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The Three Mathematical Stages Your Child Needs in Order to Succeed in Math

December 11th, 2009

If your older child is struggling with math, or your younger child just doesn’t seem to understand a math concept, it may be because they skipped over a mathematical stage. There are three mathematical stages that follow the natural development of a child’s thinking. If a stage is skipped over while learning a mathematical concept, your child will start to have problems.

The first mathematical stage is the manipulative stage, and as the name suggests, it involves having children use real objects to learn mathematical concepts. The manipulative stage is foundational to everything else a child does with math, so it is very important to teach your child math using real objects. If you skip this crucial step, your child may have problems with math down the road. Don’t require memorization of math facts at this stage, just let your child acquire as much practice as possible with physical objects.

Within the manipulative stage, a child will observe and learn about:
• the number of things
• the size of things
• the shape of things
• the pattern of many things

Once your child has had enough practice and experience with real objects, he will be able to imagine objects mentally without seeing or touching them. This next mathematical stage is the mental image stage which is often used along with the manipulative stage until the age of twelve or so.

If you are teaching a math skill and your child says they don’t understand it, the most likely problem is that he can’t imagine it mentally. The way to solve this problem is by providing your child with lots of manipulative experience so that he can naturally make the switch from the manipulative stage to the mental image stage in a particular math skill. » Read more: The Three Mathematical Stages Your Child Needs in Order to Succeed in Math

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Nonverbal Learning Disability

December 11th, 2009

Nonverbal learning disability is a kind of brain disorder, similar to autism in some aspects. It is also known as the nonverbal learning disorder. To put it simply, it is the disability of a person to understand nonverbal communication. In the first few years of schooling, such children tend to show exceptional brilliance because their deficiency of understanding will not be visible. In general, verbal communication is considered as a yardstick for success. The worst part of this disease is that it is not usually diagnosed. In fact, people suffering from this disease have been found to be extra-active and wonderfully brilliant in their early years. The disease shows its head generally during the teenage. But even before that, such children tend to show some uncharacteristically odd things. Such characteristics can be observed only if the parents are vigilant and have a keen sense of observation.

Once they become a bit more old, the burden of studies and the burden of life in general become too much to bear for their nerves. They fall apart. Such children will be increasingly becoming uninterested in studies. Also, unbelievably naive forgetfulness tends to creep into their mental system. Suddenly they from being bright students slip to below average students. However hard they work, they may not be able to overcome their problems. Generally, it is characterized as attitude problems; but in reality it is nonverbal learning disability. People affected by this disease generally prefer to stay away from the society. » Read more: Nonverbal Learning Disability

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The Joy of Learning Mathematics

December 11th, 2009

For many students, maths is a phobia at par with the fear of snakes, lizards, elevators, water, flying, public speaking, and heights. Though the “ailment” is neither genetic, nor infectious, they “inherit” it from their parents; and “catch” it from their friends. What are the reasons behind maths’ dreadful reputation that divides the society into mathematical “haves” and “have-nots”?

“One reason why students fare badly in Maths is that they are learning it mechanically, often not understanding what they are learning and they are unable to apply it to real-life situation,” says Vijay Kulkarni, the leader of the First Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) released recently by the well known Bombay-based non-governmental organization, Pratham.

Explaining the dismal scenario that the report portrays, especially about mathematics – forty two per cent of children between seven to ten years cannot subtract – Kulkarni says that the children are turned off, because the straitjacketed conventional teaching in classrooms has squeezed out the joy of learning, turning the schools into robotic factories.

Outdated teaching methods and an outdated curriculum – far removed from the students’ everyday experiences – contribute nothing to a student’s appreciation of the subject. Intelligence is often measured by the marks he gets in mathematics and his self confidence is eroded when he gets drubbed as dumb for scoring less in it.

Yet, taught the right way, learning mathematics can be easy, fun and can fill one with a sense of awe, with its inherently beautiful harmony and order. Both parents and teachers should convey the message that learning mathematics can be fun. Their expressions of interest, sense of wonder and enjoyment are critical to the child’s interest in the subject.

“Parents are the first mentors for a child. Even before the children can be formally admitted in pre-school kindergartens, they can start playing with numbers,” suggests Dr.MJ Thomas, a child psychologist in the city. Children are playful by nature and have irrepressible curiosity to explore the world through experimenting with the objects around them: see, touch, hear, taste, smell and arrange the objects, put things together or take them apart. Through such experience the children understand their world intuitively. » Read more: The Joy of Learning Mathematics

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