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How to support in Maths when I am no good at it!

Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2013 9:53 am
by countrymum
Hi, DD has bringing IMO harder and harder maths work for her Sats revision home. Now I appreciate she attempts all this on her own but I like to offer support and guidance where necessary. The maths questions though even for me that she asks me about I am struggling with the 'basic' stuff. Perhaps I am trying to work out in my head what can be done on a calculator I hope so :oops: The husband is much better than me but even he struggled on a couple of questions she brought home. I can't believe it was primary level maths tbh, IMO looked more like GCSE! What's it going to be like when it IS GCSE!!

Anyway my point is, my DD has one of those mathematical minds, as in she 'gets it' I don't. English, the arts, languages that's 'my thing' She has been better in maths than i for a very long time and I don't feel 'clever enough' in maths to be a good support for her :cry:

Children that go on to secondary school level maths, would the school guidance/support in maths be enough for her to work well in maths? I feel as her parent I should 'get it' so I can explain workings out, tbh I feel a bit stupid.

Re: How to support in Maths when I am no good at it!

Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2013 10:21 am
by stroudydad
Hi Countrymum, surely the most important thing is that you are supportive? Which you obviously are. :D We are not all good at everything.. Languages are certainly not my thing.. From a laymans perspective rather than teachers, the thing with Maths is that it all follows a process... It can always be broken into processes.. Try to understand why you are doing the the process and it will work...

Re: How to support in Maths when I am no good at it!

Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2013 10:23 am
by NorthLondonMum
I think we have to accept that at a certain point our children may be working at a higher level than us in some subjects at secondary school.

My thoughts are that we can still support them by making sure they have everthing they need - instruments, books, dictionaries, computer access, and when they struggle we can help them to refer back to their text books (assuming they have them) for explanation and examples. Beyond that the teachers are the experts, however if they are not providing sufficient support then we should act as our childs advocate if necessary.

You are not alone. Yesterday my y6 daughter was stuck on a question and I couldn't see how she was supposed to do it, they will go over it in class today. I consider myself good at maths, perhaps I was having a bad day!

Re: How to support in Maths when I am no good at it!

Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2013 10:32 am
by countrymum
stroudydad wrote:Hi Countrymum, surely the most important thing is that you are supportive? Which you obviously are. :D We are not all good at everything.. Languages are certainly not my thing.. From a laymans perspective rather than teachers, the thing with Maths is that it all follows a process... It can always be broken into processes.. Try to understand why you are doing the the process and it will work...
Thanks Stroudydad, I just look at these questions and my mind freezes. I really do think you need to have some part of your brain 'switched on' and I can't seem to find the light switch for mine! I shall try though and like you say maybe break things down methodically.

Re: How to support in Maths when I am no good at it!

Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2013 10:37 am
by countrymum
NorthLondonMum wrote:I think we have to accept that at a certain point our children may be working at a higher level than us in some subjects at secondary school.

My thoughts are that we can still support them by making sure they have everthing they need - instruments, books, dictionaries, computer access, and when they struggle we can help them to refer back to their text books (assuming they have them) for explanation and examples. Beyond that the teachers are the experts, however if they are not providing sufficient support then we should act as our childs advocate if necessary.

You are not alone. Yesterday my y6 daughter was stuck on a question and I couldn't see how she was supposed to do it, they will go over it in class today. I consider myself good at maths, perhaps I was having a bad day!
Thank you. I just find it quite strange DD showing me how to work things out, me as the adult and her the child! It all looks double Dutch to me and very different to how I remember it. Thanks too for making me feel not quite so alone, that some of it can be challenging even for us. Great advice too on how I can actually still be supporting her proving resources etc.

Re: How to support in Maths when I am no good at it!

Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2013 10:50 am
by KS10
I think it's ok not to understand. As a previous poster said, we can't be good at everything. I actually think it's worse sometimes when you know the answer but can't explain without confusing the child how you got there.

Re: How to support in Maths when I am no good at it!

Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2013 11:16 am
by Reading Mum
NorthLondonMum wrote:I think we have to accept that at a certain point our children may be working at a higher level than us in some subjects at secondary school.

My thoughts are that we can still support them by making sure they have everthing they need - instruments, books, dictionaries, computer access, and when they struggle we can help them to refer back to their text books (assuming they have them) for explanation and examples. Beyond that the teachers are the experts, however if they are not providing sufficient support then we should act as our childs advocate if necessary.

You are not alone. Yesterday my y6 daughter was stuck on a question and I couldn't see how she was supposed to do it, they will go over it in class today. I consider myself good at maths, perhaps I was having a bad day!
Its inevitable. To this day my mother still reminds me of the trauma we both went through trying to do a particularly devilish physics homework involving a polar bear on an iceberg - and that was 30 years ago! Its obviously etched into her brain :)

Re: How to support in Maths when I am no good at it!

Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2013 11:25 am
by stroudydad
Reading Mum wrote:
NorthLondonMum wrote:I think we have to accept that at a certain point our children may be working at a higher level than us in some subjects at secondary school.

My thoughts are that we can still support them by making sure they have everthing they need - instruments, books, dictionaries, computer access, and when they struggle we can help them to refer back to their text books (assuming they have them) for explanation and examples. Beyond that the teachers are the experts, however if they are not providing sufficient support then we should act as our childs advocate if necessary.

You are not alone. Yesterday my y6 daughter was stuck on a question and I couldn't see how she was supposed to do it, they will go over it in class today. I consider myself good at maths, perhaps I was having a bad day!
Its inevitable. To this day my mother still reminds me of the trauma we both went through trying to do a particularly devilish physics homework involving a polar bear on an iceberg - and that was 30 years ago! Its obviously etched into her brain :)
During one physics homework I managed to prove that rain can float in mid air... My phsics teach just wrote "Mark, have you ever seen floating rain?"
Mr Middleton was great..

Re: How to support in Maths when I am no good at it!

Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2013 11:27 am
by mystery
Yes, I don't remember any help at home with maths beyond the infants when my mother (a primary teacher herself at one point) taught me a few things she thought I should know in year 1 but hadn't learned at school (wait for it Guest 55 - column addition and subtraction with exchanging - I remember understanding it very well and feeling very pleased with this trick but the teacher had a very peculiar look on her face which I did not like - and some mental methods too).

At secondary school I remember my father occasionally sticking his ore in but he was really bad at explaining so it was very annoying and always led to an argument.

I think the key is making your child feel good about asking if they haven't followed something. Hopefully that will do the trick, and also maths topics do have a habit of coming back again and again so hopefully it would be understood next time round.

The only point it would be a problem is if the teaching was poor for a very long time, or your child did not "click" with a particular teacher's method of explaining things. I feel that maths is quite different from other subjects in respect of the "panic" that some people can get with it which can become a block to further learning. If this seemed to be happening with a child of mine I would wish to nip it in the bud. There are lots of different ways of sorting this even if you can't do maths yourself .... however, maths is fun and not very difficult ... certainly not up to GCSE. Why not sign up to an online GCSE course if you have the time?!

Re: How to support in Maths when I am no good at it!

Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2013 11:28 am
by mystery
Floating rain - yes it appears to happen quite often in the rainy, windy Lake District.