Help Parents Understand New Math with this Free Guide -

I’ve shared before how you can respond to parents who question new math, but how do we help them understand it? Like it or not, math instruction is likely not going to move back to the old “do it this way and don’t think about why” way of thinking. So, how we do help parents understand how to support their children’s math development? We give them the tools they need. Here are 3 ways to help parents understand common core, or new math, as well as 5 things parents can do to support their children.

Don’t assume they know how to “do” the math

First, don’t assume that parents know how to do the math you’re teaching their child. Sure, they probably know how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide, but they likely learned the steps you take. They probably didn’t learn why you do what you do to solve those problems. Likely, they don’t have a super strong understanding of place value, making a tens, and so on. So, assume your parents will need some support for understanding how to help their child with these skills.

You can provide support to parents by first starting the year off by sharing the reasoning behind new math. If you’re not sure what to say, you can find some great points here. Even if every parent doesn’t buy it, they at least understand where you’re coming from and will likely be more open to new methods.

You can also support parents by sharing examples of what their children are working on with them. Whether you share videos from Youtube or that you’ve created, written samples, or something else, showing them how to use different strategies goes a long way to make parents feel confident that they can help their children.

Additionally, it’s helpful and important to give parents the opportunity to ask you questions. Of course, you don’t have time to answer 20 emails a day, but letting them know that you are happy to answer questions about a particular math skill or strategy will put them at ease. Plus, if you provide examples, this should greatly reduce the number of questions you receive.

Empower your students to be teachers

Students love to become the teachers, and the best way to learn is to teach! So, empower your students to take on the role of teacher. Of course, this takes time and practice. Begin by having students pair up throughout a lesson and share what they’ve just learned. You can give students the opportunity to do a mini lesson at the end of each math lesson to reexplain what they learned that day. You can also pick a student each day to demonstrate what they’ve learned in the previous lesson. And, finally, you can do the classic “come up and solve this problem” method. The key is to have students explain their thinking, help them clarify their thinking, and show them that they have the knowledge and understanding to share their new understanding with parents.

Let them know what’s coming

Lastly, give parents the change to get ahead of their child. When you’re going to begin learning a new concept, send out an email, note, or newsletter to let them know what skills you’ll be focusing on soon. You can share resources, samples, and videos explaining how the new concepts work then, which will allow parents a bit of a head start. This also means they can ask you questions before they’re stuck at the dining room table trying to understand how to make a ten or break an addition problem apart.

How Can Parents Support their Children at Home?

Although I’m not a fan of homework, there might be times when students are working on math at home. Either in every day life, or because parents want to spend some time working on math skills with students. So, here are 5 ways parents can support their children’s math development at home.

Let them use manipulatives

Encourage parents to let students use manipulatives, or objects, to help them solve problems. There is nothing wrong with students using manipulatives. It’s a necessary step to learning, and it allows them to visualize the math. Of course, eventually (and that’s a big eventually- there’s no rush!) want them to do most things in their head or using pencil and paper, but there is nothing wrong with students using manipulatives.

Here are some examples of manipulatives students can use at home: fingers (and toes!), cereal, toy cars, blocks, buttons, crayons, paper clips, hair bands, lego blocks, coins, dice, dried beans, sticky notes, pencils, pebbles, sticks

Let them try it different ways

One of the beautiful things about new math is that students learn multiple ways to solve a problem. This means they can eventually figure out which method works the best for them and use that. Encourage parents to let their children try different ways to solve a problem. They might draw it, write it, use manipulatives, or try a few different strategies like making a ten or using a double. Parents can give students the opportunity to try different strategies until they find the one that clicks for them.

Encourage them to explain their thinking

As parents are working with their children, it can be really helpful to ask them to explain their thinking. This serves two purposes. First, it helps the child work through what they did and why they did it. Secondly, it will help the parent understand the process as well. If their explanation doesn’t make sense, it let’s the parent know that their child might need some more help from their teacher before they can really grasp the skill or strategy.

Let them be the teacher

One way parents can support their children is to let them be the teacher. Parents might know how to solve a math problem using the standard form already. However, they can let their child teach them how they’ve learned to solve it. The beauty of this is that it will depend the child’s understanding and let the parent learn the new method. It’s a win win!

Look for math in real life

One of the best things parents can do is to point out math in real life. Children learn best when their learning has a real world application. So, parents can support their children’s math development by showing them real life examples of math. They can show them how you use math to follow a recipe (measurement), pay for groceries (money), arrange furniture in a room (spatial awareness), divide a snack evenly (fractions), make a schedule (time), pay bills (addition and subtraction), plan a party (addition, subtraction), and so on. Letting children see that math is all around us shows them just how important it is.

If you’d like to share these tips with your students’ parents, you can download this Free Parent’s Guide to Supporting Your Child’s Math Skills printable in my free resource library for email subscribers. Click the picture below to access it. Not an email subscriber? Sign up here for immediate access.