How Children Learn Mathematics - Essay Example

To help the students with such problems, teachers and parents should provide various representations with meaning and be positive in their approach to discussing mathematical issues. There are strategies in teaching mathematics that may reduce some of the problems. All authors believe that teachers should use a variety of representations and even some relatively unconventional tools. Mental mathematics, linking cubes, drawings, mental images, concrete materials, equations, base-ten blocks, computer programs can all be used with the goal of students to find the representations they personally can manipulate (physically and or mentally) with most ease and meaning.

By choosing the representation that represents how they personally think, students can attach meaning to the situation and it becomes more accessible (Fennell, 2001, 288). Parents should also learn their childrens learning style even if it differs from their own. Parents are also encouraged to "pretend" they enjoy mathematics and can do them "as well and anybody" (Dedyna, 2002, Press). For Thompson, one of the simplest ways of teaching vocabulary is to explain the concepts first, and then attach the term to it.

This strategy can be used in conjunction with etymologies (word origins) because when students know these roots, they can make connections between common English words with which they are familiar and mathematics terms. Many students from elementary to high school have the same problems with understanding mathematics. One of students biggest problems is the inability to represent their thinking. Representations can be oral, numeric, drawn, concrete, on a computer, etc. A student may understand a problem in its oral form, for example, but the written version of the same problem may stump the student because they incorrectly make the transition from the words and symbols on the paper to their mind when they attempt to