Why do your children likely struggle with mathematics and how to help them.

Why do your children likely struggle with mathematics and how to help them.

Maths, potentially the most universally hated subject in education.

Many children and even adults struggle with maths.

This doesn’t have to be the case, and in most instances, helping your children not only become better at maths, but also to enjoy it needs to start with finding out why they are finding it difficult.

These key areas may be why your children are not getting along with their maths.

Learning style differences.

Everyone learns differently. Maths is very much a visual subject (things like equations and algebra are things that are written and can’t be taught in any other way easily.  

Because of this, auditory learners (which make up around 30% of students), who often need to listen to things that they are learning about, will struggle with the heavy visual favoured aspects of maths.

This is the same for Kinesthetic learners (about 5% of students) who need to physically be able to hold something or work with something physically to learn efficiently.

Difficulty remembering the multiple steps of maths.

Students, especially in the higher levels of maths, have to be able to perform multiple calculations using different methods to solve one equation.

Children often have difficulty remembering every step of this process, and even putting an incorrect number somewhere once will lead to getting an incorrect answer without the student even knowing they’ve made a mistake, often leading to frustration and demotivation.

Difficulty learning the basic concepts.

A big reason that students struggle with maths is a misunderstanding of the basic concepts.

Children in the early years of education must get the basics right.

Getting the basics wrong will lead to not being able to grasp the more advanced concepts they will learn later on in their education.

For example, times tables are often taught by memorising them. But if they don’t understand how multiplication is worked out, they will struggle as they won’t know how to choose the correct solution to other maths problems.

How can I aid my children in their maths?

It may have been a while since parents have done any maths so hiring a private tutor can make sure your children get the support they need.

Part of the battle, as mentioned earlier, is knowing why your children are struggling with maths.

Most reputable tutoring agencies will pre-assess your children to find out how your children learn and will be able to find the aspects of maths that they find difficult.

A tutor will not only be able to fill in the gaps in your children’s maths but also be able to diagnose where these learning gaps are and teach maths to suit your children’s learning style.