Building Math Confidence in Early Childhood
Math is an essential part of everyday life, and the evidence shows that a strong foundation in math in early education is predictive of overall school achievement. So, it’s important that we provide kids with all the tools they will need to feel comfortable and confident in their math journey.
Children are made for math!
Children are exposed to the fundamentals of maths from a very young age, after all, maths is all around them! From babyhood, they are keen observers, noticing shapes, patterns and amounts. Even a young child will notice if someone has more of something and they have less.
Kids are natural problem solvers, it’s part of being human to want to experiment, to try to figure things out and to test strategies to find solutions. And children want to be good at math. Young kids quickly understand that teachers and parents think it is important and older kids appreciate that it will be necessary for higher education and work.
But here is the thing, research shows that our naturally curious, problem-solving young learners can develop a fear of math from as early as first grade. There are a number of reasons why this occurs:
They pick up on parental, caregiver or peer anxiety around the subject.
They do not form solid foundations before being moved on to more complex ideas. Math is a cumulative subject with concepts layering on top of each other. If a child is moved on before they feel comfortable with a concept then it is very easy to be left behind.
They receive negative feedback about their ability.
They do not persist when things become challenging and fail to develop the confidence they need to test strategies or work toward solutions.
Of course, this can all lead to a series of negative experiences that impacts self-confidence and can result in math avoidance.
Adult math anxiety
Before we get into the practical aspects of building math confidence it’s worth addressing math anxiety, as mentioned above, because approximately 20 percent of parents lack confidence with math.
“Don’t worry, I wasn’t good at math either.”
“You’re either a math person or you’re not.'“
“It’s ok, we’re not a math family."
How many parents or caregivers have uttered those sentiments? If you put your hand up, you are not alone. Yet, for many of us, our anxiety around maths is built on a series of negative experiences rather than the reality of our inherent math ability. And the danger is, we can pass on our negative views to our children.
A parent’s approach to learning math has a significant influence on their child’s approach. If a parent feels anxious about the subject they may inadvertently pass that anxiety on to their child. It may be a subconscious action such as not engaging in math talk or activities. It may be more overt, telling their child it’s ok not to be good at math.
A change of perspective - I can, you can!
Parents can promote math learning by creating positive experiences, the first of which begins by embracing a positive mindset and transforming math from something to be feared to something that can be enjoyed. One of the most useful tactics is adopting positive language. You might find math tricky but having positive conversations and interactions around math goes a long way to promoting self-confidence and can increase a child’s overall achievement.
With older children, promote a positive attitude by communicating the relevance of math, that it’s not something that is just ‘done at school’ or something to ‘get through’ but it has real-life applications. Give them examples they find resonate in their own lives such as in video games or sports. Also, demonstrate how it applies in your life such as budgeting or cooking or even planning a family holiday. Go a step further, and let them know that math is needed in the workplace.
Let them see that math has a purpose.
How can parents help build math confidence?
There are many low-pressure ways to foster the joy of math and help a child’s math skills flourish. A few simple adjustments and additions to the day can have a major impact on math readiness for school success.
1. Build your own math knowledge
Build your own understanding of the importance of early math and how to help - as you are now - by researching and reading, or by reaching out to teachers. Research shows that parents who build that understanding are more likely to provide exposure to math by talking about it or engaging in activities. This matters at all ages but a good pre-k, preschool or kindergarten foundation is essential. Importantly, this also helps to remove gender bias, as parents unintentionally talk about math in the early years more with sons than with daughters.
2. Bedtime math
Parents or caregivers read bedtime stories to foster language and literacy skills but what if they did bedtime math activities? Making math a part of the daily routine in a low-key manner helps build concepts and math vocabulary but also reinforces the idea that math is important, interesting and fun!
Here are a few low-pressure options:
Read a math storybook
There are a number of wonderful stories out there but a nice one to start with is this bedtime picture book, you and your child will say goodnight to things around the home - toys, pots and pans, and pets - while identifying the numbers you both see in them.
(If you click on the picture it will take you to Amazon - we have no affiliate links)
Play a game - anything that involves numbers or math talk - see a few options below.
Sing a math song or rhyme - ‘one two buckle my shoe’ or ‘1 2 3 4 5 Once I caught a fish alive’. A simple internet search will bring up a host of options.
Do a puzzle - this involves shapes and problem-solving and is a low-key activity prior to bedtime.
Do a math riddle
3. Everyday math
Firstly, children who see their parents doing everyday math are more likely to engage in math activities. Secondly, the daily application of math is a nice easy way to build foundational skills. Young children employ concrete math strategies, working well with something physical to manipulate. A few simple ways to introduce math into their day:
Let them help sort laundry - this introduces the concept of colors, pairs, and sets (a set of t-shirts).
Ask them to help set the table and ask questions such as ‘How many spoons do we need?’
As they put away their toys get them to count, sort or arrange by size.
Ask them to collect items at the supermarket and have them count, or compare amounts and sizes.
Get them involved in baking or gardening.
If they are out for a walk show them math exists everywhere - house numbers, the shape of signs, the size of buildings, the curve of a road, the number of steps they take from one place to another - opportunities abound to bring in ‘math talk.’
For older children, it can be helpful to link to an interest like sport. Invite them to keep score when playing basketball or soccer.
4. Math games
If you want a fun way to bring math into the day, opt for math games. There are many benefits to be had:
On the practical side, games are an opportunity for kids to build basic ideas and to practice and extend skills. Without even realising it, children are gaining knowledge such as number recognition, cardinality, patterns, spatial relations and geometry.
Math games provide an opportunity for ‘math talk’ and building math vocabulary and linking experiences to concepts
Games provide an opportunity to try tactics and strategies as, depending on the game, there is often more than one way to win and….
This leads kids to build and develop the skills of problem-solving, puzzling and perseverance, skills that will serve them well all their life long!
Games need to be age appropriate but a challenge is good, there isn’t a lot of fun to be had if it is too easy. Here are some options to get you started …
How many fingers?
Hide your hands behind your back
Show your hands holding up a few fingers on each hand e.g. one finger on your right hand and three fingers on your left hand.
Chant a little rhyme before revealing your fingers: “Fingers, fingers, 1,2,3, how many fingers do you see?” Children then call out how many fingers you are holding up.
This promotes counting, cardinality, subitizing, and combining and taking apart sets.
Go Fish - played with a standard deck of playing cards helps your child explore how numbers work as well as develop their skills in quantifying collections and patterning. Older children will enjoy the strategic thinking required to outwit opponents!
Snakes and Ladders - a classic board game that encourages quantifying collections, learning how numbers work and developing spatial skills. Ask questions, ‘What number did you roll?’ ‘How many places do you need to move?’ ‘How far ahead of me are you?’
Uno Junior - number, collections, and colors all in one! The goal of the game is to be the first to run out of cards. Older children may enjoy applying strategies as they work out which card to play.
Jumping on the Lilly Pads - children take turns rolling a dice or number cube and moving a ‘frog’ (counter) along the game board. The goal is to be the first ‘frog’ to reach its lily pad. This helps children develop a mental number line and understand that whole numbers are spaced equally along a number line. Extend this further by asking questions such as ‘What number did you roll?’ ‘How many places do you need to move?’ ‘How many more spaces do you need to reach the lily pad?’
Snap - a simple number recognition game where children take turns laying a card on top of another until the card numbers match. The fastest person to reach out and place their hand upon the pile and call ‘snap’ gets to keep the pile. The goal is to win all the cards.
Patterns - create a pattern either with objects (lego, blocks, toys, candies, counters, colored paperclips) or with stickers or markers on a template and have the children copy the pattern. Start with simple ABABAB patterning and build to more complex pattern structures.
5. Math apps
Although, as parents, we encourage our children to reduce screen time, there is a benefit to math apps. Research demonstrates that structured, content-rich and interactive apps can effectively deliver high-quality instruction and raise achievement in those early math years.
For older children, math apps can provide a fun and engaging way of practising or strengthening skills.
As an added bonus, they can inspire a child to improve skills. My own daughter become obsessed with a mental arithmetic app and spent a considerable amount of time ensuring she was fast and accurate, including extending her times tables knowledge. She credited that time of building strong foundation skills as being integral to her future math success.
6. Talk about math
Math terms can be brought into the conversation quite easily. Kids are naturally curious and will be exploring concepts within play. However, learning the words that represent the concepts they observe and experience does require adult interaction. This is where parental or caregiver involvement is vital. Whether they are playing with building blocks, reading books, setting the table, or playing outside, point out and use words to denote what they are experiencing; counting, shapes, quantity, patterns, measurements (bigger, smaller) or spatial relations (on, under).
7. Encourage math resilience
When a child gets stuck on a task or frustrated, they have two choices - give up or keep trying different approaches until they solve the problem. The willingness to struggle through when a problem is hard is called ‘mastery motivation.’ While not every child may have that inclination, it is something that can be developed. Encouraging a child to persist at a challenging task is important if they are to develop self-confidence in math.
While it can be tempting to immediately step in and help it is important to allow them to work at a strategy or solution to develop the sense that they can solve something hard. Not only do they need to see that they are capable of solving problems, they also need to know that if they can’t work it out, it’s not something to fear but something to try again another time.
If you feel it is time to offer help, try asking open-ended questions such as ‘What can you do next?’ or ‘Where do you think that piece/part/object goes?’ You could offer a little gentle guidance without giving the solution, ‘I wonder what would happen if you tried….” It may be just enough for them to see the next step.
8. Appreciate their efforts
When you appreciate effort a child comes to learn that working hard and persisting is a good thing. As math gets more complex and requires a variety of strategies to reach a solution, your child will know that being a little uncomfortable and struggling is ok, it’s not something to avoid or shy away from, but it’s part of learning.
It’s useful to praise effort. ‘You stuck with it and you solved it!’ or ‘You worked really hard on that, you kept trying and you found a solution.’ Praise such as, ‘You’re great at puzzles!’ or ‘You are the best at patterns!’ can backfire as it can create an expectation that they should find the task easy and work it out every time, rather than persist if it gets hard.
The final word
Math requires a structured and progressive set of steps in order to build skills. Yet, at the heart of it, math confidence is the foundation stone on which to construct skill building. If children see math as an everyday part of their lives, inspired by their parents or caregivers, as something they can enjoy even if there are challenges along the way, then they will be math ready and primed for the future.