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Have you ever overheard your kid say something to their friend like, “math sucks”? Unfortunately, it's way too common for kids to dislike and even fear math.
We know better - it's not math that they hate, it's the confusion, the embarrassment, and the frustration.
So where does this math aversion start? How do we save kids from the fate of not being a “math person”?
The answer lies with number sense.
When kids start seeing math in kindergarten and beyond, they usually don’t get enough context when they learn the math. After all, a number (better yet, a numeral) is just a squiggly line that means something else. Numerals, like the number 12, are abstract—and when math instruction lacks purpose, young students can easily disengage, get bored, or move on to more interesting things.
Providing context helps to motivate students, and it also helps them integrate new ideas into their existing knowledge in a way they understand.
Unfortunately, children often experience “fragmented learning” (learning without a sense of context) rather than “integrated learning.” To fill in the gap between fragmented and integrated learning, parents and teachers should help students establish a solid foundation in number sense.
So what is number sense, anyway?
According to Russell Gersten and David Chard, number sense is the tendency to be flexible and fluid with tasks involving numbers. Children with number sense can appreciate the size and scale of numbers in the context of the question at hand. Children without number sense tend to give up, get confused, or avoid.
Does your child have number sense? Well, keep in mind that kids get number sense from somewhere, so if you’re concerned about your child’s mathematical development, or if you’d like to better support its development, be sure to include “math talk” into your daily and nightly routines (my favorite for that are Greg Tang’s book series).
So what’s an example of number sense?
When kids see a group of six dice, each with 5 dots facing upward, do they group the dice together and use their knowledge of counting by five to find the total? If they see a group of five dice, each with 6 dots facing upward, do they understand that there would be the same number of dots as in the former group?
Kids with number sense use three “big ideas” when they are doing math.
Early number sense begins with counting, so we’ll focus on that today. (We’ll discuss wholes and parts and proportional thinking in future articles.)
Counting, simply put, is the ability to get from any number, to any number, by any number, both forward and backward. It doesn’t imply counting by one unit. Counting often involves grouping numbers to make covering lots of ground easier (e.g., counting by fives to calculate the difference between 100 to 135).
When asked to explain what counting is, many students will respond by counting from 1 (1, 2, 3, …), although counting really starts at 0 instead of 1.
After learning to count by 1s, kids need to learn to count starting from other numbers, for instance, beginning at 28 (28, 29, 30, …). How about counting by 2s? Starting from 2 (0, 2, 4, 6, …) is easy to understand. But can our kids count by 2s when starting from the number 3 (3, 5, 7, …)?
After a good deal of practice, an experienced counter will be able to count to 250 by 1s forward and backward; to 300 by 2s, 5s, and 10s; and to 3,000 by 100s—starting at any point.
As children become experienced counters, they should also learn how to group the numbers they count. Ask your child questions such as:
The importance of thinking about counting this way is its connection with the basic math operations: addition (counting how much altogether), subtraction (counting how much is left or how far apart), multiplication (counting in equal groups), and division (counting how many of these are inside of that).
As children learn to think in larger groups, several good things happen.
Once children learn the basis for counting, they can progress with confidence to wholes and parts and proportional thinking—the two other essential components of number sense.
At Mathnasium™, we’ve developed a method that teaches these fundamentals so that children can finally understand math in a way that makes sense to them.
Remember, children don't hate math; they hate being confused, frustrated, and embarrassed by math. Once they understand math, enthusiasm naturally follows!
Be sure to call our center here in North Manchester (NH) if you need any help. You can also click here to try this neat diagnostic test to see if Mathnasium is right for your child.
