👨‍👩‍👧‍👦🏫  Common reason No 1️⃣

Helping your child to cross

💜THE GREAT MATHS BARRIER🧠+💜

Nothing in life is ever perfect.

In fact, perfect is the enemy of good. Right?

And teachers are only human and occasionally make mistakes – and that’s OK.

Students will normally be understanding and will cope anyway. Right?

Right.

In the case of most subjects.

But for maths it’s not that straightforward.

Yes, true. For maths, too, if a teacher is overwhelmed or too tired and writes on a board 2+ 3 = 6 it’s OK. Everyone will probably laugh and she will just correct herself with an “oops”. No problem.

But there are maths teachers’ errors and misconceptions that can lead to disasters.

Unfortunately, some are very common.

For example.

You have heard these, haven’t you?

❗Maths is a study of numbers.

❗Fraction is division.

❗Two minuses make a plus.

Everyone knows them, maths teachers say them, kids quickly remember them because they are catchy.

❗But they create serious obstacles for kids’ maths learning!

Because maths is always perfect, but these sentences are mathematically incorrect ❌

And kids trust everything that is said to them.

And comprehend everything literarily.

So, these sentences don’t help them to learn maths.

They only confuse them further!

This is why I preach that for successful maths teaching

🟪 Maths explanations have to be as perfect and precise as maths itself is!

N.B.

But careful though! People with sound maths knowledge and understanding do not necessarily make great maths teachers, either. This aspect is covered in Part 3.

❓If maths is not about numbers, then what is it about?

Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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🟪 Proper understanding of maths concepts requires the correct maths thinking.

🟪 Once children develop the correct maths thinking, they grow to enjoy learning maths and start to see how to use it independently.

📢 Contact me for tips and ideas on how to help your child with their maths learning.