Math is a necessity for functioning independently in life so the sooner our children become proficient at math, the better.  In our view, mathematics is divided into three main areas: understanding of all the concepts, word problems and math facts mastery. Today we’re going to look at the first area - understanding the concepts.

Understanding the Concept of a particular operation. 

The word “concept” means what exists in the mind as something comprehended or understood. We want our children to easily understand when they see certain math symbols like +, -, x, ÷.  They should instantly know how these symbols work in real lifes. 

• Addition:  putting things together to get a larger amount; 
• Subtraction: having a certain number of items and then taking some away
• Multiplication:  groups of the same number 
• Division: separating things into groups with the same number in each group. 

You can use manipulatives to help the process of mastering the concept but far too quickly our educational practices tend to put the children on their own to do the assignments.  Our skewed perception is if we “help” that somehow we are cheating, that the child just needs to do it on their own. 

Let’s look at it from another angle. 

What if you were teaching piano and right after introducing the names of the notes on the staff and teaching the timing of whole, half, quarter, eighth and sixteenth notes you put a piece of Mozart in front of the child and say, “Now play this”.  You would never think of doing that! 

It is the same with anything you really want to teach to mastery. You demonstrate, observe and help the process along a continuum of steps. The NeuroDevelopmental Approach to math involves lots of “input” (giving the answer, demonstrating the concept often, guiding as the child has their turn with new and review material) and the results are stellar. 

If you really want to accelerate math skills, do what we call at Brain Sprints, 50% instruction.  This is actually teaching and instructing and goes really fast while giving input for future success in math operations. 

Here is how it works.  You do a problem and the child does a similar problem until that concept is mastered. For a beginning mathematician, the whole page would include addition problems where you alternate from mom to child even if you think it could be done independently. 

If your child is older, say 3rd grade and beginning multiplication, your page might have a multi-digit addition problem that you do and a multi-digit subtraction problem that the child does and the rest of the time is spent on the new concept of multiplication.  After the “review” of addition and subtraction, you do a multiplication problem and the child follows with a multiplication problem until you have done six to ten problems alternating between mom and child. It goes really fast and you avoid any need for correction as you are guiding so no mistakes are made.

Imagine your child’s confidence when math is fun, easy and quick instead of a drudgery followed by frustration and the need for the dreaded corrections. 

Visual Circle Math is a great resource that gives specific directions on how to do this technique with sample pages.  This is terrific for those children labeled with or suspected of dyscalculia or those that are exceptional in math and need to move on to more complex concepts without going through a full curriculum to reach those next levels.