looking for ways to “make teaching math a more comfortable process for early childhood educators”.

Do you feel like you could really use an appealing, effective way to help your students learn basic math concepts and skills? Many elementary schools are impressed with the many benefits of using math games in the classroom.

Games offer a fun and natural link to math concepts. And games can, if you select the right ones, help children learn almost everything they need to master in elementary math. Good, child-centered games are designed to take the boredom and frustration out of the repetitive practice necessary for children to master important math skills and concepts.

The following is one of my favorite games for kindergarteners, first graders, and second graders:

Turn Over 5
What you need:
2 players
cards 0 – 5, 4 of each

The object of this Concentration-type game is to capture pairs of cards that add up to 5.

Mix up the cards and lay them face down in four rows of six. Players take turns by choosing two cards to turn over, trying to find a combination that adds up to 5. If they find one, they keep (capture) that pair. If they do not, they turn the two cards back over for the next player. When all matches have been made, the player with the most cards wins the game.

Variation: This game can be made more challenging by using higher cards and a different sum, such as 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 15, etc.

Math Games and the Importance of Teacher Collaboration

I have always been a risk-taker, but trying something new in the classroom can be scary! Several years into my teaching career, I began to make changes in the way I taught math. One of those changes was to engage children mathematically through the use of math games. I began to realize that math games were, from a teacher’s point of view, wonderfully useful. Math games put children in exactly the right frame of mind for learning. Children are normally very eager to play games. They relax when they play, and they concentrate. They don’t mind repeating certain facts or procedures over and over.

I already knew that collaboration between and among teachers can be a powerful aid to the success of teachers who are attempting to implement something new or different in their classrooms. Changing classroom practices often involves taking a risk—going outside the bounds of what is familiar to make improvements. I discovered that there can be loneliness and isolation in innovating individually, but when we try something new with colleagues, we instantly have a support system of peers who are going through the challenges or excitement together. In this environment, collaboration greatly increases the probability that a new approach or program may succeed, with potentially greater gains for students.

So at our weekly grade-level meetings, we agreed to dedicate a portion of our time together talking about and playing math games.

What we began to find was that using math games that engage and challenge students in rich mathematical tasks and encourage students to think and communicate mathematically have positive results for students. For teachers, learning about and trying out such student-centered activities which gives an increased emphasis to understanding, is part of healthy professional growth.

Our challenge as educators is to capture such ideas and multiply their payoff by working with colleagues to plan for and build on what each teacher does. When we do this, students’ learning becomes continuous and cumulative, resulting in achievement that grows by leaps and bounds from year to year.

Mathematics and Young Children

As an elementary mathematics specialist, I have always listened carefully to what the NAEYC has to say. They are an authority that I greatly respect.

The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) is dedicated to improving the well-being of all young children, with particular focus on the quality of educational services for all children from birth through age 8.

I regularly refer to their Mathematics in the Early Years. In it, early childhood specialists, mathematics professors, educational researchers, classroom teachers, nursery school directors, sociologists, and psychologists combine their individual perspectives to explain what mathematics in the early years should look like. This book is a gold mine for parents and teachers!

The following are their guidelines for parents who are eager to get their children started on a sound mathematical footing:

1. Use everyday situations to create purposeful, in-context learning.
Everyday family activities such as storytelling, playing games, shopping, distributing items (e.g., candles, playing cards, silverware), preparing for a birthday party, noting the number of days until a special event, or cooking present numerous opportunities to learn, apply, and practice mathematics.

2. Encourage children’s exploration of mathematics in the world around them.
Welcome their questions. Be willing to discuss mathematical ideas they encounter in their activities, and help them find answers to problems.

3. Use games to prompt interest and development.
Play is one of the most important ways children learn about their world and master skills for coping with it. Games are a particularly useful form of play that help children develop mathematical concepts and reasoning and practice basic mathematical skills. In addition to being challenging, interesting, and enjoyable for children, games provide a means for structuring experiences to meet children’s developmental needs. Games can also serve as an invaluable diagnostic tool. By observing a child playing a particular game, parents and teachers can detect specific strengths and weaknesses in mathematical concepts, reasoning, and skills.

4. Serve as a “guide on the side versus sage on the stage”. Because meaningful knowledge and a number sense must be actively constructed by children, imposing knowledge on them is far less effective than creating opportunities for them to discover patterns and relationships and to invent their own strategies and solutions. Moreover, drilling young children on mathematical facts will not promote mathematical understanding or thinking and may create a negative disposition toward mathematics. To foster autonomy and confidence, generally allow children to try out and self-correct their own strategies and solutions instead of simply telling them answers or correcting them.

5. Use children’s natural interest about counting, numbers, and arithmetic in deciding what materials and experiences to provide for them.
Children’s questions are a strong indication of what is appropriate and when guidance is needed. Note, however, that their individual interests may vary greatly.

6. Promote social interaction.
Children learn from other children. The mathematical knowledge that young children have varies. Play with other children can provide a natural opportunity for correction and guidance. Encourage small-group play and discussion.

7. Encourage children’s use of verbal, object, and finger counting to represent numbers.
Give them opportunitities to use finger or object counting to solve simple problems, such as, “How much is three candies and one more?” When possible, make counting fun for children by playing mathematics games.

8. Foster the development of children’s number sense.
Give children lots of opportunities to estimate the size of collections and then let them count. The more estimating and counting they do, the better they will become.

Confessions of an Elementary Math Teacher

Embarrassingly traditional. Isn’t admitting your problem the first step to change? I confess: I was an embarrassingly traditional math teacher. And, frankly, I wasn’t enjoying the experience very much.

Actually, I make that confession all the time now. As an elementary mathematics specialist, I introduce myself to elementary school faculties as a born-again math teacher.

The change began in the mid-1990s as I worked on a Master’s in Elementary Education. My whole focus was on how children learn, or brain-based learning. I began to discover that research clearly shows that we know a lot about how children learn math, but rarely do we use that knowledge to inform our teaching.

Decades ago, education revolutionaries John Dewey and George Polya elucidated how bulldozing through a prescribed math program does not give children opportunities to think through concepts. I knew that to be true because of my own self-limiting math background and lack of confidence in my abililties when it came to math.

So, how could I change my teaching so that my students became confident, thinking mathematicians? Well, that journey took me many years – years of growing and becoming a more effective math teacher. It involved a different approach to problem-solving using flexible instructional strategies.

One of those instructional strategies in support of problem-solving was the use of math games - games that help children develop problem-solving behaviors and mathematical thinking habits without realizing they are doing so.

As I began to use games in the classroom, I realized it is not enough to just play a game. When playing math games, it is the teacher’s responsibility to extend math learning by conversing with students about their problem-solving strategies, both before and after they play the games. Such conversations build a laboratory of thought to help students remember new learning by connecting it to already-known concepts and understanding.

Math games support the development of higher-order thinking skills as well as supply test-taking and computational practice. Actually, I began to realize that math games had many benefits.

I was liberated from being a traditional math teacher! But the very best part – I developed a passion for teaching math that I had never had before! Give a math game a try!

Have Some Fun with Fractions!

Find that title hard to believe? Have fun with fractions? Impossible!

Why is it that so many children struggle with understanding fractions? When asked what area of mathematics always confused them, many adults specify fractions, and yet they use fractions successfully in their daily lives.

Teaching fractions for meaning has long been a struggle for classroom teachers. How do you create a learning environment that promotes understanding and enthusiasm for fractions?

In the interest of improving my teaching of fractions, I began to investigate how I could effect positive change in my students’ understanding of fractions. Since children need to be actively involved with the subject matter rather than being passive receivers of information, my approach to fractions involved conceptual understanding through a hands-on approach.

Camille Jackson’s third-grade math class in a Washington, DC, elementary school was looking for an effective approach, too.

What a great idea! The following is a similar fraction activity that I began to use regularly:

Fussing with Fractions

In a newspaper or magazine, locate the heading of a section or the title of an article. Cut out the title (for example, “Sports”), and glue or tape it on a piece of paper. Write the number of letters in the whole title as the denominator of a fraction. Write the number of vowels as the numerator. Then write the number of consonants as the numerator.

Sports
1/6 (1 out of 6) of the letters are vowels
5/6 (5 out of 6) of the letters are consonants
1/6 + 5/6 = 6/6 or the word Sports

Do this with many words. Which is greater, the vowel fraction or the consonant fraction?

In general, are consonant fractions closest to 0, ¼, ½, 3/4 , or 1?

Games are a great way to augment children’s understanding of fractions. Every single one of my grade-level math games’ manuals have many great fractions games.

Using Children’s Literature to Teach Math

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) has long promoted the collaboration of reading and mathematics and asserts that reading children’s literature involving mathematics needs more emphasis in the mathematics curriculum.

Mathematical ideas are embedded in all types of stories, poems, songs, rhymes, and other forms of literature. Carefully selected literature holds the potential to illuminate children’s understanding of, and ideas about, mathematics.

Reading a good story makes mathematics more meaningful through connections with students’ prior knowledge and with the world outside of school. Problems based on a good story make meaningful connections, increase the level of interest and motivations in students, promote critical thinking, and encourage communication and justification. Teachers and students should recognize that mathematics can be found everywhere – even in the stories that they read every day.

A variety of literature is publlished each year in which mathematics is the main focus of the story. These books have been written by authors whose primary intent is to teach a mathematical skill or concept through a picture or chapter book format. Some of these books are enjoyable and informative.

Another type of literature that teachers may select includes books in which understanding the mathematics is integral to understanding the story but is not the basis for the story. Mathematics does not drive the story; rather, it is embedded within the story. I tend to like these kinds of books best.

In a supportive classroom community in which lliterature and mathematics thrive, both teachers and students can begin to realize that mathematics is integral to daily living and to those connections that may extend into literature.

Want classroom activities to support math and literature? Check out:

Books You Can Count On: Linking Mathematics and Literature by Margaret Griffiths and Rachel Clyne

Connecting Math and Literature: Using Children’s Literature as a Sprinboard for Teaching Math Concepts (Grades 3-6) by Lisa Crooks and Sherri Rous

Exploring Mathematics Through Literature: Articles and Lessons for Prekindergarten through Grade 8 by Diane Thiessen (Editor)

Exploring Math with Books Kids Love (Grades 4-8) by Kathryn Kaczmarski

It’s the Story That Counts: Children’s Books for Mathematical Learning (K-8) by David J. Whitin and Sandra Wilde

Math and Literature (Grades K-8) any of the seven books put out by Marilyn Burns’ Math Solutions

Read Any Good Math Lately? Children’s Books for Mathematical Learning (K-6) by David J. Whitin and Sandra Wilde

Reading is a familiar activity for elementary teachers, and posing problems based on a story allows teachers to showcase their creativity.

A Few Good How-to-Help-Your-Kids-with-Math Books

As a parent, you are the best person in the world to spark, sustain, or renew your child’s sense of discovery and excitement in math. Whatever your background or experience, you’re the best person to support your child in math – at school and outside of school.

The following are a few good books to help you navigate the educational issues; understand your crucial role in your child’s mathematical success; and put inquiry-based learning into practice with your child. You can light and sustain the flame for learning math in your children.

Beyond Facts and Flashcards: Exploring Math with Your Kids by Jan Mokros
Games and activities that help parents develop their children’s logic and reasoning.

Math: Facing an American Phobia by Marilyn Burns
This book explains how to encourage kids to discover math concepts on their own.

A Family’s Guide: Fostering Your Child’s Success in School Mathematics, edited by Amy J. Mirra
An explanation of today’s math curricula with suggestions for how parents can help their children learn to like math.

Spark Your Child’s Success in Math and Science by Jacqueline Barber, Nicole Parizeau, and Lincoln Bergman
A practical, research-based resource for all parents and adult caregivers of school-aged children.

Math Homework and Parents

You get home from work and begin the nightly battle of helping your child get organized to do his/her homework. Bedlam ensues. He/She throws a snizzy (snit + tizzy = snizzy) of impotent frustration. Sound familiar?

Homework (math homework, in particular) often leads to conflict between parents and their children. Homework is then seen in a negative light and often creates a daily battlefield between parent and child.

Most education experts will tell you that it’s best to be engaged in your kids’ homework assignments but not actually do the work for them. Of course, you have to help your kids carve out the time to get the work done and nudge them with little reminders, but when it comes to the actual hands-on work, you’re supposed to keep your hands out of it. Although this isn’t always easy.

An important purpose of homework is to help students develop time-management skills and self-discipline. Students who learn to manage their time effectively and learn to work independently will likely be more successful in school and other aspects of their lives.

The most effective role for parents is that of ’stage manager’. That means providing encouragement, showing a positive attitude, asking good questions, and making sure your child has a quiet, well-lit place to work, with the needed materials on hand. While your child works, serve as a role model by doing quiet activities of your own nearby.

Give nudges, not answers. Answers stop the thinking.

When your child says, “I don’t know what to do”, or “I don’t know how to do it”, you can help your child most by asking questions. By asking questions instead of giving answers, you can help your child recognize his/her power to do their own work. It is a competence that will be much needed in the real life of their soon-to-be adult world.

Some questions you might ask when your child isn’t sure how to begin:
• What is your assignment today?
• What do you need to do?
• When is it due?
• Do you need anything special to get this done? (a trip to the library? access to a computer?)
• Do you need any supplies?
• For a long-term assignment, would it help to make a schedule?
• Can you tell me about what you already know about this subject or problems?
• What did your teacher tell you about this subject or problem?
• How might you begin? What can you try first?
• Can you make a drawing or picture, or act it out to help you get started?
• Have you done anything like this before?

When your child is working on their homework, ask:
• How can you organize your information?
• What would happen if…? Show me what you did that didn’t work.
• Can you explain how you did this? Why did you…?
• What could you do next?

I know this is easier said than done, but if the homework does not get finished, allow the teacher to deliver the consequences for not completing homework. This will take away the child’s sense of control by yelling, crying, or having a fit that disrupts your evening.

If the homework becomes particularly stressful, take a break and play a math game that correlates to the homework being done.