If you encounter a topic that your child
really likes, stick with it for a while. This
may be a segue for your child to get into
other areas of math that her favorite topic
is related to. You may even decide to have
your child do a project on a topic. There
are numerous benefits to having a student
work on a project that interests him, such
as developing perseverance and problem-solving skills that readily transfer to other
disciplines. In fact, Project Based Learning
(PBL) has become so popular that entire
schools base their curricula on this idea. As
a homeschooler, you have the advantage of
introducing PBL in math if and when you
feel it is suitable for your child.
Another advantage of choosing mathematical topics is being able to focus on your
child’s weak areas while spending a minimal amount of time on the overall assessment of his math skills. Instead of assessing
how “good” or “bad” a student is in math
compared to his peers, you can focus on the
material itself. Simply put, you can spend
less time “judging” and more time learning.
Along with individual areas of weakness
of each student, it’s good to consider traditional areas of weakness in the school curriculum. Your child can have an advantage
by having those become his strengths. One
topic that immediately comes to mind is
geometry. Spatial reasoning is, unfortunately, neglected in schools but turns out
to be a key predictor of future success in a
broad range of STEM disciplines. Elementary school teachers and researchers at the
University of Toronto found that students
given lots of spatial reasoning exercises
ended up doing better in numeracy, patterning, and other areas of mathematics.
Problem solving, as a subject, is another
great area to focus on. Teachers are usually
too busy trying to convey new concepts to
students. Therefore, they run out of time for
teaching strategies and approaches to solve
problems. You can compensate for this at
home.
Whether your child does better with di-
rect teaching, computer-based learning,
projects, or manipulatives, you have the
freedom to mix the various learning mo-
dalities in whatever order and ratio (no
pun intended) is best for your child. I once
had a sixth grade student in my math club
who seemed unmotivated and performed
poorly on written assignments throughout
the year. However, when we had a session
of problem solving with Geometiles®, a set
of construction tiles, he came alive. It was
the first time I saw him intellectually en-
gaged. His performance on a subsequent
math competition improved enough that
he earned some recognition. I wish I had
introduced him to learning math through
kinesthetic means earlier in the year, but it
was difficult to focus on the need of indi-
vidual students in a class of thirty five. The
homeschool environment allows you to do
just that—focus on your child’s needs.
My daughter’s favorite online learning
tool is Alcumus by artofproblemsolving
.com. The problems are very high quality,
and the level of the problems is adapted to
each individual child’s performance. Solutions are provided, and often more than one
version. When my daughter feels she needs
more direct instruction, she goes to rigorous, yet amusing, video explanations by
Richard Rusczyk. These are directly tied to
Students given
spatial reasoning
exercises ended
up doing better
in numeracy,
patterning, and
other areas of
mathematics.
