By: Miranda Stovall
Dear Parents,
Has your kid ever asked, “When will I ever use this?” or “Why do I need to know this?”
Particularly when it comes to math? Especially when the problem looks something like:
2x + 4 = 16
I know mine have.
Sometime last year, I was helping set up a fundraiser with a colleague. We were talking with the woman who runs the facility when this very topic came up. Her answer has stuck with me ever since:
“Many times in your life, you will solve for x.”
She went on to give examples of all the ways we “solve for x” in everyday life. The more I thought about her answer, the more I realized she was right, and the more I started noticing just how often we, as parents, incorporate math into our everyday lives without even thinking about it.
So, the next time one of my kids looked at their math homework and audibly sighed, I had a better answer for why they needed to know this. It wasn’t just the usual examples I had given my kids before: household budgets, grocery shopping, or following a recipe. I started realizing that our family was constantly solving for x. My girls love to help me in the kitchen. We have a rather large family, and we like to have leftovers for lunch the next day. Most recipes, however, are written for a family of four. That means we are constantly doubling them. One cup of broth becomes two. One-third cup of milk becomes two-thirds. Suddenly, those fractions on a math worksheet have a purpose.
Maybe sports or band are a big part of your family’s life. Our kids know that if the game or concert starts at 7:00, it takes 20 minutes to get there with traffic, and if we want to arrive 10 minutes early, we need to leave the house by 6:30.
We calculate how much gas we need to get somewhere. We figure out whether we have enough money left in the budget for takeout. We measure the floor before buying rugs or flooring. We compare prices at the grocery store. We calculate discounts when something is 30% off. We figure out how many days are left until vacation and how many hours of driving it will take to get there.
We solve for x every single day, and whether they realize it or not, we include our kids in those equations too.
Now that we’ve answered “Why do I need to know this?” let’s tackle two other questions: How do children actually learn math? And, perhaps the question many parents have asked while sitting beside a frustrated child at the kitchen table: Why does math seem so hard for my kid?
There is a science behind how children learn mathematics.
Learning math isn’t simply about being a “math person” or not being a “math person.” Struggling with math doesn’t automatically mean a child isn’t capable of understanding it. New learning is built on knowledge and skills that came before it. Think about it like building a house: you can’t start with the second floor and come back to pour the foundation later.
A child needs to understand quantities before addition makes sense. Addition helps build the foundation for multiplication. Multiplication is necessary for working with fractions. Fractions become important for algebra. Algebra prepares students for more advanced mathematics.
When pieces of that foundation are missing, the next layer becomes much harder to build. That’s why something as seemingly simple as knowing multiplication facts matters. Imagine trying to solve a multi-step algebra problem while also having to stop and work out 7 × 8 every time it appears. Your brain is now trying to do two jobs at once. The more mental energy we spend figuring out basic information, the less we have available to tackle the new, more complicated problem in front of us.
This is where fluency comes in. Fluency in math simply means being able to recall basic facts quickly and accurately without having to consciously work them out every time. We want children to understand why 7 × 8 = 56, but we also eventually want them to simply know that 7 × 8 = 56.
The same is true of addition and subtraction facts, multiplication tables, fractions, place value, mathematical vocabulary, and the procedures students will use again and again as math becomes more difficult as they move through school.
Our brains can only hold and manipulate so much new information at one time. This is often referred to as working memory. Think of working memory and explicit instruction like this: many of us with middle school kids, or even younger in some cases, let our kids start cooking small things on their own — for instance, Mac N Cheese is usually what my kids like to cook for an afterschool snack. I didn’t teach them how to cook it by throwing away the box and giving them instructions in one fell swoop. That would be a disaster. The first few times, we went step by step according to the box, and before I knew it, they were tossing that box and preparing Mac N Cheese automatically. The steps were in their working memory BECAUSE we went step by step and practiced a few times before they did it on their own.
The same is true for math. Times tables must be practiced until our kids are able to quickly retrieve that information without struggle. We teach them. We show them. We practice with them. And, over time, we step back as they become capable of doing it themselves.
