According to UNICEF, early education allows children to reach their full potential. Another thing it does is helping youngsters fall in love with learning. If you want your child to become a math kid or grow up as a math genius, you need to help them love math early.
As you would imagine, it’s easier to find 4th grade math help for your student than math help for a college student. So, what can you do to give your child early math help? Read on to learn how to improve kids’ math skills and reinforce their love for the subject.
How Early Should Your Child Start Learning Math?
As soon as your child is old enough to do basic math, you should try to get them the help they need. While it may seem like kids between ages 3 and 4 are too young to learn math, they can already count from 1 to 20, which is already a good start.
Children between ages 5 and 7 are old enough to do arithmetic and basic math like counting, addition, subtraction, and work with fractions. At this age, you can offer them exciting activities to cultivate love for the subject.
How to Help Your Child Love Math
There are several things you can do to help your child develop a love for math in the early years. They include:
1. Make math fun
If an activity isn’t fun, kids aren’t going to fall in love with it, are they? The reason many children who struggle with math find the subject difficult is that they think it’s uninteresting. This is why you should find ways to make math more fun for kids. Start by introducing your child to games like chess, legos, and number scrabble.
You can also introduce them to video games like Marble math junior, Math kids, Prodigy math, and Monster math. These games incorporate math concepts into the gameplay. Hence, your child can have a fun gaming experience and learn how to add and subtract numbers simultaneously.
2. Encourage persistence
It is important to encourage your child to keep their heads up even when they encounter a difficult math problem. Kids can easily become frustrated when they cannot solve a complicated question. This could ruin their confidence and further damage their perception of the subject. This is why parents need to be there to encourage a kid to keep trying.
Try to calm a kid down so that they can approach the problem with a clear head. More often than not, failure builds anger and resentment. This is how most kids hate math. But with persistence, they can solve math problems, and each next correct answer helps to build their confidence. The more correct answers they get, the easier it becomes to build their love for the subject.
3. Provide positive reinforcement
This is one of the most important things you must do to help kids love math in their early years. Praise your child for their effort and progress in math rather than just their results. If they solve 5 problems and get 2 answers correctly, praise their efforts before showing them what they did wrong. This will help them develop a growth mindset and a love for the subject.
4. Find a good math tutor
If your child is struggling with math, you should consider enrolling them in a math-based program. Many online math learning websites provide math classes for kids. A good example is Brighterly.com. These websites can provide extra support and help your child develop a stronger foundation in math. They also have experienced tutors who use interactive learning to make math more fun.
Final Thoughts
Many children find it difficult to learn math because of their perception of the subject. This is why it’s crucial to help them fall in love with math early. With the tips above, you should be able to help improve your child math skills.
