How to Improve Math Fact Computation
You've probably seen the headlines in the newspaper. Math scores in the United States and other western countries are way down, and students are not pursuing mathematics in higher education. The root of the problem begins when children are young and don't get a firm mathematics foundation. There are many things you can do to help your student or child to prepare for future success in math. Begin by making sure she can compute basic math facts.
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Emphasize that practice makes perfect. Many elementary school math curricula these days use games to teach math. Although these games are entertaining, they do not give students the repetitive practice they need to solidify the facts in their minds. While your child is young, introduce her to regular math practice. This can be in the form of worksheets, flashcards, computer games or oral quizzing.
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Use worksheets. There are many great websites that will help you make customized math worksheets. Alternatively, you can buy math workbooks online or from bookstores and even some discount stores. Have your child complete a worksheet every day after school. This will help your child to develop computation speed and seeing the figures and calculating many sums in a row will cement the concepts in her brain.
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Buy a set of flashcards or make your own. You can often find flashcards at dollar stores. Make a chart with spaces big enough to record a date and a time. Using a stopwatch, time your child on how fast she can go through the entire stack of flashcards. If she misses a card, just put it at the end of the stack and keep going. When she finishes the stack, record the date and her time. Tomorrow, repeat the drill and watch her times improve. This practice will help her enormously when she gets to algebra and has to use different computation skills in the same problem.
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Find some good computer games. Look online or for software that drills students on math facts. If the game is heavy on entertainment but light on math, your student will get the idea that education should be entertaining instead of enriching.
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Quiz your child orally. Oral quizzing is a perfect activity for when you're driving around in the car. Instead of putting on a movie for your kids to watch, count by twos, fives, and tens. See if they can count backwards from 35. Drill them on the multiplication table. Have them estimate how many stop lights there will be between the soccer fields and home, and then have them keep track with tally marks on a piece of paper.
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