Hi folks, I have a daughter in 2nd grade and I am very good at Math. My daughter struggles with it. I sometimes can’t find the proper way to explain Math to her. I talked with the teacher and she says they use number lines and counters and the child figures out his or her own best way of understanding and remembering addition and subtraction. My husband who is a teacher says that American teachers are not taught how to teach math. I know a whole bunch of tricks that my daughter seems to appreciate. Other times I just don’t know a trick to help her. How does one become a competent Math tutor?
Math teaching
What programs or software are recommended? If I wait for the school to be concerned she will get too far behind. I’ve managed to keep her at grade level so far (second grade).
idea
I am homeschooling this year and find gobs of great info on homeschooling boards
The math forum at sonlight.com is particularly active.
Several parents are “good at math” and actively trying to sort out the best ways to pass that on to their kids
community college class?
Our county community college offers math classes for elementary teachers but they are also open to parents who just want to understand concepts their children are learning in math class.
I’m actually taking one of these classes now. Like VictoriaH said, this class emphasizes that math problems can be seen in a whole variety of ways and the children may see math problems from entirely different perspective.
Might be worth checking into if you have a community college nearby.
I agree with your husband that American teachers have little or no training in how to teach math — they are left to figure a lot out on their own, just as they now are leaving too much to the students to figure out on their own. It isn’t working so well for the students and it doesn’t work so well for the teachers.
However, math is far more than a bunch of tricks, and I am always very worried about quick tricks. One quick trick is easy and fast. By the time your brain gets loaded up with several hundred quick tricks, they are no longer quick and are usually very inaccurate as the student does a random search on which trick to use.
To be a good math teacher, it is very important to have a good idea of the structure of math, a “big-picture” view that includes the work before and long after the child’s level. Teachers who focus only on the work at their present level very often mislead students about the skills that are supposed to be taught as preparation for higher work — they often either omit these skills, or mis-teach them by rote rather than by understanding, or give the student a negative attitude.
To be a good math teacher, it is also important to be able to see things from the learner’s point of view. Remember Rule One of teaching: Any skill is easy, after you already know how. Unfortunately, you may think subtraction is easy and all you have to do is remember a little trick for borrowing, but to a student who doesn’t understand what subtraction means, it is very very difficult and the little trick is just another frightening mystery. You need to know every single step, every single sub-skill, and to present them gradually one by one and then put them all back together for the finished product. Or, if you don’t know every step it is important to get a good program and follow it, not skipping around missing steps because you with adult eyes don’t think they are important.
And to be a good math teacher you have to be able to question your student’s understandikng and make sure that the concept is going in, not a rote imitation.