How to Teach 6th Grade Math

Give students the foundation they need to tackle algebraic concepts.

Sixth grade is a crucial year in terms of mathematical development. By the time they reach this level, students are expected to have built their arithmetic skills and are ready to plunge into the concepts that will ready them for prealgebra and algebra. Yet, each child enters with her own struggles and advantages and, as the teacher, you must deal with a wide range of abilities. To provide your students with the foundations that they need, you must incorporate different learning styles and prepare them for the challenging work ahead.

Instructions

1. Working within the given curriculum, start the year with an intensive review of fourth- and fifth-grade materials. Focus on fractions, multiples, factors, place value and geometric concepts.

2. Set up a system of continual review of student abilities. Give frequent quizzes and daily checks to figure out which skills and concepts are lacking before problems build. Address these problems without singling students out.

3. Incorporate daily word problems. These help students understand the relationship between math and "real-life." Furthermore, they teach them how to process the material on a deep level. Have them not only solve, but conceptualize and set up, the problems in their own words.

4. Challenge your sixth-grade math students to approach problems from different angles so that they learn the concepts and not just the facts. Give worksheets that phrase problems differently from the textbook and provide problems that force the students to tackle the ideas backward. Approach concepts like decimal fraction conversion, scientific notation and volume of solids in different ways each lesson.

5. Use multiple modalities to reach students with different learning styles and help them learn to do so themselves. Encourage the children to draw pictures and diagrams to represent abstract situations and have them "teach" each other concepts and skills to practice their verbal representations. Be creative and use metaphors when describing skills and concepts, but as the students build their understandings, emphasize the proper terminologies.

6. Teach your sixth-grade math students how to use resources such as their textbooks, the Internet and community tutors. Students in middle school and high school often rely on teachers for information because they lack the skill to interpret written math instructions. Work with them to develop this ability so that they can teach themselves when they struggle in algebra and higher level mathematics.

7. As the sixth-grade year finishes and students prepare for prealgebra, begin introducing the most basic algebraic concepts. Start with negative integers and operations with these. Then work toward the order of operations and solving one-step equations.

Tips & Warnings

• If you are teaching sixth grade math in an elementary school, take advantage of the situation to work the math concepts into other subject areas.

• Have students bring in "real life" problems that they encounter so that they learn how to interpret mathematical problems that are not clearly defined.

References

• National Council of Teachers of Mathematics: Related Expectations from Principles and Standards for School Mathematics Content Standards: Grade 6

Resources

• Teacherneedhelp.com: Teaching Sixth Grade