How to make a kid like math?

The last batch of math district tests came back and the results were so great that I immediately wanted to share them with someone else. I located my husband in the house and I asked him, “For math, do you know what percentile range is the little one?” (Best results are closer to one hundred.)

My younger boy, now in fourth grade, is very good at math, so my husband ventured a very high number: “Is it ninety?” I replied with excitement, “Even more—his score is ninety-nine. And for the older one, it is eighty-six.”

I saw my husband's eyes grow wide with delight. As great as the percentile for my younger boy was, the results for our older kid, a fifth-grader, were even more impressive because he has always struggled with school and he needed extra help all the time.

It looks that somehow, we stumbled on a simple recipe to connect our kids with math. It only took us about eight years to have the confirmation that we were on the right track. So, what did we do exactly? Here are my six tricks to help a kid like math.

1. Parents must care

There are many things that parents would love for their kids to be good at. My own list is long, and it includes making friends, being curious about everything, doing unselfish deeds, playing sports, and reading. But math is close to the top, contending for the spotlight, because it is an essential skill for so many professions. Without math, my kids’ career choices would be seriously limited. I didn’t want my boys to turn their backs on math, if they had the bad luck to encounter bad teachers or if they were not born with a natural gift for it.

To show how much I cared about it, I volunteered at school helping other kids with math. That experience gave me ideas about how to help my own kids, and it kept me informed about teaching math in a grade-appropriate way.

2. Start young and make it fun

I cannot recall how many times the kids and I hollered the numbers song in the car when they were toddlers. At home, the boys had many educational toys that dealt with numbers. One of their favorite DVDs was on the same subject. Meals were another great time to play and learn. I would ask them, “Can you give Mommy five Cheerios, please? No, not four. I asked for five. One Cheerio for each of your fingers. That’s it! Great job!”

With the attitude that math is a game, both my kids grew up thinking of math as both easy and fun. Over time, we tried tons of games that were age-appropriate. Some were more successful than others. Today, my younger kid likes solving Sudoku, and he discovered an interesting variation of it that contains extra arithmetic challenges. On weekends we all play Rummy-O or "tabinet", a Romanian card game that entices kids to practice addition.

Nowadays, whenever I ask my kids what is their favorite school subject, they answer “math”. The younger one even declared that Mondays are no longer the worst day of the week because he has math enrichment at school.

3. Practice makes perfect

My two kids have very different learning styles. My older one does math homework every night, and if he doesn't have any assigned by his teacher, I select something for him. He learns math on a constant basis. My younger one learns in intense bursts of a few weeks, usually because he gets fired up by some challenge, like a school test or getting an award from us. After each burst, he takes a break from math and moves his learning interest to some other thing. For both boys, the total amount of time they spend on math is about the same over a month's time.

For some subjects, like multiplication, we started years in advance, during our weekend hikes. The monotony of walking for hours was interrupted by learning how much is 5 x 5, 6 x 6, etc. That gave them ample time to practice long before they had to master this skill at school.

I constantly look at what they learn, and help them when they get stuck. Every success they have, I never forget to praise them. Talking about praise…

4. Remind them that they are good at math

Nothing will fire up more a kid than praise. It shouldn't be every night because it might lose its potency if it’s overused. But, whenever they had a success—if they learned something challenging, or they practiced a little longer—I reminded them that they are good at math and that I was proud of them. Sometimes I added some extra enthusiasm, like “I also loved math as a kid. I always thought it was so much fun to solve a tough problem,” or “Wow, at this rate, you will start teaching me math.”

5. Show that math is part of everyday life

The other day, while I was driving them to school, my boys asked me, “Mommy, why do we need to learn math?” My hands tensed a little on the wheel, thinking that maybe their question was hinting that there were getting tired of this subject. I started to remind them how math was everywhere around us. "When you told me about the temperature of boiling water in Celsius and Fahrenheit, was this related in any way to math? How about yesterday, when we split a pizza for dinner? How do you calculate how much money you have in your piggy bank?"

I didn’t have to continue for long because they started to come up with their own examples. At some point, they went on a tangent, starting to talk about something else, related to the temperatures of the other planets.

The point is, from time to time, it’s good to remind your kids that math is everywhere, and ask for their help to calculate things in real life.

6. Make math a year round activity

Kids have a tendency to lose academic skills and knowledge during the summer. It doesn’t have to be this way. My kids do summer homework every day for about forty-five minutes, and usually it includes math and reading. I like to teach them in advance some of the curriculum of the year to come so that they'll continue to think school is simple.

For my kids, the most successful summer workbook was called Brain Quest, because it was colorful and covered many subjects, from language arts and writing to math and science. Because vacations and weekends, which are their most fun-packed time, are also used for learning, now, when my kids think about math, the thought triggers positive feelings.


It sounds pretty simple, I hope. Good luck and let me know if these tricks worked for you, too.