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Parents often get a jump on formal instruction when it comes to language and literacy by reading to their toddlers and teaching the alphabet before their kids ever set foot in a classroom. But getting a head start on mathematics is often restricted to teaching children to count, says Lynn McGarvey, a professor of elementary education at the University of Alberta whose research looks at teaching and learning math in early childhood.
McGarvey says her research focus on instilling mathematical concepts in young learners aims to promote numeracy the way literacy has been emphasized as a foundational educational experience.
"When educators and parents create opportunities for mathematical engagement in day-to-day activities, then children will experience mathematics not just as a skill or a tool, but a way of thinking and being in the world," she says.
McGarvey says there are a few things math-minded parents and early childhood educators can think about when interacting with young learners.
I've tried lots of things to get my kids interested in math. So far, the most effective has been demonstrating the power of purposeful laziness. What are your experiences?
(Score: 4, Informative) by Alfred on Tuesday March 22 2016, @01:14PM
My plan is a long time coming and it is not something I can guarantee will turn a kid around in a day but I have seen rewards from it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 22 2016, @03:06PM
Ugh, looks like crap.
From the screen shots they are just teaching equations in pretty ways. That's not math, that's the mechanics of math - the equivalent of teaching kids to spell rather than to enjoy reading.
TFA is about applying math in real life, doing things that require mathematical reasoning.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by purpleland on Tuesday March 22 2016, @07:29PM
Demonstrating the mechanics especially in a fun way is always a good practical introduction to math.
Explaining the reason behind the mechanics can come later, and I would hope it is done by someone who does not end up confusing the child, turning them off math as too complex. I like the arithmetic articles mentioned by another poster - math-minded parents or educators should be able to explain arithmetic to a five year old using layman concepts and analogies like dividing up a pizza, instead of having to first define terms like numerators and denominators.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 23 2016, @12:26AM
> Demonstrating the mechanics especially in a fun way is always a good practical introduction to math.
[citation needed]
Seriously. You are at odds with practically all current understanding of math education.
Or possibly you didn't look at the screenshots and don't realize what you are saying.
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Wednesday March 23 2016, @01:16PM
Citation: my kid, it worked. He is going through math at twice the 'normal' rate now.
Being at odds with all of the current understanding of math education is perfectly fine because:
1) The current system doesn't work for everyone
2) The current system is going down the drain for those it does work for
The screenshots don't show the whole story. Go watch a video, share the link to let us watch so we can see what else you default to saying is horrible. By the time you get to algebra it isn't really about counting anymore, all the new tricks are manipulating symbols that have rules but not so much meaning. The symbol might as well be a smiley face or a dragon.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Alfred on Tuesday March 22 2016, @01:28PM
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/sanjoy/benezet/three.pdf [cam.ac.uk]
If you want to know more about the man and other related works:
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/sanjoy/benezet/ [cam.ac.uk]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday March 22 2016, @02:06PM
I read the first link. Interesting, worth the time. Two (or more) problems:
Its cheaty because you can't instruct kids on reading comprehension, problem solving, creativity, debate, and then feign surprise when provided with something mathematical to read about, they remain excellent readers and debaters. I'm sure if provided with something to read about science, they'd likewise be observed to be peculiarly good at science. At least WRT reading and debating and critical thinking topics. Tossing the kids something abstract, a little less concrete than a stick in the mud ratio problem, would likely catch them up pretty badly. Of course most peoples math problems thru their lives are not very abstract at all, so maybe it doesn't matter if they can't do something they don't need to do.
The other problem is it doesn't matter how many grade school teachers read it, its in direct opposition to drill -n- kill traditions and common core principles, and since deviation from micromanaged curricula will merely get them fired rather than changing anything, reading it will accomplish little other than depressing them.
Its probably worth parents reading it, on the principle that school is just a daycare and never let school get in the way of your education, so reading and estimating and critical thinking are worth having parents try to teach it, even if schools have given up on those topics.
Something to think about is I bet the guy got a lot of static in the 30s for not teaching arithmetic because sometimes you really did have to do it, back in the old days. Now of course everyone assumes we'll always have calculators and smartphones and computers so no one should ever learn arithmetic, other than maybe computer science students curious about algorithm improvement. If we ever join the Amish or have a substantial EMP hit, my own kids are totally ready to do long division. Of course they never will in the real world.
The essays do smack a bit of classical education / great books curriculum boosterism. That's how I was educated and I liked it and learned a hell of a lot. I also went to school but all I did was F around in school, at least school never interfered with my real education. I have the opinion that despite my personal good experience and the articles claims to the contrary, great books curriculum / classical education is really not for everyone, in actual practice. Maybe you can brow beat some of it into little kids at a low level, but a life of experience tells me ignorant people want to be ignorant and will not be denied. Possibly thats maybe more a cultural problem than an educational problem. Also today in the 2010s there some weird entryism going on with evangelicals home schooling and the great books or classical education, although I can personally verify that before their entryism there was no required linkage of those curricula with religion or home schoolling or any of that.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by art guerrilla on Tuesday March 22 2016, @11:31PM
"The other problem is it doesn't matter how many grade school teachers read it, its in direct opposition to drill -n- kill traditions and common core principles, and since deviation from micromanaged curricula will merely get them fired rather than changing anything, reading it will accomplish little other than depressing them."
*ouch*
that needs a 'sad-but-all-too-true' moderation...
the sad reality on the frontlines of teaching: the administration WILL throw you overboard whenever there is a wrinkle in the space-time continuum which questions the teach-to-the-test regimen...
SWMBO is between that rock and hard place, and that is ALL the teacher-rats are allowed: run the maze, memorize the maze, no deviations, no wrong turns, no imagination, no fucking teaching, simply rote and regurgitate...
oh, and test, Test, TEST ! ! !
with the results -literally- almost NEVER seen by the teachers until WAY AFTER THE FACT... they have NOTHING to do with 'evaluating/teaching/learning', and EVERYTHING to do with a scam to enrich connected pukes, and an authoritarian means of dumbing down public education, and consequently, the populace...
all we need stupid proles for, is dying in wars, and washing the floors of their betters...
(since we got the computer-based voting fixed, we dont' even need to pwetend their votes are needed...)
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday March 22 2016, @02:27PM
Going on a different tangent, google searches claim no connection between Schmidt's "Life of Fred" kids math textbooks and Benezet, but some themes of both are the same, the whole "literature as a gateway into math" thing and sophistry/debate as a learning tool and both are more fun than drill n kill worksheets. I tried to get my kids into LoF because "everyone loves it" but it never clicked with them. Oh well. So no field reports about LoF.
And going the whole opposite extreme, where I live there's enough H1b and Asians in general to support a Kumon franchise, so my kids did that for a year or so as the only white kids in the room, also without tremendous impact or success. For folks who have no idea what Kumon is, its kind of like a martial arts dojo for drill and kill arithmetic teaching, very popular with Asians, a bit too disciplined, slow moving, and boring for my own kids, but it was probably worth trying. It sounds like an awesome idea but as with many parenting experiences what sounds cool to the parents is not necessarily cool in the opinion of the kids, LOL.
Would have been nice if either approach worked with my kids. Probably both extremes are not useful.
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Tuesday March 22 2016, @07:43PM
In college (late 90s), most of my friends "taught" students at a local Kumon franchise, and their words about it were even harsher than yours, going as far as to say it was a complete fraud. From what I recall, they said parents were led to believe that it was intensive high-quality one-on-one tutoring to teach kids struggling with math special techniques of some kind, when in reality it boiled down to five minutes of basic tutoring followed by endless worksheets until the kid was picked up.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday March 23 2016, @12:05PM
From what I recall, they said parents were led to believe that it was intensive high-quality one-on-one tutoring
Maybe their marketing changed over the last 20 years. We saw what we were told we'd see. Their sales technique pushed two things, the disciplined memorization psuedo martial arts dojo environment, and they had decades of program data to create a secret sauce to guarantee progression if discipline was enforced and effort was made.
Maybe an even shorter summary is they use the gym-personal trainer model. That's great for some folks but not for everyone. In fact probably not for most people.
I didn't see any disconnect between what they told us they'd do vs what they did, but the learning style just didn't work for my kids. They were very nice people and my kids surprised me by missing the teachers although they didn't miss the worksheets...
Its definitely an Asian thing based on experience there and talking to my Japanese coworkers, my observation was both the employees and customers were pretty near 100% first maybe second gen stay at home tiger moms or tiger grannies. There's three colleges in the small suburb I live in so its not like there's a lack of prospects. Maybe they gave up on localization over the last 20 years or it just varies based on local site mgmt and customer demographics, who knows.
I have no idea what to say about tiger moms LARPing as teachers. My SiL is a school teacher with all the degrees and propaganda, and she's probably better overall as a teacher, but I donno if she's 6 yrs of higher ed and licenses and paperwork better than the mom-teachers, and she's been doing this awhile so she's getting expensive. Some kind of middle ground would probably provide maximized education to little kids.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by aclarke on Tuesday March 22 2016, @01:56PM
I have young kids in early grade school. I'm not saying they're math geniuses, but they both love math. Counting, adding, subtracting, and now multiplying numbers of various sizes is one of the most common dinnertime conversations. They ask us to come up with numbers for them to add, or practice counting, etc. Sometimes it goes on so long we have to tell them to stop doing subtraction and spend some time subtracting food from their plates and adding it to their mouths.
I think I started with my oldest daughter too early for her to really grasp the concepts, but in kindergarten when she was trying to count and do simple addition, I created a 10x10 grid of numbers from 1-100. We do a lot of work on pattern recognition, and like the summary says, "demonstrating the power of useful laziness". I try to find math in the world around us and show how it really is the language of the universe. I show my kids tricks on how to make what they're doing easier. I don't think it's turning them into math geniuses (yet?) but it seems to at least be helping them become very interested in maths.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Vanderhoth on Tuesday March 22 2016, @02:34PM
I've had a lot of success using lego and measuring cups to teach my 4 year old some addition and about fractions. She likes playing in the sink so we use measuring cups and I've taught her there are four 1/4 cups in one full cup, helping her to fill the cup and counting. Then I go, "So now we have a one over two, we call this a half cup. How many do you think it'll take to fill the full cup?", which she knew was two.
Similar with lego, when I'm building things with her. We let one "eight piece" represent ONE. After playing with the measuring cups for six months or so she's gotten to the point that I can say, "So if this 'eight' piece is one, what's a half?", and she gives me the 'four' piece. Not because she's doing the math, but she recognizes the 'four' piece is physically half the size of the eight piece and you need two of them to make one 'eight' piece, but now she knows half of eight is four, 1/4 of eight is two and 1/8 of eight is one. She doesn't understand why, but she knows. She can do the simple fractions, but if you ask for a 3/4 piece, she gets confused... It's a process.
Another exercise I like to do is when we have tea parties she'll set a place for two of her toys. Then I'll say there are three more coming, how many more places does she have to set? or that X number of guests can't make it, so how many are coming? It's funny actually because if you say it as "What's two plus three?", she thinks about it really hard and takes a lot of time to figure it out, but she gets it instantly without even thinking about it when we're talking about guest coming to her tea party. So I know the skills are there, I just don't know how to get her to do 'plain' math without it having to be some odd word problem. Although that might help her when Jonny has 15 bags of popcorn and Sally has 6 how much does Jonny have if Sally takes 11.
The most important thing you can do is just play with them and work math into things they like doing, even if ... especially if, it's making a mess.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Tuesday March 22 2016, @07:26PM
" but if you ask for a 3/4 piece, she gets confused... It's a process."
If only we lived in a world without the Imperial system of units. Instead of spending time wrestling with that nonsense she could be understanding and gaining more and more insights. It might seem small, but to me, it's a tragedy, and for some reason this particular example of a very bright and curious girl needing to take one step backward for every two she takes forward - being forced to re-interpret what she already knows - makes me despise the imperial system more than anything else has.
I think it's because unit conversions in imperial are the equivalent of mindless "busy work." Imagine if, when using the metric system, every time you wanted to go from a 10mm socket to a 20mm socket, you had to stand up and do 3 jumping jacks, and the only reason was governmental incompetence? Step down from an 18mm to a 17mm? For that you have to spin in place twice then do a handstand. It's just lunacy.
Sorry to go off on the rant. You seem like a caring parent.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Tuesday March 22 2016, @08:16PM
I don't quite follow your thoughts here. In the UK, we're largely metric, with the exceptions of distances/speeds on road signs, and some customary use of units for height, beer, etc. We still teach our children about fractions, even though we don't work in sixteenths of an inch any more.
Three quarters is a more complex concept than a quarter or a half, as it isn't a unit fraction. There's some ambiguity in the language too: is that three one-quarter pieces, or a single piece with a new name? It sounds to me like the young girl is still on the first steps to learning about fractions. Let's not rush her, but congratulate the good work done so far instead.
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Tuesday March 22 2016, @09:38PM
My mistake, I had assumed that she was in America. Fractions are definitely still applicable concepts. I work in 16ths and sometimes 32nds (nothing compared to machinists, but then, they work in mils) and it was such a pain having to get accustomed to it after cutting my teeth with hand tools working on metric motorcycles.
Without a doubt, that little girl will do great things whether or not a unit system makes it easier or more difficult for her.
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Wednesday March 23 2016, @11:13AM
Yeah, I was talking about a 3/4 piece. That is 3/4 of an "eight" piece, which would either be a six piece or a 1/2 piece (four) + 1/4 piece (two), but maybe I'm approaching that wrong now that I think about it. I could try explaining it as 3/4 is three 1/4 pieces so 1/4 + 1/4 + 1/4, might be easier than trying to get her to understand 1/2 == 2/4.
It's hard to explain, but get some lego and play with them, it's really intuitive when you're looking at the physical pieces because you can see a block that has four nibs, is half the size of a block with eight nibs so it's easy to explain 4 is 1/2 of 8. We both like playing with lego so it's easy to sit down with her and just do this little exercise a couple times a week as we build something.
Her reading is coming along pretty good to given she hasn't even started elementary school yet. I'm proud of her, but what parent wouldn't say that. Although she still locks herself in the closet then screams her head off at least once a week. Kids are all kinds of contradictions, funny, horrifying, smart, dumb. Every time you're about to throw your hands up and give in on something they'll surprise you or they'll out of the blue do something that inspires you to take them to the next level. You never quite know what they know or will understand or what they're thinking.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Wednesday March 23 2016, @10:27AM
... Fractions aren't imperial. I mean I get what you're saying about the unit conversion, but you'll likely still need to know that 1/2 of a metre is 50 cm, or 3/4 of a metre is 75 cm. One of the strengths of the imperial system is that inches are pretty intuitive for doing things like woodworking. Metric is great for precision, but for small, approximate, measurements inches work best because you're not working in decimals or converting between smaller units.
For imperil an inch is all you need for smaller measurements. 1 inch, 1/2 inch, 1/4 inch, 1/8 inch, 1/16 inch, which is just halves of halves. If you can work with these it makes measuring and cutting really easy. Not so much when you're working with decimals or moving from 1/2 cm to 50 mm. Worst you get with imperial, for smaller measurements, is needing to know there's 12 inches in a foot.
I'm Canadian BTW, I tend to use both systems interchangeably for various things. I buy my food by the gram and litre, but do my baking by the cup, pound and ounce. I measure distance by kilometers by calculate my car's efficiency in miles per gallon. We've been in this sort of limbo between systems for a long time.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday March 22 2016, @07:35PM
I think that's it. The power of math is its abstraction, but that's also its weakness for learners. I took a writing course in grad school called "Little Red Schoolhouse" that taught great writing uses concrete concepts coupled with actions, because that's how humans are hard-wired to understand the world. I think the same dynamic is at work in math education, and your anecdote sounds similar to successes I've seen with my kids.
To expand a bit on "the power of purposeful laziness," I've done exercises with my kids to teach them the power of math. One was dumping a pile of M&M's on the table with the promise that they could have 10 if they counted them all correctly. It was a big pile and it took forever for them to count them one by one. Then I taught them sets and they thought that was the greatest thing since sliced bread--more candy, faster!
I would like to think that when the day arrives when they're asked to write proofs I'll be able to help them there, too, but I always sucked at that.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Wednesday March 23 2016, @10:11AM
I'm stealing this idea.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Tuesday March 22 2016, @05:19PM
Is there any skill that doesn't gain bonus experience points for being learned young? Jimmy Page with his guitar, Michael Jordan with his basketball, etc?
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 22 2016, @08:01PM
Smokin' crack?
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Tuesday March 22 2016, @08:31PM
Polydron [polydron.co.uk] is a building set where the pieces are all two-dimensional shapes, which interlock along the edges. They can be joined to make two-dimensional tessellations or three-dimensional solids. I first encountered them on a Gifted Maths scheme (Royal Institution Mathematics Masterclasses) at the age of 15 or so, in an investigation into platonic solids.
Having recently trained as a maths teacher, I bought a box of second hand polydron pieces, and brought them out when my extended family came to visit recently. I had kids from ages 2 to 9 building shapes with them, and several of the adults joining in too. I challenged some of the older kids to see what solids they could build using (e.g.) only pentagons, predict how many more pieces they'd need to complete their solid, etc. The younger ones just enjoyed sorting and classifying, and putting pieces together to build something out of their imagination.
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Tuesday March 22 2016, @08:56PM
I was excellent at performing math in my head as a little kid thanks to my mother starting me out with Cuisenaire Rods [wikipedia.org] (each length of rectangle a different color e.g. 5 white cubes = 1 blue rod, 2 blue rods = 1 red rod) as soon as I was old enough to not chew on them. She eventually put that with my reading lessons as a pretending game of "let's play 'school,'" so I was able to read, spell, and perform basic algebra by age 4.
I didn't do well on timed math tests in school due to the distracting noise of other kids moving/fidgeting, though, so my parents made the mistake of resorting to flash cards & timed computer games like Alligator Mix [youtube.com]. Failing so often in school led me to stress out as soon as I saw the numbers, so I couldn't concentrate at home — that just made things worse. Trying to show me "tricks" by noticing patterns, games involving numbers like cribbage, etc. didn't help, either.
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Wednesday March 23 2016, @01:27PM
We have something like that except it is 1, 10, 100. Simpler but lines up with the digits. They always make a mess with them when in building block mode though. Of course I would build with them to if I was that age.
Too bad the colors of your rods don't line up with the resistor code. That would be extra cool. Guess I could buy 10 colors of paint if needed.