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The 14 Most Effective Ways to Help Your Kids with Math

Written by Ashley Crowe

Help your child build essential math skills through an engaging fantasy video game!

• Parent Resources
• How to help kids with math at home

Making math homework challenging and fun

• Signs of math struggle

How Prodigy can help kids with math

Math can be a daunting subject. Not only does it cover a huge range of skills, but it’s also one of the few subjects where a strong understanding of the fundamentals is essential for future learning.

Math is taught differently now than when many parents were in school. There’s more focus on the basics, which is great (no, really, it is). But that can feel incredibly frustrating when you’re trying to help your child understand their math homework.

No matter your history with math, you can still help your child master mathematical concepts at home. And you may even have some lightbulb moments you missed in middle school. 

Whether your child is struggling with math or wants to improve their skills, It’s time to ditch the math stress and tackle this subject together! Keep reading for our 14 best tips to help kids with math . 

How to help kids with math at home (even if you hate math)

If you have a less than stellar math history, it’s okay! You can still help your child learn the math they need to succeed. Here’s how. 

1. Maintain a positive attitude

A lot of kids (and adults) feel anxiety when presented with a math problem. But if your child is struggling with a concept, that doesn’t mean they’re bad at math. You’re not bad at math either!

Math is a skill that takes practice , just like any other. You’ll learn it, even if it’s confusing right now. This just means you don’t understand it yet.

Encourage this attitude with your child to help them build their math confidence. They can grow into math understanding, but it takes time. Use a growth mindset approach and you’ll both be amazed at what you can learn.

2. Ask math questions that interest your child

Let’s face it — some math can be boring. If your kid doesn’t care much about trains, why should they care about how fast they’re going or where they’ll meet? Instead of pushing them to answer these standard questions, ask them about what they’re actually interested in . 

Math is everywhere. You’ll find mathematical relationships throughout nature. Your child can discover angles and physics while jumping toy monster trucks. Or they can explore measurements while baking or doing crafts . 

Find numbers in what they already love and watch their interest in math grow!

3. Encourage communication

Your kid can talk your ear off about their favorite Roblox game, but when it comes to school questions, they shut down. That’s normal, but it can also make it difficult to keep up with their studies. 

When possible, try to open up some judgement-free conversations about math . Ask how it’s going and if they feel good about their new lessons. Don’t jump in and try to solve their problems right away. And be careful about remarks like, “oh, that’s easy”. If they talk, just listen.

If your child is reluctant to share, check in with their teacher. Ask about the topics they’re studying and how you can help. Then, use these insights to get the conversation going at home.

4. Be patient and take it slow

Math builds on itself, but that means it can be tricky to keep up if your child is struggling with a new concept. When this happens, slow down and back up. Don’t keep pushing new ideas until they understand the old ones. 

This same advice works for you, too. Be patient with yourself — it’s been a while since you’ve learned 4th grade math, and the work may look a lot different now. But with some time and perseverance, you can help your child succeed.

5. Practice and refine math vocabulary

Math vocabulary is all around us, but that doesn’t mean we’re very comfortable with it. Try using math vocabulary in everyday language and it will slowly start feeling a lot less intimidating. Bring up percentages when you're shopping a sale, or talk about parts of a whole while cooking.

Of course, there are plenty of math words we don’t see everyday. Do you remember exponents, tangents, or the commutative property? If not, that’s totally okay! All you need is a refresher and some practice. 

For example, when your child is studying areas, take some time to make sure you understand what you’re actually discovering. Understanding the bigger concept (calculating the amount of surface space vs just plugging in length and width) is what will bring those light bulb moments. 

6. Show math in everyday life

We’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating — math is everywhere. It’s probably not trigonometry  or pre-calculus, but you’re doing math all the time. Pay attention and you’ll catch these math moments. When you do, share them with your child.

When kids are young, just counting or sorting is a great start. As they get older, look for math lessons while baking, shopping, playing games, or talking about money. Budgeting is a major life skill that uses so much math. Find these practical math moments and help your child see the value in a math education. 

7. Get your child to teach you math

Math looks a little different now. If your kid’s homework is confusing for you, ask them to explain their process . 

This is a great connecting moment to share with your child. And it can set you up to be a better helper if they run into frustration in later lessons.

8. Talk about math around the house 

Seriously, math is everywhere. It’s true! And that means you’re not bad at math — you do it every day! Find places to use math around your house to help your child’s math abilities come to life.

Count the slices of pizza the next time you order out, then determine the percentage of pizza everyone has eaten. Get your little ones to help you sort socks. Talk about the probability of rolling an even number during your family night board game session. Look around and you’ll find tons of opportunities!

9. Use online math resources 

If you have access to the internet, there’s always somewhere you can get all of your math questions answered. 

There are many free learning resources, like those on the Prodigy blog . Give them a read and then explore math together with your child. There are always opportunities to learn something new online, especially when it comes to math!

10. Try game-based learning

If you find your child getting frustrated, ditch the textbooks and worksheets and try something different. 

Game-based learning is all the rage, and for good reason. Kids are naturally drawn to games , whether they’re cooperative board games or video games played on their tablets. Why? Because games are fun and exciting!

Game-based learning can take the stress out of math instruction. Kids can practice their math with just the right mix of the familiar and the challenging. 

Prodigy Math , for example, is a game-based learning platform where players explore fantasy worlds, build characters and battle friends — all while answering curriculum-aligned math questions !

The adaptive algorithm always adjusts to math your child’s grade and skill level, so they can grow their math confidence while you take a homework break. And with your own parent account, you can support their learning and keep track of what they’re working on. 

11. Join education-based parent groups 

Looking for new and effective ways to help your child with their studies? Join some parent-led groups focused on education (try the Prodigy Parent Community on Facebook!). Online or local in-person groups are great for finding a variety of tips and tricks to help you help your child.

Homeschooling groups are a great place to start. Or ask other parents from your child’s class how they’re coping with the newest lesson. You can even use Instagram to find parent influencers sharing their best ideas for helping your child learn. Parents understand the struggle, and they’re here to help!

12. Keep the workspace neat and tidy

Where does your child do most of their homework? 

If they’re working at the kitchen table, help them stay focused by removing distractions from the area. If they have their own desks, remind them to neaten it up every now and again. Math requires focus, and a cluttered space can lead to a distracted mind.

13. Provide homework help

It’s rare that a child loves doing homework. It’s already been a long day, and it’s understandable if they just want to get back to the things they love. If your child is really struggling with homework, offer to help!

It’s frustrating to look at the same problem over and over and never see the solution. That’s not helping them learn — it’s just breaking their confidence. Instead, step in with a fresh set of eyes and tackle it together. Talk through the problem and give a new perspective. It may be just what they need for their next “a-ha” moment.

14. Consider getting a math tutor

As your child moves into high school math courses, you may reach the end of your math comfort levels. In this case, look at your child’s math tutoring options.  

Another student in class may do the trick. But if that’s not the right fit, find an experienced educator, whether you’re looking for in-person or online tutoring sessions . This may be just the thing your child needs to boost their academic confidence.

If your child barely makes it through their nightly math problems, look for ways to add a little fun to their practice. 

Is there a way to relate their latest math lesson to one of their favorite things? For elementary students, think of beloved TV show characters or toys. Early math (like addition and subtraction) is easy to take off the page with their favorite toy collection. Create a set of rocks or stuffed animals. Then add, take away and sort.

Even high school math can be better understood using fun learning moments. Angles can be explored while playing a game of pool. Or throw a Pi day extravaganza, complete with delicious treats. Get creative, and be sure to celebrate their math wins along the way!

Look for signs of math struggle

It’s normal for your child to run into some difficulty in their math classes. Math is a complicated subject, and it can get very abstract at times. Encourage them to keep trying and use our tips above to help them along their learning journey.

But sometimes the struggle can build to a point where they may need additional help. Talk with your child’s teacher if you notice any of these signs of school struggle:

• Falling grades
• Loss of appetite
• Lack of communication
• Change in emotional state
• Lack of enthusiasm about school

Your child may not communicate the stress they feel, but try talking with them. They may have just fallen behind and have lost some of their confidence with math. Or it may be more than just math class affecting their mood. Open up communication to figure out the cause of their struggles, then brainstorm a solution plan together with their teacher.

Over the last couple of years, many have felt the pressure of trying to be both parent and teacher. If you find both you and your kids struggling with their math lessons, step back and try Prodigy Math.

This engaging learning platform can help you keep math learning fun and your child’s confidence high! 

To them, it’s a fun video game they can enjoy during screen time. But while they’re enjoying the exciting world of Prodigy, they can practice math while you monitor their progress from the parent dashboard. 

Prodigy meets your child where they are and keeps them on track with grade standards. No more butting heads or stressful kitchen table math lessons. 

Give Prodigy Math a try today and take the stress out of your evenings!

clock This article was published more than  5 years ago

This is why it’s so hard to help with your kid’s math homework

Two years ago I walked into a car rental return center in Charlotte and interrupted Adrianette Felix mid-rant.

“I can’t even help my own child do her homework, it’s so frustrating, and I feel so stupid,” she said. “What kind of mother can’t understand first-grade math?”

Man needed help with son’s third-grade math homework and got it from a stranger on the subway

Felix and I spent the next half-hour engaged in a spirited discussion about the state of math education in America; how we got here, why it’s changed; and where experts on math education hope it’s taking us.

The simple answer to why math education has changed, “Common Core State Standards,” is only part of the story. Math teacher  Christopher Danielson  outlines the rest of the story in his book, “ Common Core Math for Parents for Dummies ,” and it goes something like this: Math education in America has evolved in response to concerns about our international competitiveness, first with Europe, and later, with Russia and its space program. Consequently, American math education prioritized the education of professional scientists and mathematicians who could get satellites in orbit and send men to the moon.

While we were busy chasing those lofty goals, we failed to educate most students in the basic foundations of math. To rectify this, the education pendulum swung back in the other direction, toward rote memorization. Cue the era of multiplication-table work sheets and timed math facts, tasks that still make up the bulk of elementary school math homework assignments.

The summer conundrum: Fight brain drain or give the kids a break?

Between 1989 and 2009, in large part because of the advent of  No Child Left Behind , state standards and the testing necessary to measure states’ progress, math education became what Danielson refers to as a “mile-wide, inch-deep curriculum.” We teach many topics in each grade but at a superficial level. Math education became a series of skills served up in bits and pieces but never as part of a unified, mathematical whole.

Notably, we failed to give American children math sense, a natural and instinctive dexterity with numbers.

I was one of those children, despite having been educated in the top-ranked public school district in Massachusetts ( Dover-Sherborn Regional High School ). My mathematical education was characterized by drills memorization and instructions to accept abstract axioms and mathematical order of operations as “simply how it’s done,” concepts, my teachers promised, I would understand later. I dutifully followed their directions, memorized the steps and regurgitated on demand, but the understanding I had been promised never materialized. What I got instead was a raging case of math anxiety and the belief that I am not a math person.

It wasn’t until my mid-40s, when I retook Algebra with my middle school students and a gifted educator, that I discovered the truth: I had not failed at math; my math education had failed me.

With rare exception, most American children still receive a similarly counterproductive math education, one that produces adults who can recite multiplication tables but can’t make change when the cash register isn’t working, let alone view math as poetry.

“The highest achieving kids in the world are the ones who see math as a big web of interconnected ideas, and the lowest achieving students in the world are the kids who take a memorization approach to math. The United States, you won’t be surprised to hear, has more memorizers than any country in the world,” said  Jo Boaler , professor of mathematics education at Stanford University, in a phone interview.

This chopping up of mathematical concepts, asserts Boaler, is where American math education fails children, and why Felix gets frustrated by her daughter’s math homework. Felix learned how to memorize, while her daughter is learning something much more valuable and useful: number sense, relevance and mental flexibility.

When the average teacher has about 200 separate math concepts or skills to teach in a given year, the connections between each piece disappear. “The kids don’t get to see them, and most teachers don’t know about them, either,” Boaler says. “When teachers are armed with the research about brain growth and [the reality that] everybody can learn math, it changes what they do. Teachers that are empowered with this research are doing amazing things. Really amazing things.”

Math coach  Tracy Zager  agrees. “It’s a phenomenal time to be a math teacher. We are in a time of great revolution and excitement, moving away from rote memorization and toward an understanding of process. It doesn’t mean that answers don’t matter, and it doesn’t mean that skills and memorization don’t matter, but when a student does something wrong, we want them to understand  why, ” she said in a phone interview.

In her book, “ Becoming the Math Teacher You Wish You’d Had ,” Zager writes, “Math is not about following directions, it’s about making  new  directions.” So I emailed her to ask about the direction she would take math education.

“We have to undertake the real work: high-quality, sustained, classroom-based professional development,” she said. “Doing it systematically would take money and time and belief in teachers as professionals.”

While teachers, administrators and education policymakers do battle over Zager’s question, Felix and her daughter need help today, with tonight’s homework assignment.

For that kind of practical advice, I returned to Danielson and his book, “Common Core for Math for Parents for Dummies.” Danielson suggests that parents stop giving kids easy answers and instead focus on asking these five essential questions:

• “Why?” and “How do you know?”
• “Is it good enough?”
• “Does this make sense?”
• “What’s going on here?”

The questions, “Why?” and “How do you know?” require children to construct arguments, to justify their answers and to think about the reasons their answer may be correct. It’s not enough to know that 8 + 4 = 12, as Danielson writes, students must be able to articulate how they might figure out the sum of 8 and 4 if they do not automatically know the answer.

“What if” is a fantastic question to ask in any context, but in math, it’s particularly important. “What if” is at the root of play, experimentation, innovation and exploration. “What if” allows us to push students to contemplate questions beyond their immediate understanding and can fuel curiosity, deeper learning and intellectual breakthroughs.

The question “Is it good enough” gets at the concepts of estimation and precision. Is it good enough to say that .99 repeating is close enough to 1 to say that they are equal? Asking this question requires that students pay attention to units and attend to precision both numerically and linguistically.

“Does this make sense?” is a great question to ask at every step of the process, from choosing a path forward (“Does it make sense to add here?”) to the final answer (“Does that answer make sense?”) and gives kids the opportunity to pause, take stock and exercise judgment. Sometimes, of course, the answer to this question is going to be, “No,” and wrong answers can be just as useful as the right ones, Danielson argues, because, “A classroom climate that only values right answers is less likely to encourage students to persevere.”

Finally, the question, “What’s going on here?” helps kids look for the underlying structure of a problem. For example, “If you know that n is a whole number, then 2 n is an even number and 2 n + 1 is an odd number. What’s more, the expression 2 n + 1 represents all odd numbers. This is the power of looking for and making use of structure — representing infinitely many things in a single short expression.”

I had given Felix a copy of Danielson’s book after we first met, so I called her to find out how she and her daughter are faring in math.

“Oh, honey, we are doing fantastic. That book was fantastic,” she said. “My daughter is doing great in math, and I can help her when she needs it. Plus, I get to feel smarter than a third-grader.”

This is where successful math education starts; with adults who know what questions to ask and who have the skills to help children discover their own solutions.

Jessica Lahey is a teacher and the author of “ The Gift of Failure: How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed ” and a forthcoming book on preventing addiction in children.

Follow  On Parenting on Facebook  for more essays, news and updates, and join our  discussion group here  to talk about parenting and balancing a career. You can  sign up here  for our weekly newsletter.

More reading: 

School’s still in. Here’s how to help them get through to the end. 

9 ways parents can empower a child who has learning issues

10 ways to take the struggle out of homework

Barnard’s president on how to develop STEM-confident girls

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Math Homework Guide For Helping Kids With Math At Home

Sophie Bartlett

While the amount and difficulty of math homework that your child will receive will vary from school to school, one thing is common to all parents: you will at some point be asked to help your child with math homework.

This blog is part of our series of blogs designed for teachers, schools and parents supporting home learning .

Depending on your age, how recently you were taught elementary school math, and your own attitude toward learning math, you may face that moment with a level head or with a rising sense of panic.

Much of today’s math may at first glance seem unfamiliar to you – math curriculums have changed quite a lot in the last 5-10 years, never mind the last 20 – and elementary school children today in every grade are expected to do more and demonstrate greater understanding than in many previous years.

If you feel like you’re more in the ‘panic’ than relaxed camp, you’re not alone. Hundreds of thousands of parents across the country feel the same way!

As experts in math tutoring, we’re on hand to support you to support your children!

The research shows that input from carers and parents is the key factor in determining good outcomes at elementary school.

However, we also understand that when you’re busy juggling the needs of your children, yourself, and completing the 1001 other daily tasks that come with being a parent, planning a math lesson is the last thing you feel like doing.

So in this article we aim to give you the key information about what elementary school math now entails, some math homework activities suitable for each grade, and lots of links to more worksheets, workbooks, and more.

The move to math mastery

• Math in your child’s elementary school

How to help with 1st grade math (6-7 year olds)

How to help with 2nd grade math (7-8 year olds), how to help with 3rd grade math (8-9 year olds), how to help with 4th grade math (9-10 year olds), how to help with 5th grade math (10-11 year olds).

• How to help with 5th grade math – state assessments (10-11 year olds)

How to help with 6th grade math (11-12 year olds)

Final thoughts on math at home.

Recently, math curriculums have placed an emphasis on mastery, fluency, and problem-solving in math.

In a nutshell, the onus is on a deep understanding of mathematical concepts, rather than learning strategies and facts off by heart, and this is something to bear in mind as you look to help your child with math throughout elementary school.

Approaches like concrete-representational-abstract , open up the inner workings of mathematical concepts and allow us to really take a look at what we’re doing with numbers.

Studies have shown that by using concrete math resources in the first phase of learning, children are more able to understand representational images (like pictograms or bar models) in the second phase of learning.

These two steps make the abstract phase of learning (when there are only numbers involved) seem like a completely natural progression.

Using these steps is a great way to help your child understand the way that math applies to the real world, and it means that they will be well-equipped to deal with all sorts of mathematical conundrums.

Math in your child’s elementary school

Once you know about the standards your state follows and where some of these more ‘modern’ math concepts come from, the key thing to know as a parent is how your own elementary school is implementing these standards.

This will help you understand exactly what it is that your child needs to know for math at each point of their elementary school life.  

The main elements you should get on top of are as follows:

• The state standards or scheme of work your school is following
• Your school’s home learning or homework policy
• Key curriculum terminology that may be new to you

1. Your school’s math curriculum

Most schools now publish on their website the math topics that children will be studying each year and each term. They may refer to this as their scheme of work or their curriculum. There are lots of different ways schools teach these topics but Eureka Math is one of the most popular curricula and one you may hear about a lot!

This is an invaluable resource for you as a parent as it means you can make sure that you’re supporting them with the right homework help at the right time. If your child hasn’t completed their place value module this semester, it will make it harder for them to do multiplication x 100 or work with decimals as an example.

2. Your school’s home learning or homework policy

Before Covid-19 times, home learning in a school context was generally just used to refer to the ‘added extras’; the stuff relevant to your school’s math curriculum that you could do to support it.

While in subjects like Geography and History it might suggest museums or websites to visit, in math it was more likely to be focused on recall of number facts and multiplication facts, and occasional homework sheets.

Now of course home learning incorporates so much more to it than just ‘homework.’ However, your school will have a policy on what it expects or wants families to do for math homework in addition to ordinary lessons and it’s worth taking a look at this before worrying that your child has too much or too little math homework.

Read more: The homework debate in elementary schools

3. Important terminology in elementary math 

Even if you have a great working relationship with your child’s class teacher, some of the jargon used in schools can be almost indecipherable.

Here are just some of the more esoteric and unexpected key terms that teachers may use when talking about math:

But don’t worry. We’ve created a free math dictionary for kids and parents that includes all these terms and more. Head over there whenever you encounter a word whose meaning is unclear.

Now we have run through the key things you need to know about what your child is learning in math at school, we can move onto how you can help them with their math homework!

While kindergarten might have introduced many new ideas and a very different way of learning than preschool, 1st grade is when your child will be tested on how well they’ve actually understood what they’ve learned.

Here are some quick tips you can use to help your child feel prepared for the challenges ahead of them.

Math tip 1: Check their understanding of the basics

Moving into 1st grade, there are some basic math concepts children should feel comfortable with. The key topics to check are:

• Does your child know how to count to 100?
• Can your child write numbers from 0 to 20?
• Can you child answer “how many?” questions about groups of objects?
• Can your child count up starting at any given number?
• Can your child solve basic addition and subtraction problems? 
• Can your child understand the numbers 11-19 as a ten plus some ones?
• Can your child name basic 2D and 3D shapes?

If your child is struggling with any of these, they’ll probably find parts of what they learn in 1st grade that much harder. Luckily, you can find ways to help them practice these in our dedicated 1st grade math page.

Math tip 2: Work on helping your child recognize number bonds

Number bonds are pairs of numbers that add up to certain totals e.g. 3 + 7 = 10. A good understanding of number bonds is important for nearly every part of math your child will learn and an important building block to develop number sense, so it’s crucial they feel comfortable with them.

The most important number bonds are those that add up to 10. Look at the example below:

Children should understand the relationship between 4, 6 and 10 and the different ways these three numbers can interact. So they should understand that 4 + 6 = 10 is the same as 6 + 4 = 10, and that 10 – 6 = 4 or 10 – 4 = 6 are the reverse .

Once your child is happy with numbers bonds up to 10, you will want to move on to number bonds up to 20. These are slightly more complex, and need a basic knowledge of place value as well.

For example, the expression 9 + 5 can be reformulated as 10 + 4, but this is much easier to do if your child understands that 9 is close to 10 and 4 is close to 5.

• 1st Grade Math : Home Learning Toolkit for 6 and 7 Year Olds

It’s likely that your 7-year-old will encounter many concepts that are new to them during their 2nd grade math lessons, and this can be a daunting time for some young children.

New ideas, coupled with the higher expectations of accuracy in their answers can be a shock to the system for some 2nd graders, so here are a few quick tricks that will help your child get over any mathematical shaped obstacles swiftly and smoothly.

Math tip 1: Cultivate accuracy as a habit in 2nd grade

An easy way to work on cultivating accuracy is by getting your child to measure anything and everything with a ruler or a tape measure. This is a good way for you to ensure that your child is giving accurate answers to questions, without the questions themselves being too difficult.

For example, a quick measuring activity that helps promote accuracy in answers could be as simple as this:

Mom: “So Sophie, can you tell me how many centimeters long my cell phone is?”

Sophie (using a ruler/tape measure): “I think it’s about 7cm long.”

Mom: “ You’re right it is roughly 7cm long, but can you tell me exactly how long it is?”

Sophie: “It is 7.4cm long.”

Mom: “It is! Well done.”

This may be a simple example, but it shows you just how easy it can be to implement real-life math into your daily life in a useful way.

There are lots of ways you can make it fun, whether that be by measuring each other’s height, recording how much a plant grows each day or even seeing how long the pet dog’s tail is. The possibilities are endless here!

Cultivate a habit of accuracy early on, and this will be reflected across your child’s learning for the remainder of their school life (and not just in math).

Math tip 2: Work with equal groups of objects to gain foundations for multiplication

In 3rd grade, students will dive deep into multiplication, so it’s important for 2nd graders to begin setting a foundation for understanding the concept.

Second graders should already be proficient in skip counting by 2s, 5s, and 10s, so take it a step further by asking them to skip count by 3s, 4s, or any other number (up to 12). This will familiarize them with the numbers they will see in the times tables.

Another way to help set a foundation for multiplication is to ask your child to organize objects into rows and columns to make an array. You could even practice during snack time at home, using food like crackers or M&Ms to organize into an array.

Add in the mathematical element by asking them to use addition to determine the total number of objects in the array. (Add up the number in each column or add up the number in each row.) They can also be asked to write an equation to represent the total.

Math tip 3: Challenging your 2nd grade child with math at home

Up until this point, your 7-year-old will be used to using one operation (adding or subtracting) at a time.

Challenge them by mixing it up!

Ask your child to mentally add up the things you buy on a shopping trip. Every now and then, put something back to keep the subtraction practice going.

One of the most important things to do at this stage is to try and incorporate math into everyday life in fun and engaging ways, and this is just one of the ways you can do so!

Another favorite way is to incorporate some of these math games into family life at home. There are loads to choose from, indoor, outdoor or even in the car!

• 2nd Grade Math : Home Learning Toolkit for 7 and 8 Year Olds

At this age, it’s useful to introduce a couple of new concepts that, while it is important to ensure they are not too difficult, can be a little confusing at first.

At this point in elementary school your child will be dealing with large numbers and more complex operations. This might seem daunting, there’s plenty you can do to get over these hurdles at home.

Math tip 1: Use written strategies to add and subtract large numbers

If you’re shopping online, enlist your 8 year old to help you. Tell them exactly what’s on your wish list (and don’t be afraid to push the boat out). Once your child has a list of items and prices, work together using written addition to find the total.

This is your chance to really splash the (metaphorical) cash, so if you’ve had your eye on that $1,000 sofa or the $2,300 TV, now is the time to add it to your shopping list! Just make sure hands stay well away from that “buy now button”….

Math tip 2: Help them get started with division and multiplication

Your child may have learned the very basics of multiplication, but it is covered much more heavily in 3rd grade, and division is introduced for the first time.

Rather than just getting your child to memorize the multiplication facts, support their learning by helping them see multiplication and division in more simple terms.

One of the simplest ways to look at multiplying is repeated addition . 5 x 2 can be seen as 2 lots of 5 (or 5 + 5). Equally, 2 x 5 can be seen as 5 lots of 2 (or 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 2.) Develop this understanding by showing this using objects:

Division can be explained in terms of grouping and sharing. Grouping involves seeing an expression such as 10 ÷ 2 as, “How many groups of 2 can be made from 10?”

While sharing involves seeing 10 ÷ 2 as, “If I share 10 into 2 equal groups, how many are in each group?”

Math tip 3: Practice multiplication facts every day with your 3rd grader

The more you practice, the better. Sing it, shout it, whisper it, dance it. Whatever it takes!

Although it might not seem like the most entertaining math in the world, a solid knowledge of your multiplication facts removes barriers to more complex math further down the line.

Multiplication facts play a huge role in everyday life, with many of us taking them for granted. For example, if you are shopping and see that pineapples are $2.00 each and you know that you require 3 of them, you have no problem working out that this will come to a total of $6.00.

At 8 years old your child might not be able to work that out just yet, and that is why it is so important for them to cement their multiplication fact knowledge as early as possible.

Math tip 4: Challenge your 3rd grader with some fractions!

One way to really ramp up the difficulty level is by getting fractions involved. They may not be anyone’s favorite part of math, but you should not underestimate their importance both in and out of the classroom.

Ordering fractions can be a challenge for even the strongest mathematicians at this age, so try ordering tenths first before moving onto other fractions like quarters, halves and thirds.

You can make this more fun by creating a simple clothesline and pegging fraction cards to it. Adding a time limit to activities such as this can also help your child to engage with the task, so why not give them the challenge of ordering all of the tenth fractions in under a minute?

• 3rd Grade Math : Home Learning Toolkit for 8 and 9 Year Olds

This is the age when knowledge retention really begins to come to the fore, and if you spend just five minutes a day revisiting a few fundamental skills, you’ll find that your child can take on new ideas effortlessly. In particular, familiarizing your child with angles, and continuing to practice multiplication facts (up to twelve) will stand them in good stead in the future.

Math tip 1: Get the protractor out (whenever you can)

Protractors have a funny way of muddling most young mathematicians, and it certainly doesn’t help that there are two rows of numbers to contend with!

That being said, it is a crucial part of a mathematician’s pencil case, so try to have one on hand and use it wherever possible to measure angles accurately. This is a great way to make an otherwise dull trip to the home improvement store for your child exciting, as they help you to measure the all-important angles on everything from tins of paint through to planks of wood.

Bringing in active math such as this can be a great way to cement learning, and you should find that your child is much more engaged with the topic as a result too!

Math tip 2: Get your 9-year-old to read the time, all the time!

Telling and writing time is a skill mastered in 3rd grade, but it is one that can be quickly forgotten without practice. Time may go quickly for us adults, but for kids who have grown up predominantly reading the time on phone screens and tablets, analog clocks look like something from another planet.

You can avoid the confusion by hanging analog clocks in your home from an early age and modeling reading the time out loud at every opportunity. Practice makes perfect when it comes to telling time, so be patient and keep at it.

Try to remember to ask your child what the time is every time you take a glance up at the clock, as not only will this be a good chance to help them learn how to tell the time, but it might just remind you to get the dinner out of the oven too!

Math tip 3: Challenge your 4th grader with math at home

Weather permitting, take a walk down to your local bus stop or if the rain is proving too potent, browse train timetables online. (Bonus points if it’s a timetable that really applies to your commute or a regular journey!)

Challenge your 9-year-old to work out the difference in time between stops on the route.

Can they find the shortest stop?

The longest one?

How long does the whole route take?

Not only is reading timetables interesting, but it’s also a skill that could be useful in later life. They will have no excuses for missing the bus to high school if they have been taught how to read timetables properly!

If riding a bus is not common for you or your child, you can also look at an online map and calculate how long the commute takes in your car to various places around your town.

• 4th Grade Math : Home Learning Toolkit for 9 and 10 Year Olds

At this age, it’s worth having conversations around what your child finds difficult and easy in math.

Everyone struggles with math at some point, but if you can ask for help, you’re much more likely to succeed. With the introduction of several completely new topics, now is the time to work through any misunderstandings and avoid them building up into a bigger issue.

Math tip 1: De-mystify the relationship between fractions and decimals

The relationship between fractions and decimals is one that puzzles many 10-year-olds (and in fact, a lot of adults too!).

When children first encounter fractions at school, there’s no mention of decimals, so it’s no surprise that it comes as a bit of a shock later on. The important thing to remember is that fractions and decimals are just two different ways of showing part of a whole.

One tried and tested technique that is used by teachers and parents across the land is to bring many children’s favorite food, the trusty pizza, into the mix here. If you are splitting the pizza into four, why not ask the question of how much each person is getting as a fraction and a decimal?

By being able to visualize the mathematics taking place in front of them, children are better equipped to work out the answer, and of course, they get some pizza too! This is a fantastic way to help your child with math at home.

Math tip 2: Challenge your 5th grader with math at home

At this age, the curriculum offers plenty of challenges for 10-year-olds.

Being able to recall equivalent fractions and decimals will stand your child in good stead, and if you are looking to challenge your child then these are the topics you should do it with.

Quick quizzes on converting decimals into their equivalent fractions are a good way to encourage learning on these topics, and you can easily incorporate them into everyday life. Examples could include:

• I’ve filled this glass of water up ½ to the top. How much room is left in it as a decimal?
• We’ve walked 0.25 of the way to school. How far is that as a fraction?
• ⅕ of your dinner is made up of vegetables, how much is this in decimal form?

There will be a lot of other examples that come up in your everyday life, but these ones are just there to inspire you!

If you’re searching for something to accompany the real life math, take a look at our blog which tackles how you can tackle 5th grade math in greater detail.

How to help with 5th grade math – state assessments (10-11 year olds)

Fifth grade is typically a grade level where students will have state assessments across multiple content areas at the end of the year. With these assessments looming, it can feel like a mad dash to the finish line, but you have to remember one simple thing…

Don’t panic!

Just remember that there’s plenty that you can do in a short amount of time to boost your child’s confidence in math.

Begin by taking a look at practice test papers together as this is one of the best ways for both of you to find out which math problems your child finds easy and which ones need a bit of work. It also helps to break word problems down step-by-step to scaffold your child’s understanding of math questions.

Bear in mind that it is normal for children to react differently to test papers than to the work they see day-to-day, so try to build a positive experience around tests to relieve the pressure (the promise of a trip to the park after completing a sample test is a good way of doing this). 

Math tip 1: Practice taking tests the fun way

The best way to get your child on board with practice test papers is to take them together.

Don’t worry about getting the answers wrong – by showing your child that mistakes are the first step in plugging knowledge gaps and growing, you’re teaching them to be more resilient in the face of a challenge.

The best part?

You can ask them to teach you how to correct your mistakes, which will help to consolidate their own learning in the process.

If you don’t have the time to sit and take the whole test, you can do one question a day together for a strong, steady build-up of skills. Slow and steady definitely wins the race.

Math tip 2: Never neglect the basics!

A common mistake is to focus on the plethora of new concepts, leaving basic skills like mental arithmetic to stagnate.

Strong foundations in basic math make the harder stuff more accessible; if you’re getting nowhere with the tough questions, go back to the basics.

A good grasp of place value, multiplication facts and mental arithmetic will help when you revisit those difficult questions later on. 

Math tip 3: Challenging your 5th grader with math at home

Once your 11-year-old has the basics down and feels confident with exam technique, you can stretch their learning by introducing pre-algebra.

Confident mathematicians will enjoy the novelty and challenge of working out what the letters mean in simple equations. Keep things simple to begin with and work your way up to more difficult equations in the future. Examples of some equations you could start with include:

Equations are never high on most children’s to-do lists, but they do become increasingly important as school life goes on, so beginning to secure this knowledge at an early age is only ever beneficial.

5th Grade Math : Home Learning Toolkit for 10 and 11 Year Olds

With a new school, new friends, and new subjects all to deal with, kids can feel overwhelmed with the start of 6th grade before they even start! While it might be tempting to try and help with subjects like math by finding ways to ‘get ahead’, the best support you can offer is to make math seem less scary to your child.

Math tip 1: Make math a ‘normal’ part of life

As adults, we use math in our day-to-day lives without really thinking about it. Sometimes it doesn’t even seem like math to us, because we’ve become so used to it.

Your child won’t have that kind of context yet – to them math is still just a bunch of facts that aren’t related to real life.

Luckily, the fact that we use math all the time makes it very easy to give your child that context: get them involved in activities like shopping, cooking, working out holiday budgets; anywhere you realize you use math, get your child involved!

Math tip 2: Take time to ‘review’ the day with your child

Some of you might already automatically ask your child how their day was when they get home – and your child might reply with a one word answer, if they reply at all!

But if you take this just a little bit further, you can actually help your child strengthen the memories of what they learned that day. Your child might start by talking about things that happened with friends, or ‘funny’ bits of lessons (which we call ‘episodic’ memories).

At this point, asking something like “What were you supposed to be learning about when X happened?” will help your child remember that topic – and as they talk about it, they’ll be making that memory stronger in their minds.

It’s important not to ignore the ‘off-topic’ stuff, or try and get around it – these stories are important to your child, and listening to them shows you’re really interested in what happened to them at school.

Math tip 3: Help your child develop a Growth Mindset

A Growth Mindset is a way of looking at work. Instead of saying “I can’t do this” when they run into an especially hard problem, someone with a growth mindset will say “I can’t do this yet, but I can learn to.” It’s developing your child into young learners!

Your child may already be learning about Growth Mindset in school – it is very popular with teachers – but how you speak at home will also have an impact.

Many of us struggle with the kind of math your child will be starting to learn in 6th grade, and it’s a very natural reaction to say “I wasn’t very good at math when I was your age.”

You might mean that your child is much better at it than you are, but that’s not what they hear; you’ve managed to make it to adulthood apparently being “not very good” at math – if that’s the case, why should they bother trying?

You can encourage your child to develop a growth mindset by using phrases like “You’re working very hard on that”, “I’m sure I learned this but I’ve forgotten, can we both look at it?” and “I’m sure you can get this if you keep going” instead.

To summarize, if you find yourself wondering ‘how can I help my child with math homework?’, the simple answer is to work in stages depending on the level your child is at.

1. Early stages of math

If they are in the early stages of their mathematical journey in any single concept then you should help them by using concrete manipulatives to help them visualize the problem.

• Is your child struggling to work out what half of 12 is? 12 pieces of pasta on the kitchen table could help solve this.
• Do centimeters and inches prove problematic? Using a ruler to measure their favorite toys can help here.

The use of concrete resources is only limited by your imagination and there are hundreds of examples to be found all around the house which can help your child get better at math.

2. Good foundations

Once your child has a firm grasp on the basics, it is time to move onto representational problems to help them continue to progress.

You certainly don’t have to be an artist to use pictures as representations to help your child with math. By creating simple scenarios on paper rather than with physical objects, it begins to remove reliance on having something in front of them to help them solve the problem.

This ensures that they are using their brain as they have nothing else to help them!

3. Developing broader understanding

The final stage is to move past both the concrete and representational stage and onto the abstract stage which consists of numbers and more formal written strategies.

These are the types of questions your child will come up against in their tests, so by introducing them to them at home, you will help to ensure that they are already one step ahead of the game.

Just as when a teacher is teaching a whole class, different techniques work for different children struggling with math, so it is crucial that you take the time to find the thing that will give your child that aha moment! 

Looking for more detail? Try these articles

• The best free websites and apps for math homework help
• Division for kids: How to help at home
• Fractions for kids: How to teach it at home

Do you have students who need extra support in math? Give your students more opportunities to consolidate learning and practice skills through personalized math tutoring with their own dedicated online math tutor. Each student receives differentiated instruction designed to close their individual learning gaps, and scaffolded learning ensures every student learns at the right pace. Lessons are aligned with your state’s standards and assessments, plus you’ll receive regular reports every step of the way. Personalized one-on-one math tutoring programs are available for: – 2nd grade tutoring – 3rd grade tutoring – 4th grade tutoring – 5th grade tutoring – 6th grade tutoring – 7th grade tutoring – 8th grade tutoring Why not learn more about how it works ?

The content in this article was originally written by primary school teacher Sophie Bartlett and has since been revised and adapted for US schools by elementary math teacher Katie Keeton.

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3 Ways to Strengthen Math Instruction

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Students’ math scores have plummeted, national assessments show , and educators are working hard to turn math outcomes around.

But it’s a challenge, made harder by factors like math anxiety , students’ feelings of deep ambivalence about how math is taught, and learning gaps that were exacerbated by the pandemic’s disruption of schools.

This week, three educators offered solutions on how districts can turn around poor math scores in a conversation moderated by Peter DeWitt, an opinion blogger for Education Week.

Here are three takeaways from the discussion. For more, watch the recording on demand .

1. Intervention is key

Research shows that early math skills are a key predictor of later academic success.

“Children who know more do better, and math is cumulative—so if you don’t grasp some of the earlier concepts, math gets increasingly harder,” said Nancy Jordan, a professor of education at the University of Delaware.

For example, many students struggle with the concept of fractions, she said. Her research has found that by 6th grade, some students still don’t really understand what a fraction is, which makes it harder for them to master more advanced concepts, like adding or subtracting fractions with unlike denominators.

At that point, though, teachers don’t always have the time in class to re-teach those basic or fundamental concepts, she said, which is why targeted intervention is so important.

Still, Jordan’s research revealed that in some middle schools, intervention time is not a priority: “If there’s an assembly, or if there is a special event or whatever, it takes place during intervention time,” she said. “Or ... the children might sit on computers, and they’re not getting any really explicit instruction.”

2. ‘Gamify’ math class

Students today need new modes of instruction that meet them where they are, said Gerilyn Williams, a math teacher at Pinelands Regional Junior High School in Little Egg Harbor Township, N.J.

“Most of them learn through things like TikTok or YouTube videos,” she said. “They like to play games, they like to interact. So how can I bring those same attributes into my lesson?”

Part of her solution is gamifying instruction. Williams avoids worksheets. Instead, she provides opportunities for students to practice skills that incorporate elements of game design.

That includes digital tools, which provide students with the instant feedback they crave, she said.

But not all the games are digital. Williams’ students sometimes play “trashketball,” a game in which they work in teams to answer math questions. If they get the question right, they can crumble the piece of paper and throw it into a trash can from across the room.

“The kids love this,” she said.

Williams also incorporates game-based vocabulary into her instruction, drawing on terms from video games.

For example, “instead of calling them quizzes and tests, I call them boss battles,” she said. “It’s less frightening. It reduces that math anxiety, and it makes them more engaging.

“We normalize things like failure, because when they play video games, think about what they’re doing,” Williams continued. “They fail—they try again and again and again and again until they achieve success.”

3. Strengthen teacher expertise

To turn around math outcomes, districts need to invest in teacher professional development and curriculum support, said Chaunté Garrett, the CEO of ELLE Education, which partners with schools and districts to support student learning.

“You’re not going to be able to replace the value of a well-supported and well-equipped mathematics teacher,” she said. “We also want to make sure that that teacher has a math curriculum that’s grounded in the standards and conceptually based.”

Students will develop more critical thinking skills and better understand math concepts if teachers are able to relate instruction to real life, Garrett said—so that “kids have relationships that they can pull on, and math has some type of meaning and context to them outside of just numbers and procedures.”

It’s important for math curriculum to be both culturally responsive and relevant, she added. And teachers might need training on how to offer opportunities for students to analyze and solve real-world problems.

“So often, [in math problems], we want to go back to soccer and basketball and all of those things that we lived through, and it’s not that [current students] don’t enjoy those, but our students live social media—they literally live it,” Garrett said. “Those are the things that have to live out in classrooms right now, and if we’re not doing those things, we are doing a disservice.”

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Here's Why Math is Making Your Child Cry and What You Can Do About It

Written by Kira Gavalakis

It’s understandable that we, as parents, don’t want to grade our kids harshly or give them criticism. We want them to be happy, and feel good about themselves, especially as a student. As a result, we may avoid chatting with our kids about their grades, or even simply brush it off as a bad teacher. But what’s actually happening is that we’re making math more difficult for our kids through our manifestation of denial.

To our kids, our denial might look like anger, frustration, or sadness, making those math tears come even quicker.

I’ll put it simply: math is making your child cry because we as parents are making it difficult.

I know, it’s probably a little hard to hear at first. But in this article, I’ll give you some steps on how you can alleviate those math tears and set your kid up for math success.

Passing vs. Getting the Right Answer

We all want our kids to do well. But in math, there’s a difference between doing well and actually understanding the concepts.

There are two real ways to look at how your child is learning math.

• Did they get the answer correct?
• Can they explain how they got that answer and how to apply it in real-world examples?

Typically, even if a child is getting #1, the tears are coming because #2 isn’t helping them get to the problem on their own. Since mathematics is very abstract, it can be tough to pin down the concepts that guide math exercises and problems. 

For instance, even if your child has memorized their multiplication tables, they may not really understand why 4x3 is 12. They’ve just memorized a series of numbers, so when they move onto the next lesson, they’re missing a fundamental understanding of why two numbers multiplied together equal their product. This can snowball, creating much bigger issues later on, sometimes even years into the future. 

So now, it’s back to us as parents. If we aren’t able to allow our children to make mistakes, get things wrong, and ask questions, they’ll never stop to ask for help. They’ll motor on through math classes, missing basic concepts, and struggling unnecessarily as a result. They’ll be so focused on impressing us, that the root of the mathematical problems will fly out the window, and you’ll both be wondering why math is so frustrating.

Looking at Math Differently As a Parent

When we’re not allowing our kids to fail because of our own fears, we’re sacrificing their learning process. It’s actually one of the reasons I created Elephant Learning; to provide kids with abstract problems put into real life terms and situations, and to give them the opportunity to be wrong.

What our platform does is give kids the opportunity to fail . Since a gamification platform doesn’t hold emotions, it won’t feel upset, angry, or guilty if a student gets a problem wrong. Instead, it’s trained to continue pushing concepts that kids are getting wrong more and more into their game, so they can keep practicing until they’re mastered.

Related: Emotion is Holding You Back as a Homeschooling Parent

When we as parents are too emotionally involved in our kid’s learning experience, we project our desire for them to be right so badly that we sacrifice their own ability to understand the process behind the math they’re doing.

So… how do we change this thought process?

First, we need to recognize that our fear of “wrong” is what’s making our children frustrated with math. We’re showing that getting an answer wrong and learning from it is worse than getting an answer right and not understanding it.

Next, we need to follow Thomas Edison’s words: “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” This means looking at your children’s failures as practice rounds and learning opportunities, instead of letting it trigger your natural fear of your kid not understanding something. If you’re looking for your child to have big successes as Thomas Edison did, you have to allow those 10,000 mistakes, failures, and wrong answers without any hesitation. 

Kids especially have to be able to play with ideas in their heads, go through trial and error scenarios, and uncover different solutions without the fear of disappointing you. If we as parents are getting in the way of that, we’ll continue making learning math harder than it needs to be.

How to Look at Math Differently

A lot of parents want their kids to be able to ace a quiz or test, and may not bother checking that they fully understand the concepts at play. And ultimately, what we’re impressing on our children is our own fear of being wrong,  which in turn, will teach our kids to fear being wrong. We’re training them to fear “wrong” -ness more than a lack of understanding, to their long-term detriment.

How to Start Practicing This in Real Life

• The first thing you have to do is accept the reality of how your child is performing in math class, and say it out loud. “My child isn’t understanding the deeper meaning behind the math they’re learning in school.”
• Next, find a learning tool or an expert in this field like Elephant Learning that can help teach your child a deeper understanding of the concepts, instead of just getting the questions right.

If you decide to join us here at Elephant Learning, we start students older than 5 in a placement exam, which was designed to start behind your student and catch up to them. For example, if you chose the third-grade exam, we’re actually testing them on second-grade concepts like addition and subtraction to see if they’re even ready for third-grade material they’re being given in school. 

This way, you’ll get a good idea of what your child understands and what they don’t understand. Then, we’ll start building the language. Because even if they don’t understand the procedures and processes, they’ll understand the underlying concepts.

It’s important to view Elephant Learning as a tool, regardless of the other academic programs they’re utilizing (tutors, after-school programs, etc). ‍

The involvement on the parent’s part is minimal. And sometimes, that’s just what our kids need to turn tears into 10,000 successes.

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Tips for doing Math Homework with Kids!

Published by Salsabilatuzzahra Jaha S.Psi. from BehaviorPALS Center 

Homework is one of the things that are usually done when children start school. Homework serves as one of the teaching media so that children can understand the material and continue to practice. For example, math homework. As parents, we can help our children's math homework to the maximum and make our children more enthusiastic about learning mathematics. The following are tips for parents in guiding their children who are just starting school in doing homework. 

• Prepare the Homework Kit

Set up storage space like a drawer in the kitchen for a set of math homework tools. Plan the contents with your child: pencil, eraser, ruler, tape measure, scissors, construction paper, graph paper, counter (beads or nuts), calculator, and glue. The drawer can be expanded with your child by adding special tools (compass and protractor, for example) according to the child's curriculum material.

•  Have a Routine Schedule for Math

Encourage positive attitudes and study habits by scheduling math homework time at the same time and location each day. We can use the room, family room, kitchen table or several rooms in the house.

•  Ready to help

This is the most important thing in helping children with homework. Make yourself available during Homework time. Together with your child, you can create a relationship that encourages natural conversation and interaction.

• Be relaxed and positive

Remember that you are not expected to act as a mathematician. So, stay relaxed and don't be too pushy. However, you should also be positive that even if you are not a mathematician, you can help your child learn. Giving your child one-on-one attention will have a positive effect if you focus on establishing natural conversation and two-way communication.

When Doing Homework. Keep the atmosphere as calm as possible and minimize distractions in order to maintain focus.

• Try to be more interested in children's activities!

Show your child that you are interested in their activities while doing their math homework. Ask your child to explain what they do and why.

• Learn from mistakes

If your child gets an answer wrong, ask them to prove that the answer is correct. Remember that:

Calm down. Mistakes are an opportunity to learn and can help children to keep trying! Willing to try again is an important quality that all children should have.

But if your child becomes more frustrated and less satisfied, stop. Ask them to tell you about things they can do successfully. Remind them that they can and do. They have learned many things that require patience and practice in the past and some of them take longer than others. Such as riding a bicycle, writing paragraphs, speaking a second language, playing a musical instrument, or perfecting a dance routine

. Help your child to see that it is important to solve these math problems, even if they are difficult. Give your child the time they need to work on the questions. Encourage them to do their best.

• Team approach

Your child's teacher and other members of the teaching team are your partners in education. So, parents, and teachers are on the same team in education! You can use your child's journal to communicate with the teacher. You can also ask for strategies to use at home related to your child's topic and learning style.

• Studying together!

Remember that we are just parents. It's okay if you don't know the answer. However, if your child asks for your help and you don't know the answer, be honest and say, "I don't know, but let's work it out together." Keep helping children by doing it together.

If the problem is too difficult for you, admit it, then model it and emphasize to your child the determination to keep trying to solve it.

If you continue to be unsuccessful, don't hesitate to ask your child's teacher or other members of the teaching team for help. This will give your child permission to do the same when they are stuck.

Those were some tips for parents when helping children in doing math homework. We can use this opportunity to get closer to children and also reduce children's anxiety in learning mathematics. May be useful!

By Salsabilatuzzahra Jaha S.Psi from BehaviorPALS Center

CODE (2015). Inspiring Your Child to Love Math. Ontario: Council of Ontario Directors of Education. https://www.parentengagementmatters.ca/downloads/inspiring-your-child-to-learn-and-love-math/doc/en/module01_resource_guide_2015-09-21.pdf

Homework, Math, kids

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Top 10 Ways to Help Your Kids Do Well in Math

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Make Sure Your Children Understand Mathematical Concepts

Help Them Master the Basic Facts

Teach Them to Write Numbers Neatly

Provide Help Immediately When Your Children It

Show Them How to Handle Their Math Homework

Encourage Them to Do More Than the Assigned Problems

Explain How to Solve Word Problems

Help Your Children Learn the Vocabulary of Mathematics

Teach Them How to Do Math "In Their Head"

Make Math Part of Your Children's Daily Life

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• Proof Points

Allonda Hawkins said the way her children are expected to do math is “100 percent different” from the way she learned.

“There are terms that I’ve never heard before, like arrays. It’s very foreign to me and it’s hard to teach,” said the 38-year-old real estate agent from Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

The mother of four children, ages 5 to 11, often turns to YouTube for explanations and recruits her fifth grader, Zoe, to help her younger siblings. Hawkins said she’s catching on more now that she can eavesdrop on her kids’ online classes, but still is frustrated that she doesn’t have more guidance.

“There are a lot of teachers that lack grace with parents who don’t understand,” Hawkins said of the new approach to math. “We end up teaching [our kids] the old ways, which don’t fully benefit them — especially with assignments where they have to show their work.”

With virtual learning, parents across the country are getting an up-close look at math instruction — and, like Hawkins, they don’t always know what to make of it. But with more than half of American kids still learning at home as of Feb. 21 (either all virtually or in hybrid programs), it’s time for parents to get up to speed.

Experts say it’s important for parents to know the basic ideas behind the current methods if they are going to help their kids. Positive parental help could make the difference between students being excited about math or falling behind during the pandemic, said Jennifer Bay-Williams, co-author of “Elementary and Middle School Mathematics: Teaching Developmentally” and professor of education at the University of Louisville.

The new approach is actually not all that new. It’s grounded in research going back more than 30 years and is reflected in the Common Core State Standards, which are used in 41 states. (And most states now follow standards with the same principles, whether or not they call them Common Core.) Instead of memorizing procedures to solve problems, kids are now asked to think through various ways to arrive at an answer and then explain their strategies. While some parents believe these methods are just a more complicated way of teaching math, they are designed to promote a deeper understanding of the subject and help students make lasting connections.

“There’s not just one way to solve a problem,” said Megan Burton, president of the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators and associate professor of elementary education at Auburn University in Alabama. To fully grasp deeper mathematical concepts, “students need to think about what makes sense and build on what they learn.”

“There are a lot of teachers that lack grace with parents who don’t understand.” Allonda Hawkins, parent

Educators and mathematicians pushed for states to adopt Common Core math in hopes of moving away from a curriculum that was “a mile wide and an inch deep” and focusing more on big ideas, said Bay-Williams. When the Obama administration offered benefits to states that adopted the Core, the standards took on a partisan edge. But they were not meant to be political, Bay-Williams said. They were meant as simply a short list of concepts that would prompt teachers to spend more time on core mathematical ideas and would be common across states. In addition to a brief outline of what kids should learn in each grade, they include eight standards for mathematical practice that frame how to do math.

Related: PROOF POINTS — Evidence increases for writing during math class

The first practice standard, to make sense of problems and persevere in solving them, is the top priority, said Bay-Williams. A focus on understanding problems and working to solve them should shift the pressure away from just getting homework done correctly and encourage parents to ask how their children are thinking.

“It creates in kids this identity that they can do math” when they are asked to explain their thought processes, Bay-Williams said. “Just memorizing something their parents show them and then practice, practice, practice, leads to a different emotional reaction and a different way they think about themselves as a math doer.”

Research is clear that allowing kids to experience a “productive struggle” pays off in children’s math ability. “Productive struggle” is merely wrestling with an idea or pondering a new concept, which is when teachers say learning occurs.

127 = 12 tens and 7 ones

“Kids need to know math may be a little challenging, but it’s going to make sense” eventually, said Burton. When watching a kid struggle to complete a math problem, “it’s very tempting for a parent to want to get in there and rescue the child, which doesn’t always help in the long run,” she said.

One of the key concepts in Common Core math is that students are asked to look at numbers and think about the amounts they represent. For instance, 100 can be thought of as 100 ones, or a bundle of 10 units of 10, or “10 tens.” And 127 can be thought of as a bundle of 12 units of 10 and seven ones, or “12 tens and 7 ones,” or even “10 tens and 27 ones.”

Students are asked to use the idea that numbers can be represented differently when problem solving, too.

Take 4 x 27.

Traditionally, a student would line up the numbers vertically, multiply 4 x 7, carry the 2, then multiply … well, most adults remember the procedure. (The answer is 108.)

Now, kids are encouraged to think: Wait a minute, that’s really just 4 x 25, which is 100, plus 4 x 2, which is 8. If I add the two products together, I get 108.

4 x 27 = (4 x 25) + (4 x 2)

“That works pretty slick and makes more sense,” said DeAnn Huinker, professor of mathematics education at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and director of the university’s Center for Mathematics and Science Education Research. “I can do that in my head, write down a couple of partial products and add it up.”

Huinker advocates redefining math success: “It’s not being able to tell me the answer to three times five within a heartbeat. Rather, being successful means: ‘I understand what three times five is.’ ” (For those following along at home, it’s three groups of five.)  

Math practices today emphasize reasoning, being able to make a viable argument and critiquing others. Teachers have students pause and think before diving in to learn a standard algorithm, said Bay-Williams. In a classroom, students might pair off and share their math strategies with a partner. With remote learning, teachers may ask students to turn to an online interactive whiteboard or record a short video.

For some students, it might help to use a number line to see the relationship between numbers.  If a student is given the problem 12 minus 7, the student can start at 7, jump to 10 (that’s 3), and then jump to 12 (that’s 2), so the difference is 3 plus 2, or 5. Ten in this example is known as a “benchmark number,” said Huinker, and students are encouraged to use benchmarks to move toward more efficient and meaningful computation strategies.

3 x 5 = three groups of five

An array, which flummoxed Hawkins, is a model that students can use to master multiplication. It’s essentially a grid. Students can plot out 5 x 6 by coloring in five rows of six or six columns of five. Count the total number of squares and you’ve got the answer: 30. Break the grid apart into sections, and you can see three sets of 10. The visual representation can also help kids understand area and measurement and can plant the seed for connections that will help in later math. Parents may think it’s tedious, but when students use visual models and explain their thinking, it also helps teachers make sure students truly understand a concept and haven’t just memorized a formula, said Burton.

Related: You probably don’t have your preschooler thinking about math enough

In China Grove, North Carolina, Abby Covington, a mathematics instructional coach at Millbridge Elementary School, hosted a webinar last fall for parents to explain teachers’ math expectations and tamp down pressure for perfection with homework. The school typically holds similar events in person each year, but tailored this year’s online content in response to parents’  questions that arose with virtual learning.

“We honor and value mistakes, because mistakes are how we learn,” Covington said. “We want to be celebrating the different types of math strategies [children] have instead of having that go-to ‘this-isn’t-how-I-learned-it’ mentality that we hear parents say a lot.”

“Yes, we want future citizens who can add and subtract, but we also need citizens who can reason and talk about their thinking — skills that humans can bring to the table that my calculator can’t.” Mathew Felton-Koestler, Ohio University

In time, students will learn to do the traditional step-by-step approaches to solving problems, which are faster and more efficient, but Covington said the idea is to build a proper foundation: “I tell parents we are going to get there … that’s our ultimate goal, we’re just not in a race.”

To help demonstrate the value of the new flexible approach to teaching math, Mathew Felton-Koestler, associate professor in the department of teacher education at Ohio University, produces videos for parents such as “What’s Wrong With Carrying the One?”

“Yes, we want future citizens who can add and subtract, but we also need citizens who can reason and talk about their thinking — skills that humans can bring to the table that my calculator can’t,” said Felton-Koestler. “People worry that if we are focused on these different strategies, kids aren’t going to be good at doing computations. That doesn’t turn out to be true. They end up being just as good — and much better at higher-order type tasks.”

And critical thinking skills are what employers are asking for in the workplace, he said.

Some parents of older kids are finally seeing the long-term benefits of all that early focus on how to think about math. Despite having an MBA, Michelle Majdoch, 46, of Coral Springs, Florida, said she was initially confused by her kids’ math homework with the story problems and drawing to show their work.

But now that her children are in fourth, fifth, 10th and 12th grades, she gets it. Having to learn three ways to do a problem in the early grades made each of her kids discover the methods that made the most sense to them. These days, her high school daughters are doing well in Algebra 2 and pre-calculus. Now “I can see the progression of what’s going to happen,” she said of watching her kids as they move through the math curriculum, which she was pleased to find was similar to what her older kids had learned when the family lived in Ohio.

With school instruction spilling over to the home, it’s fair for parents to say to their kids: “Wow, that’s so interesting. Here’s how I learned it,” said Huinker of the different math methods. Then they can ask the child how the “old” way is similar to or different from what is being taught in school now.

Related: Mix a little math into that bedtime story

Michele Alley said she and her third grade daughter, Cora, often disagree about how to do math homework. In a spare bedroom converted to an office/school, Alley works full time while Cora and her first grade son, Carter, do their distance learning at home in Monticello, Kentucky.

If it’s something Cora understands, she follows her teacher’s directions. But, if her daughter gets stuck, Alley said, she doesn’t know how to help other than to demonstrate the way she learned it in the 1990s — working through the problem by writing out the equation on paper. “Whatever the teacher says is the gospel, which is a good thing. They should listen. But they need to know there is more than one way to do things, too,” said Alley, 36, a re-entry coordinator for the state department of corrections. Alley said she would welcome more information about Common Core math. “I know very little about it. I can say I don’t like it, because I don’t know how to do it.”

“It’s very tempting for a parent to want to get in there and rescue the child, which doesn’t always help in the long run.” Megan Burton, Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators

Some schools are doing what they can to fill parents in on the whys behind the new ways of teaching math.

In Alley’s district, Bell Elementary hosts math nights for families twice a year to help bridge the home-school divide, and in October pivoted to a drive-through “Family Learning Night” on a Saturday morning. The fall event drew 300 people — one of the best-ever turnouts — perhaps because it was held on a weekend and reading materials were also distributed, said Jamie Reagan, a first grade math intervention teacher at Bell.

Teachers gave out goodie bags with math games and information on math standards in “layman’s terms” so parents would know what kids needed to learn by the end of first and second grades, said Reagan.

“Kids can learn while they are playing — it doesn’t have to be a worksheet,” said Reagan, who also regularly provides math packets with cards, counters and other materials in tubs in front of the school for families to pick up. Teachers have had to adapt their instruction as they go back and forth from in-person to virtual learning, she said, and have come to realize they will have to make adjustments next year, as many students will likely not meet grade-level expectations when they are assessed later this spring.

“[Families] are doing all that they can and we are providing as much support as possible, but it’s still not the same,” said Reagan.

On the upside, said Burton, of the math teacher educators association, the pandemic gives parents time to help children see the usefulness of math outside of school.

“When you are setting places at the table, ordering things online to be delivered, rearranging furniture and measuring, have your child be with you,” said Burton. “We need to recognize that math is important. Math is fun. It’s like a puzzle, and it’s understanding the world around us. If parents can convey that enthusiasm, it has a huge potential for impacting their child’s success in the future.”

Also, there’s a pandemic on, and parenting has never been so hard. Bay-Williams, the author of a book on teaching math to kids, said parents should trust their intuition about what ends up being important.

“Take a deep breath,” she advised parents supervising online math learning right now. “Kids are resilient, they are learning things at home — baking with you and doing things that are going to serve them in other ways.”

This story about teaching math was produced by The Hechinger Report , a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter .

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Our charter school uses Everyday Math. I find that the students do develop reasoning skills and can often solve a question three ways. What they don’t develop is deep fluency in computational skills with this curriculum. They work very slowly. And if you are bright or like math, it is very very slow winding and boring process. Most parents seem to supplement with at least the occasional workbook, and if they don’t their child will probably become behind because they can’t keep up. The serious students on the East Coast go to Russian Math School, on the West coast they go to Korean math school. Workbooks everywhere.

Most CC tests such as CAASPP are untimed. But if your child needs to take a timed math test the skills are not there.

““Kids need to know math may be a little challenging, but it’s going to make sense” eventually, said Burton. When watching a kid struggle to complete a math problem…”

Although there is some validity in the idea, say, digging into a good word problem, the philosophy endorsed is standard math education misconception. Mathematics is hierarchical and structured. Presenting it as such, clearly and step-by-step, makes its learning far easier and more successful and these are the best motivation for learning more. Standard algorithms are critical and reasonable speed and accuracy with elementary arithmetic (not unreasonable speed, don’t overdo it) are essential to successful further study. Math pedagogy and textbooks of a half-century ago were far more effective than those of recent decades. The heart of the problem is a general lack of mathematics competence among college mathematics education faculty. It is disturbing but true that many of these so-called experts are not competent at the pre-calculus level and have little appreciation for the rate of mathematics acquisition necessary for success in any math-based disciplines, so-called STEM careers.

I am a parent and I see the math problems and also WORD problems that are sent home with my children. They state one thing and then the statement changes halfway through, such that the first part doesn’t apply anymore. This is 3rd-grade math. It is ridiculous and a WASTE of educational funds on the curriculum. My daughter had NO idea what the problem was asking. I read it and also became frustrated that she had become so confused she gave up. I read it and the word problem suggested we were supposed to consider the first half of the statement and work with it to figure out the problem, but after reading over it 3 or 4 times, I could see the first part was completely IRRELEVANT. This is the kind of garbage we need to get rid of. As a single parent, the last thing I need to be working on is breaking down the ACTUAL math problem so my kid can get to the MEAT of it and learn something. By the way, we DO have citizens who can read and talk about their thinking. We have A LOT of them. They are just not heard anymore because of censorship, and only one side is being promoted and heard. “Yes, we want future citizens who can add and subtract, but we also need citizens who can reason and talk about their thinking — skills that humans can bring to the table that my calculator can’t,” said Felton-Koestler. “People worry that if we are focused on these different strategies, kids aren’t going to be good at doing computations. That doesn’t turn out to be true. They end up being just as good — and much better at higher-order type tasks.” What? MANY of us do well at ‘higher-order type tasks’ and our kids will also, without the irrational ‘critical thinking skills’ tweaked into every math problem. What happened to basic math skills?? It is supposed to be FUN! Talk about a failed education system.

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• Helping Your Child Improve On Math Homework

Let’s face it: elementary school math might seem simple conceptually from an adult point of view, but it can be a little more challenging these days after years of disuse. Kids learn math and other subjects differently as the curriculums change, but that doesn’t mean you can’t help them with the math homework they bring home. Simple math concepts, like addition and subtraction, are still skills we use today. The next time your child asks for some help with their math homework, here are some tips you can use to encourage their improvement. 

Ask Interesting Math Questions

Some word problems aren’t interesting, and while that shouldn’t be the only reason your child refuses to do math, sometimes creating word problems that interest them can help motivate them. If your child isn’t interested in how many apples John might have after eating 5, recreate the same word problem using a different topic to help motivate them more. 

Provide Positive Support for Homework

Establish a set of rules and homework expectations. Have a designated place for your child to sit and do their homework without distraction. Homework should be completed independently. Please refrain from showing your child how you learned to do something, as that method might differ from what is being taught at school. However, help with directions, reading the words, and getting started if necessary. Homework should be reviewed, so if your child becomes frustrated with the homework, please ask your child to stop. The goal of homework is not to cause frustration. The goal is to be able to work independently on previously taught concepts and skills for review.

Take It Slow

Math builds on itself, but it can be tricky to keep up if your child struggles with a new concept. When this happens, slow down and back up. Don’t keep pushing new ideas until they understand the old ones. 

This same advice works for you, too. Be patient with yourself — it’s been a while since you’ve learned 4th-grade math, and the work may look a lot different now. But with some time and perseverance, you can help your child succeed.

Ask Your Child to Teach You

Math looks a little different now. If your kid’s homework is confusing for you, ask them to explain their process . This is a great connecting moment to share with your child. And it can set you up to be a better helper if they run into frustration in later lessons.

Use Math Skills in Everyday Life

Give your child a calendar to keep track of his/her activities. Have him/her check the calendar daily and count the number of days left until some special event or vacation.

Cook, practice measuring ingredients, discuss fractional parts of a whole, set the timer, and notice how long something takes to cook.

Sort household items, pair up socks, count by two, and sort shells, blocks, and marbles based on different attributes.

Create pictures using shapes, cut out snowflakes and hearts using symmetry. Go on a shape hunt. How many triangles can you find? Rectangles?

Calculate how many slices of pizza (and then how many pies) to order to feed your family.

Practice Math Vocabulary

Math vocabulary surrounds us, but that doesn’t mean we’re very comfortable with it. Try using math vocabulary in everyday language ; it will slowly start feeling less intimidating. For example, bring up percentages when shopping for a sale or talk about parts of a whole while cooking.

Of course, we don’t see many math words every day. Do you remember exponents, tangents, or the commutative property? If not, that’s totally okay! All you need is a refresher and some practice. 

For example, when your child is studying areas, take some time to make sure you understand what you’re actually discovering. Understanding the bigger concept (calculating the amount of surface space vs just plugging in length and width) is what will bring those light bulb moments. 

Play Math Games Online with Your Child

Math Playground:  Math Playground is an extensive collection of math games that address a wide variety of math topics. Beyond the games are some opportunities for drill-like practice. The site also has worksheets, both online and printable.

http://www.mathplayground.com/index.html

Fun Brain Math : This website is for grades K-8. It has fun, interactive math games to review basic math skills.

http://www.funbrain.com/brain/MathBrain/MathBrain.html

Math IXL :  This website offers a drill-and-practice format and approach. IXL makes practicing math skills fun through rewards, immediate feedback, and visually appealing tasks.

http://www.ixl.com/

Mr. Nussbaum : This website features a wide array of educational games and activities to help reinforce concepts and skills. Students will also find fun interactive games that focus on math and other subjects.

http://mrnussbaum.com/

Education Place, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt : This website offers math games, brainteasers, and extra practice.

https://www.eduplace.com/kids/mw/

National Library of Virtual Manipulatives : This website provides virtual manipulatives that students can use to solve math problems, such as base ten blocks.

http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/vlibrary.html

Download Math Apps

Thinking Blocks:  Thinking Blocks (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division) teaches students how to model and solve math word problems. The models help students organize information and visualize number relationships.

Math Fluency Apps:  These types of apps will help master the basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts.

Stay Positive!

Regardless of your own experience with school mathematics, you can always encourage your child to develop a love for math. Always talk positively about math, support your child, and discuss math with them whenever you can, whether it be about a homework assignment or a real-world example. Keep asking your child questions, and let them explain math to you. Remember: math is thinking!

Emily currently lives in Orange County, California after spending four years in Illinois and half a year teaching in Florence, Italy. She holds a B.A. in English Literature from Knox College and an M.A. in Counseling from the University of San Diego and has taught English to native speakers and ESL students for over three years. When she’s not working as a School Counselor or writing, she enjoys traveling the world, playing instruments, and blogging about Millennial experiences at Long Live the Twenties .

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7 ways to help your kids with math homework

Author Joan Ferrini-Mundy is acting chief operating officer at NSF. She previously served as assistant director for NSF's Education and Human Resources Directorate and is a nationally recognized leader in mathematics education.

If you've ever had to help your child with math homework, you really appreciate their teachers, who do it every day. "Math anxiety" isn't something only kids experience.

Maybe you haven't seen an algebra formula in years, and weren't that comfortable with them when you were a student. Maybe you're a skilled mathematician, but don't know how to explain what you're doing to a child. Whatever the case, math homework can leave parents feeling every bit as frustrated as their children. Homework doesn't have to lead to unpleasantness, though.

What I've learned through my own experience -- as a teacher, a researcher, from helping my own children, and now watching my daughter work as an elementary school mathematics teacher -- is that communication is (excuse the pun) the common denominator when it comes to making math homework a positive experience.

The National Science Foundation (NSF), where I work, is dedicated to research. We support scientists across the country who study learning and education systems. But we're also teachers at heart. On lunch breaks in the past, a group of us gathered to help our NSF peers with their own questions about how to help their kids learn math.

Here are a few tips from what we've learned:

1. Try as hard as you can to understand what your child is saying. When your child is working out a math problem, ask her to think out loud, to say what she's doing and why. In some cases, your child might be able to answer her own questions. Don't just come in with an explanation of how things should be done.

2. We've learned a lot about teaching. NSF-supported researchers and other scientists are producing findings that change the way we understand learning and how we teach. Math instruction today might look very different from when you were in school. Keep an open mind. If you're dismissive of something, there's a chance your child will be, too.

3. Assume there is some logical thinking your child is employing. Even if he's producing incorrect answers, your child is employing some kind of thought process, and understanding it is the key to providing help. Let's say your child is adding 1/3 and 1/4 and getting 2/7. If his explanation is that he was adding the numerators and denominators, you've just learned that he might not fully understand what a fraction is. And that gives you a starting point for helping.

4. Homework is about more than producing the correct answers. It's about learning processes and skills. Even if you can come up with the right answer to a problem with which your child is struggling, there's a lot you still need to explain -- namely, how you arrived at that point.

5. Become a teacher's ally. Talk to your child's teachers. Find out how they are teaching certain ideas and concepts. At times, parents unhappy about their children's struggles to learn can approach teachers from a place of frustration. View your child's teachers as your partners and collaborators.

6. Find additional help. Worried you won't be able to understand the math your child is trying to learn? Take a careful look at her textbook or online learning materials. See if the publisher provides any resources. Look for other publicly available teaching aids, especially those that have had NSF support. Do you have friends or coworkers with children? Start a lunch group to talk through your homework challenges.

7. Remember, every child is different and learns differently. Just because your oldest child learned his multiplication facts one way doesn't mean his younger sister will do the same. Which brings us back to the first tip: Listen to each child and do your best to understand.

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Parents’ daily involvement in children’s math homework and activities during early elementary school

1 Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana‐Champaign, Champaign Illinois, USA

Michael M. Barger

2 Department of Educational Psychology, University of Georgia, Athens Georgia, USA

Dajung (Diana) Oh

Eva m. pomerantz, associated data.

This research examined parents’ involvement in children’s math homework and activities. During 2017 to 2019, American parents ( N  = 483; 80% mothers; 67% white) of young elementary school children ( M age  = 7.47 years; 50% girls) reported on their math helping self‐efficacy; they also reported on their involvement in children’s math homework and activities daily for 12 days. At this time and a year later, children’s math motivation and achievement were assessed. Parents’ involvement in homework (vs. activities) was more affectively negative ( d  = .34), particularly among parents low in self‐efficacy ( d  = .23). The more affectively negative parents’ involvement, particularly in homework, the poorer children’s later math motivation and achievement ( β s = −.09 to .20).

Abbreviation

There is substantial evidence that throughout the school years children benefit when parents are involved in their learning (for reviews, see Barger et al., 2019 ; Pomerantz et al., 2012 ). Given the importance of math skills to societal advancement, investigators have increasingly focused on understanding how parents’ practices around math contribute to children’s math learning, with a major emphasis on parents’ involvement in math activities (e.g., playing number games and measuring while cooking) before children enter elementary school (for reviews, see Elliott & Bachman, 2018 ; Rowe et al., 2016 ). Once children enter elementary school, however, they regularly have math homework in which parents are often involved (e.g., Hyde et al., 2006 ). Math homework may be characterized by greater pressure and difficulty than are math activities. Consequently, math homework (vs. activities) may be a more challenging learning context for parents, which may undermine the quality of their involvement. Indeed, parents’ involvement in children’s learning during the elementary school years is less constructive (e.g., autonomy‐supportive) when parents feel pressured or children have difficulty (e.g., Grolnick et al., 2002 ; Wuyts et al., 2017 ).

Guided by motivational models in which parents foster children’s learning in general via the development of motivational resources (e.g., Grolnick et al., 1997 ; Pomerantz et al., 2012 ) and cognitive models in which parents foster children’s learning in math specifically via the development of math skills (e.g., Gunderson & Levine, 2011 ; Skwarchuk et al., 2014 ), the current research with children in early elementary school had three key aims. First, we examined the qualitative aspects (e.g., autonomy support and positive affect) of parents’ involvement in children’s math homework and activities to identify if one of these learning contexts fosters more constructive involvement. Second, given that parents can be anxious about math which appears to interfere with their involvement (DiStefano et al., 2020 ; Maloney et al., 2015 ), we examined whether parents’ feelings of efficacy in helping children with math serve as a resource for optimizing the qualitative aspects of their involvement in the math homework and activity contexts. Third, we evaluated whether the qualitative aspects of parents’ involvement in the math homework and activity contexts contribute to children’s math motivation and achievement.

Many children experience heightened negative affect while doing homework (e.g., Leone & Richards, 1989 ), with parents sharing such affect when they assist with math (Else‐Quest et al., 2008 ). Parents’ negative affect may be intensified when children are struggling, which can be frustrating for parents but is often when they help with homework during elementary school (e.g., Pomerantz & Eaton, 2001 ; Silinskas et al., 2015 ). Indeed, during elementary and middle school, when children are frustrated with homework or doing poorly in school, parents’ involvement is more affectively negative (e.g., characterized by irritation) rather than positive (e.g., characterized by happiness) and controlling (e.g., intrusive and directive) rather than autonomy‐supportive (e.g., permitting initiative and choice; e.g., Dumont et al., 2014 ; Pomerantz et al., 2005 ; Silinskas et al., 2015 ). Although there has been relatively little research on parents’ involvement in children’s math homework specifically, the research to date indicates parents are often less constructively involved in such homework when children are struggling with math during adolescence (Silinskas & Kikas, 2019a , 2019b ). Some parents’ involvement in math homework may be further undermined if they feel anxious about math, which is associated with affectively negative involvement with elementary school children (DiStefano et al., 2020 ).

In many families, in addition to the math homework assigned by teachers, parents, and children may regularly engage in formal and informal math activities (e.g., games and flashcards) at home. Research on such activities has been guided by cognitive models in which parents’ development of children’s math skills in the years before children enter elementary school is considered fundamental to children’s math learning (e.g., Gunderson & Levine, 2011 ; Skwarchuk et al., 2014 ). In this vein, there has been much attention to the types (e.g., constrained vs. unconstrained) of activities in which parents and children engage relevant to the development of math skills during these early years of children’s lives (e.g., McCormick et al., 2020 ; Skwarchuk et al., 2014 ). However, qualitative aspects of parents’ involvement (e.g., the extent to which it is controlling) were considered important in motivational models of parents’ role in children’s learning and examined in the homework context during the elementary and middle school years (e.g., Dumont et al., 2014 ; Pomerantz et al., 2005 ) have not received attention in the math activity context (for calls for such attention, see Elliott & Bachman, 2018 ; Rowe et al., 2016 ).

Similar to the math homework context, there may be variability in the qualitative aspects of parents’ involvement in the math activity context, but on average this context may elicit more autonomy‐supportive (vs. controlling) and affectively positive (vs. ‐negative) involvement than that of math homework. Unlike homework, activities are often not imposed on parents and children by an agent outside the home and do not have an evaluative component with a deadline. As such, math activities (vs. homework) may be characterized by less pressure. Drawing from self‐determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985 ), Grolnick and Apostoleris ( 2002 ) make the case that when parents feel pressured, they exert more control over children. Evidence from experimental and correlational studies with elementary school children and their parents is in line with the idea that pressure can lead parents’ involvement in children’s learning to be more controlling and less autonomy‐supportive (e.g., Grolnick et al., 2002 ; Wuyts et al., 2017 ), as well as more affectively negative (vs. positive; Grolnick, 2015 ). In addition, math activities may easily be adjusted to children’s math skills, either in terms of the choice of activities or changes made to activities as they unfold so children do not struggle too much, which may make constructive parenting easier for math activities than homework for which such flexibility is usually not an option.

Parents’ self‐efficacy as a resource for parents’ involvement

Regardless of the context of parents’ involvement in children’s math learning, a key issue is that of what optimizes such involvement. Although parents likely bring multiple resources to their involvement in children’s math learning, of particular importance may be their feelings of efficacy in helping children with math—that is, the extent to which parents believe they are capable of supporting children in their math learning through their involvement (Hoover‐Dempsey & Sandler, 1997 ). In their model of the parent‐involvement process, Hoover‐Dempsey and Sandler ( 1997 ) draw from Bandura’s ( 1989 ) self‐efficacy theory to make the case that when parents feel efficacious in helping children succeed in school, they view themselves as capable of overcoming difficulties to do so. Consequently, they are able to sustain their involvement in children’s learning, even when they encounter challenge. There is substantial empirical evidence that the more parents feel efficacious in helping children succeed in school, the more involved they are in children’s learning in general (e.g., Green et al., 2007 ; Hoover‐Dempsey et al., 1992 ), as well as math specifically (Keating et al., 2021 ; O’Sullivan et al., 2014 ), during preschool, elementary school, and middle school.

Parents’ feelings of efficacy in supporting children’s math learning may also be important to the qualitative aspects of their involvement. Feelings of efficacy may allow parents to curb their negative affect when children are struggling with math as they believe that eventually they will be able to help children develop their skills. Such a belief may also mean that parents are less controlling as they may not feel the need to jump in and give children the answer before children start to struggle, which may be when parents worry the most about their effectiveness. Instead, parents may be more autonomy‐supportive in that they allow children to try and solve problems on their own, providing scaffolding as needed, which may be complex and thus require confidence on the part of parents. Although the link between parents’ self‐efficacy in supporting children’s learning and the quality of their involvement has not been examined, the tendency for math anxious parents to experience more negative affect in helping with children’s math homework (DiStefano et al., 2020 ) is suggestive of such a link. Parents’ self‐efficacy may be particularly important in the homework (vs. activity) context given that it may be more challenging for parents as it may be characterized by greater pressure and difficulty.

Qualitative aspects of parents’ involvement in children’s learning appear to be important to the development of children’s motivation and achievement (for a review, see Pomerantz et al., 2012 ). In terms of math, when parents are affectively negative (vs. positive) in their interactions with children around math, they may not only transmit their negative affect to children, but also lead children to conclude math is not enjoyable and they lack the necessary abilities, which in turn may cause children to avoid challenging math, thereby undermining their math learning (e.g., Nolen‐Hoeksema et al., 1995 ; Pomerantz et al., 2005 ). Parents’ controlling (vs. autonomy‐supportive) involvement in math may dampen children’s feelings of autonomy and competence in this area, and thus their motivation and achievement in math (e.g., Grolnick & Ryan, 1989 ; Ng et al., 2004 ). The large body of research on qualitative aspects of parents’ involvement in children’s learning in general is in line with these ideas. For example, in the homework context, parents’ affectively negative (vs. positive) and controlling (vs. autonomy‐supportive) involvement predict dampened motivation and achievement over time among elementary and middle school children (e.g., Dumont et al., 2014 ; Pomerantz et al., 2005 ).

When it comes to parents’ involvement in children’s math activities, however, the picture may be more complex. Research on children prior to elementary school yields inconsistent results: Parents’ involvement in math activities sometimes has positive effects (e.g., Kleemans et al., 2012 ; Niklas & Schneider, 2014 ) but sometimes has no effects (e.g., DeFlorio & Beliakoff, 2015 ; Missall et al., 2015 ). This has led to the idea that the effects of such involvement depend in part on the extent to which activities support the development of relevant cognitive skills (e.g., LeFevre et al., 2009 ). For example, McCormick et al. ( 2020 ) found that parents’ involvement in math activities entailing unconstrained skills (i.e., limitless and acquired via varied experience rather than direct teaching), but not constrained skills (i.e., with a ceiling and acquired via direct teaching), were associated with children’s enhanced math achievement. Given the importance of relevant cognitive skills, qualitative aspects of parents’ involvement considered important in motivational models may only make a difference if the activities in which parents are involved support such skills, which homework may often do naturally as it is intended to allow children to practice skills relevant to what they are learning in school.

To provide insight into parents’ involvement in children’s math homework and activities during early elementary school, we investigated three key issues in the current research. First, we compared the qualitative aspects of parents’ involvement in children’s math homework and activities. Second, we examined whether parents’ feelings of efficacy in helping children with math serve as a resource that optimizes the qualitative aspects of their involvement in the math homework and activity contexts. Third, we evaluated whether the qualitative aspects of parents’ involvement in these two contexts contribute to children’s math motivation and achievement. In examining these issues, we studied children in the early elementary school years (i.e., first and second grades) and their parents. At this time, math homework is often assigned on a regular basis and parents are more involved than in later years of schooling (Snyder et al., 2019 ). In addition, math activities started prior to children entering school may continue. The qualitative aspects of parents’ involvement in these early elementary school years may also be important in establishing the foundation for children’s later math motivation and achievement.

To examine parents’ involvement in the math homework and activity contexts, we used a 12‐day daily report to capture parents’ involvement in their ongoing day‐to‐day interactions with children in these two contexts. Most research on parents’ involvement in children’s learning has used retrospective reports in which parents provide information on the frequency or intensity of their practices in general (for some exceptions, see Pomerantz et al., 2005 ; Silinskas et al., 2015 ). Daily reports have some of the same drawbacks as retrospective reports (e.g., parents’ responses may be influenced by social desirability concerns) but provide more reliable and valid assessments (Bolger et al., 2003 ). For example, when asked at the end of the day about that day (vs. what they typically do), parents may be more likely to remember their interactions with children, thereby reporting accurately. In addition, daily reports allow for a more naturalistic assessment of parents’ practices in which time and energy constraints may interfere with acting in accordance with beliefs. In the current research, the use of daily reports provided the opportunity to capture not only the qualitative aspects of parents’ involvement in the math homework and activity contexts but also the frequency of their involvement in these contexts.

Parents’ daily reports were embedded in a longitudinal study. Parents completed the daily reports and reported on their feelings of efficacy in supporting children’s math learning when children were in first or second grade. At this time and a year later, two aspects of children’s math motivation were assessed. First, children reported on their math liking, an element of intrinsic motivation (Deci & Ryan, 1985 ) predictive of children’s math achievement over time during elementary school (e.g., Aunola et al., 2006 ). Second, an assessment was made of children’s preference for challenging math which is also predictive of children’s math achievement over time during elementary school (Sulik et al., 2020 ). In addition, children’s math achievement was also assessed at both time points. The inclusion of these measures at the time parents completed the daily checklist and a year later allowed the analyses to account for autoregression in predicting children’s math motivation and achievement over time from parents’ daily math involvement.

Given that the math homework context may be characterized by more pressure and difficulty than the math activity context, the first hypothesis was that parents’ involvement would be more controlling (vs. autonomy‐supportive) and more affectively negative (vs. positive) in the homework (vs. activity) context. To capture the broader landscape of the qualitative aspects of parents’ involvement in these two contexts, we also examined the frequency of children’s engagement in math homework and activities and parents’ involvement in these two math learning contexts. Our second hypothesis was that the more efficacious parents felt about helping children with math, the more involved they would be as in prior research (Keating et al., 2021 ; O’Sullivan et al., 2014 ) and the more their involvement would be autonomy‐supportive (vs. controlling) and affectively positive (vs. negative). The possibility that feelings of efficacy may be a more important resource in the more pressured and difficult context of math homework (vs. activities) was also explored. The third hypothesis was that as in research on parents’ involvement in children’s learning in general (for a review, see Pomerantz et al., 2012 ), the more autonomy‐supportive (vs. controlling) and affectively positive (vs. negative) parents’ involvement, the better children’s math motivation and achievement over time. These effects, however, may be stronger in the homework than activity context because homework may be more likely to support relevant cognitive skills. On the continuum of exploratory to confirmatory, these hypotheses lie somewhere in the middle in that they are based on prior theory and research to a large extent, but at the same time, most of the specific issues addressed by the hypotheses have not been directly studied in prior work.

Participants

Participants were 483 children (50% girls) and one of their primary caregivers who were part of the Early Math Learning Project, which was carried out between 2015 and 2020 in the Midwest in a small urban area and surrounding areas, as well as a mid‐sized urban area. Participating primary caregivers ( M age  = 38.17 years, SD  = 6.59) were predominantly mothers (80%), with 17% being fathers, and 3% being other caretakers (e.g., grandmothers). Given that 97% of participating primary caregivers were mothers or fathers, we use the term “parents” throughout for simplicity. The majority (67%) of parents were white; 17% were Black, 8% were Asian, 5% were Latinx, and 4% were another ethnicity or more than one ethnicity. Parents’ highest level of educational attainment ranged from less than a college degree (29%) to an advanced graduate degree (38%). At the start of the project, children ( M age  = 7.47 years, SD  = 0.65) were in either first (55%) or second (45%) grade.

The sample on which this report is based is part of a larger sample of 614 parent‐child dyads who started the project 1–3 months prior to what is described here as Wave 1. Among the original sample, only dyads in which parents completed at least 1 day of the daily report over the 12‐day period were included in the sample described above. Parents who completed the daily report were more educated, t (609) = 5.09, p  < .001, and more likely to be white, χ 2 (11, N  = 615) = 71.43, p  < .001, than were parents who did not do so. Children of parents completing the daily report also scored higher on the math achievement test administered at the initial visit, t (614) = 6.87, p  < .001.

Approximately 2 months after making the initial visit to the laboratory, parents received an online survey link every day for 12 days starting on a Monday. Each day, they reported on children’s engagement in math homework and activities along with their involvement in the homework and activities. Within approximately a month, parents and children visited the laboratory (Wave 1) for an assessment of parent’s efficacy in helping and children’s math motivation and achievement. Approximately a year later, parents and children visited the laboratory again (Wave 2) to complete assessments identical to those at the Wave 1 laboratory visit. At the initial visit (i.e., prior to Wave 1), half of the parents received math growth mindset information and half received math Common Core information. In each of these conditions, parents were either given math or non‐math activities to take home to do with children. Analyses including these experimental conditions as covariates yielded findings practically identical in size and significance to those reported in the Results section.

As a token of appreciation for their time and energy, parents received $55 for the Wave 1 visit and $95 for the Wave 2 visit; children received a small prize (e.g., rubber animal or eraser) at each visit. Among the parents who completed the daily reports, 89% completed both laboratory visits with their children. Although parents who completed both laboratory visits did not differ from parents completing only one visit, their children were more likely to be boys, χ 2 (1, N  = 483) = 5.14, p  < .05, in second grade, χ 2 (1, N  = 483) = 10.75, p  < .01, and score lower on the math achievement test administered at the initial visit (i.e., before Wave 1), t (480) = 2.67, p  < .01. The procedures used in this project were approved by the University of Illinois Institutional Review Board (Protocol: The Early Math Learning Project, #16575).

The means, standard deviations, and internal reliabilities for the parent and child measures are presented in Table ​ Table1; 1 ; the correlations are presented in Table ​ Table2 2 .

Descriptives for parent and child measures

The indexes for the frequency of child engagement can be interpreted as the proportion of days for which parents completed the daily reports in which children were engaged in the learning context. The indexes for the frequency of parent involvement can be interpreted as the proportion of days for which children engaged in the learning context in which parents were involved.

Correlations among Wave 1 variables

The correlations in the lower triangle are for the summary indexes (i.e., across days parents completed the daily reports or children were engaged in the context) for the math homework context measures; the correlations in the upper triangle are for the summary indexes for the math activity context measures. For child gender, −1 = boys and 1 = girls; for child grade, −1 = first grade and 1 = second grade; for parent gender, −1 = fathers, 1 = mothers; for parents’ education, −1 = less than a bachelor's degree, 0 = a bachelor's degree or equivalent, and 1 = an advanced graduate degree.

Parent daily assessments

Almost all parents completed the daily reports via an electronic device (e.g., smartphone, tablet, or computer), with a few doing so over the phone with a trained research assistant asking each question and recording parents’ responses. On average, parents completed the daily report for 9.26 days ( SD  = 3.34), with 36% completing the report for all 12 days and 5% completing it for only 1 day (for information on the samples for the different daily measures, see Figure S1 ).

Frequency of child math engagement

Each day of the daily report, parents indicated whether children had math homework (0 =  no homework , 1 =  homework ) and then if they engaged in any other math activities (0 =  no activity , 1 =  activity ) with examples of such activities (i.e., telling time, measuring things around the house, measuring while cooking, math flashcards, math board or card games, or math computer games) provided. If parents indicated children engaged in math activities, they were asked to indicate what kind of activities from a list provided (for the activities and their frequency, see Table S1 ). Seventy‐seven percent of parents indicated children had homework on at least 1 day (range = 0–10 days) during the 12‐day period; 73% indicated children did a math activity on at least 1 day (range = 0–10 days). Slightly over half (57%) of parents reported engagement in both math homework and activities at least once over the 12‐day period. We calculated summary indexes of the frequency of children's math homework engagement and math activity engagement by taking the means for each math context across the days for which parents completed the daily checklist, which given the zero‐ versus one‐coding may be interpreted as the proportion of days for which parents completed the daily reports that children were engaged in the math learning contexts.

Frequency of parent math involvement

If parents indicated children engaged in math homework or activities, they were then asked if they interacted with children around the homework or activities (0 =  not involved , 1 =  involved ). Among families in which children had math homework, 95% of parents said they were involved on at least 1 day (range = 0–9 days); among families in which children had math activities, 94% of parents indicated they were involved on at least 1 day (range = 0–10 days). We calculated summary indexes of the frequency of parent’s math homework involvement and activity involvement by taking the mean of each type of involvement across the days, children were engaged in the math context, which given the zero‐ versus one‐coding may be interpreted as the proportion of days children were engaged in the math learning context that parents were involved.

Qualitative aspects of parent math involvement

On days parents were involved in children’s math homework or activities, they reported on the qualitative aspects of their involvement in the context. The scales for each aspect were kept brief to maintain parents’ participation throughout the full 12 days of the daily report. Parents’ autonomy ‐ supportive (e.g., “I permitted or encouraged my child to try to figure out how to solve problems on his/her math homework [activity] in his/her own way.”) and controlling (e.g., “I insisted my child do things my way when it came to doing his/her math homework [activity].”) involvement were each assessed with two items adapted from Cheung et al. ( 2016 ) scales of these types of parenting in the academic context which were based on more general measures of autonomy‐supportive and controlling parenting (e.g., Barber, 1996 ; Steinberg et al., 1992 ; Wang et al., 2007 ). For both autonomy‐supportive and controlling involvement, parents indicated on a 5‐point Likert scale the extent (1 =  not at all true , 5 =  very true ) to which they used it in the context that day. Autonomy support and control appear to represent separate, albeit related, dimensions of the quality of parents’ involvement as they tend to be only modestly inversely correlated (e.g., Cheung & Pomerantz, 2011 ; Silk et al., 2003 ) as was the case in the current research ( r s = −.23 for homework and −.11 for activities, p s < .05). Thus, the mean of the two items comprising the scale for each type of involvement was taken for each math context for each day, such that higher scores indicate parents were more autonomy‐supportive or controlling in the context for that day. A summary index was created by taking the mean across the days for which parents were involved.

Building on Pomerantz et al.’s ( 2005 ) and Silinskas et al.’s ( 2015 ) measures, we assessed parents’ affectively positive and negative involvement in math homework and activities. For each context, affectively positive involvement was assessed with two items (i.e., happy and content) as was affectively negative involvement (i.e., irritated and anxious). Parents indicated on a 5‐point Likert scale how much they experienced each emotion (1 =  did not feel this way at all , 5 =  very much felt this way ) while interacting with children in the context that day. Parents’ affectively positive and negative involvement appear to represent distinct, albeit related, dimensions of parents’ involvement as they are only modestly inversely correlated (e.g., Pomerantz et al., 2005 ; Silinskas et al., 2015 ) as was the case in the current research ( r s = −.42 for homework and −.21 for activities, p s < .01). Thus, the mean of the two items for each type of involvement was taken for each math context for each day, such that higher scores reflect more affectively positive or negative involvement in the context for that day. A summary index was created by taking the mean across the days for which parents were involved.

Parent self‐efficacy in helping with math

Parents’ feelings of efficacy in helping children with math were assessed by adapting Hoover‐Dempsey and Sandler’s ( 1997 ) self‐efficacy for helping children succeed at school to the math arena. Parents indicated on a 10‐point Likert scale the extent to which six items about their feelings of efficacy in helping children with math (e.g., “I feel confident in my ability to help my child develop his/her math skills.” “I know how to help my child do well in math.”) were true of them (1 =  not at all true , 10 =  very true ). Four of these overlapped with the four items comprising O’Sullivan et al.’s ( 2014 ) adaptation of Hoover‐Dempsey and Sandler’s ( 1995 ) scale to the math arena. The mean of the six items was taken, with higher numbers reflecting greater feelings of efficacy.

Child math motivation and achievement

At both the Wave 1 and 2 laboratory visit, children’s math motivation and achievement were assessed.

Math liking

Children’s math liking was assessed with three items. One item (“How much do you like doing math?”) has been used in prior measures of math liking with elementary school children (e.g., Aunola et al., 2006 ; Eccles et al., 1993 ); two similar items (e.g., “How much do you enjoy doing math?”) were created for the current research. Children responded to each using a 5‐point Likert scale with five circles that became larger from left to right. A trained research assistant explained to children that the smallest circle meant not at all with the next circle being a little true , the third being somewhat true , the fourth being pretty much true , and the largest being a lot true . Children went through an example (i.e., “I think vanilla is better than chocolate ice cream.”) with the research assistant before using the scale for their math liking. The mean of the three items was taken, with higher numbers reflecting more math liking.

Math challenge preference

We adapted Yeager et al.’s ( 2016 ) Make‐a‐Math‐Worksheet measure of challenge preference for college students to be used with the young children in the current study. Children were told they would be working on a math worksheet they would make themselves by choosing the problems to be included on it. There were four types of math problems (i.e., addition, subtraction, time, and coins). For each type, children chose three problems from a set of three easy and three hard problems. The worksheet had three empty boxes for each type (e.g., addition) of problem. Children placed a laminated square, which was labeled with words and colors (i.e., “easy” squares were blue and “hard” squares were yellow) as well as verbally by the research assistant, in each box. For each type of problem, children could choose from zero to three hard problems, with the remaining being easy problems. A preference for challenge index was created by calculating the proportion of hard problems out of the total of 12 problems, with higher numbers indicating a greater preference for difficult (vs. easy) math.

Child math achievement

Children’s math achievement was assessed with the Applied Problems subtest of the Woodcock–Johnson III Tests of Achievement (Woodcock et al., 2001 ). This test assesses the application of math knowledge, calculation skills, and quantitative reasoning. The raw scores were transformed into Rasch‐scaled scores with equal intervals yielding W scores, which are recommended as they take into account children’s grade in school and are suitable for examining individual growth over time (Woodcock et al., 2001 ).

We conducted three central sets of analyses. First, we used multilevel modeling (MLM) to compare the qualitative aspects of parents’ involvement in the math homework and activity context. To elucidate the broader landscape of parents’ involvement we also examined the frequency of children’s engagement and parent’s involvement in the two contexts with MLM. Second, we used MLM to investigate the link between parents’ self‐efficacy in helping with math and parents’ involvement in the math homework and activity contexts. Third, we used multiple regression to identify if the qualitative aspects of parents’ involvement contribute to children’s math motivation and achievement over time.

Comparison of the math homework and activity context

The first set of analyses focused on whether the qualitative aspects of parents’ involvement in math homework and activities differ. To capture the broader landscape, we also examined the frequency of children’s engagement and parents’ involvement in both contexts. We took a multilevel analytic approach as it allows for the examination of individual‐level differences (i.e., between math homework and activities) without violating assumptions of independence given the nested structure of the data (i.e., two learning contexts nested within multiple days nested within families). Such an analytic approach is unbiased in the presence of an unequal number of events, which is important in the current research given the variation in not only the number of days parents completed the daily reports, but also the number of days children were engaged and parents were involved in math homework and activities. In estimating the intercepts, this approach includes families who engaged at least one type of math learning context at least once over the 12 days; in estimating the context slopes, this approach includes families who engaged in both types at least once over the 12 days (for the MLM equations and information on the sample sizes for each daily report variable, see Supporting Information ). The MLMs were conducted using the lme4 (v. 1.1‐7; Bates et al., 2014 ) package in R (v 3.6.1). Degrees of freedom was computed using the Satterthwaite ( 1946 ) method.

Logistic MLM was carried out on the frequency of children’s engagement and parents’ involvement, which were both dichotomous (0 =  no occurrence , 1 =  occurrence ) at the daily level. We began with unconditional models in which children’s engagement, for example, was predicted from the math learning context (−1 =  homework , 1 =  activity ) at Level 1 nested within days (Level 2) nested within families (Level 3). As shown in Table ​ Table3, 3 , there was not an effect of the math learning context on the frequency of children’s engagement, Wald‐ z  = −1.23, p  = .22, or parents’ involvement, Wald‐ z  = −0.48, p  = .63. Children were engaged in math homework to the same extent as math activities. Parents reported children as engaged in math homework and activities about a quarter of the time they completed the daily reports; once children were engaged, parents were involved on average slightly over 80% of the time in each of the two contexts (see Table ​ Table1). 1 ). There was variability in the effect of context between dyads for both children’s engagement, σ  = .14, and parents’ involvement, σ  = .11.

Logistic multilinear models predicting the frequency of child engagement and parent involvement at Wave 1

The unconditional models include 18 dyads for child engagement and 16 dyads for parent involvement not included in the conditional models because these dyads were missing at least one of the variables necessary for the conditional model. The effect sizes (Cohen’s d s) were calculated following Westfall et al.’s ( 2014 ) guidelines using the EMAtools (Kleiman, 2017 ) package in R (v 3.6.1). For parents’ education, −1 = less than a bachelor’s degree or less, 0 = a bachelor’s degree or equivalent, and 1 = an advanced graduate degree; for parent gender, −1 = fathers, 1 = mothers; for child gender, −1 = boys and 1 = girls; for child grade, −1 = first grade and 1 = second grade, for context, −1 = homework and 1 = activity.

Comparisons of the qualitative aspects of parents’ involvement in the homework and activity contexts were made with linear MLM given that such aspects were continuous (e.g., 1 =  not at all true , 5 =  very true ). Similar to the logistic MLMs, each qualitative aspect (i.e., autonomy support, control, positive affect, and negative affect) was predicted from the math learning context at Level 1 nested within days (Level 2) nested within families (Level 3). Surprisingly, as shown in the unconditional models in Table ​ Table4, 4 , parents’ autonomy support was higher for children’s math homework than activities, t (941) = −2.33, p  < .05, but their control did not differ in the two contexts, t (839) = 0.34, p  = .73. As anticipated, parents were less affectively positive and more affectively negative when involved in children’s math homework than activities, | t |(877)s > 3.71, p s < .001. For all four types of involvement, there was at least some variability in the effect of context, with control having the least variability, σ  = .08, autonomy support, σ  = .11, and negative affect, σ  = .13, having slightly more variability, and positive affect, σ  = .22, having the most variability.

Multilinear models predicting the qualitative aspects of parent involvement at Wave 1

The unconditional model includes 15 dyads not included in the conditional model because these dyads were missing at least one of the variables necessary for the conditional model. The effect sizes (Cohen’s d s) were calculated followed Westfall et al. ( 2014 )’s suggestion using EMAtools (Kleiman, 2017 ) package in R (v 3.6.1). For parents’ education, −1 = less than a bachelor’s degree, 0 = a bachelor’s degree or equivalent, and 1 = an advanced graduate degree; for parent gender, −1 = fathers, 1 = mothers; for child gender, −1 = boys and 1 = girls; for child grade, −1 = first grade and 1 = second grade, for context, −1 = homework and 1 = activity.

Examination of associations with parents’ self‐efficacy

To examine if parents’ feelings of efficacy in helping children with math have the potential to serve as a resource for parents in their involvement in children’s math learning, we added to the unconditional models reported above, parent’s self‐efficacy as a grand‐centered predictor at the family level (Level 3) of both the intercept and the context slope. We also included four potential demographic confounds at the family level in predicting the intercept and slope: (1) parents’ educational attainment, (2) parents’ gender, (3) children’s gender, and (4) children’s grade in school. Because 14 parents were missing the self‐efficacy measures and four were missing educational attainment information, this conditional model was based on a slightly smaller sample, which was used in nested comparisons of the conditional and unconditional models. These comparisons indicated that the conditional models provided a better fit, Δ χ 2 s(10) > 21.91, p s < .01. To ensure this reflected the specific contribution of parents’ self‐efficacy in helping and not the demographic covariates, we conducted nested comparisons of models with and without parents’ self‐efficacy. Results indicated that the inclusion of parents’ self‐efficacy significantly improved model fit in comparison to the models with only the demographic covariates, Δ χ 2 s(2) > 8.72, p s < .05, suggesting that parents’ self‐efficacy is important in understanding variation in children’s engagement and parents’ involvement.

As shown in Table ​ Table3, 3 , the more parents felt efficacious in helping children with math, the more children engaged in math homework and activities, Wald‐ z  = 3.79, p  < .001, and the more parents themselves were involved in t contexts, Wald‐ z  = 2.72, p  < .01. Parents’ feelings of efficacy were also predictive of more constructive involvement in that the more efficacious parents felt, the more they were autonomy‐supportive and affectively positive and the less they were controlling and affectively negative (see Table ​ Table4), 4 ), | t| s > 3.56, p s < .001. Notably, these effects of parents’ self‐efficacy were evident over and above the demographic covariates, which were also predictive on their own in three cases: (1) parents were more involved with children in first than second grade, Wald‐ z  = −2.91, p  < .01, (2) more educated parents were less controlling, t (312) = −2.36, p  < .05, and less affectively positive, t (417) = −3.41, p  < .001, and (3) parents were more autonomy‐supportive with girls than boys, t (381) = 2.37, p  < .05.

Although the effects of parents’ self‐efficacy in helping on the frequency of children’s engagement and parents’ involvement did not vary with the learning context, |Wald‐ z |s < 0.54, p s > .59, its effects on the qualitative aspects of parents’ involvement did (see Table ​ Table4). 4 ). Indeed, the effect of parents’ self‐efficacy on parents’ positive and negative affect varied by context, | t |s > 2.44, p s < .05: As shown in Figure ​ Figure1, 1 , decomposition of the effects of parents’ self‐efficacy on the context slope for positive and negative affect indicated that although parents’ self‐efficacy in helping predicted more positive and less negative affect in both the homework ( β s = .34 for positive affect and −.23 for negative affect, p s < .01) and activity ( β s = .24 for positive affect and −.15 for negative affect, p s < .01) contexts, these trends were stronger in the homework context. The effect of parents’ self‐efficacy on parents’ autonomy support did not vary by context, t (1109) = 0.85, p  = .40, but the effect on their control did, t (1019) = −2.55, p  < .05. Although self‐efficacious parents used less control in both the homework ( β  = −.06, p  < .05) and activity ( β  = −.14, p  < .01) contexts, this trend was stronger in the activity context.

Interaction between parent efficacy in helping and the math learning context in predicting parent positive and negative affect at Wave 1. Note : Parent efficacy in helping was standardized across participants, such that −1 is 1  SD below the mean, 0 is the mean, and 1 is 1  SD above the mean

There were several effects of the demographic covariates on the learning context slopes for children’s engagement (see Table ​ Table3). 3 ). The effects of parents’ educational attainment, child gender, and child grade on the frequency of child engagement varied by context, | t |s > 2.75, p s < .01: The higher parents’ educational attainment, the less often children engaged in math homework ( β  = −.18, p  < .01), and the more often they engaged in math activities ( β  = .25, p  < .001), such that math homework was more common than math activities in families where the participating parent had a college degree or less ( β s < −.08, p  < .05), but in families where parents had a more advanced degree, math homework was less common than math activities ( β  = .13, p  < .001). Children in first grade engaged in math homework less often than did their counterparts in second grade ( β  = .11, p  < .05), but the reverse was true for activities ( β  = −.22, p  < .001), such that first graders engaged in less homework than activities ( β  = .10, p  < .01), whereas second graders engaged in more homework than activities ( β  = −.23, p  < .001). Girls and boys were equally engaged in math homework ( β  = .02, p  = .60), but girls (vs. boys) engaged in fewer math activities ( β  = −.12, p  < .05), with girls engaging in more homework than activities ( β  = −.12, p  < .01) and boys engaging equally in the two ( β  = .02, p  = .54).

There were also effects of the demographic variables on the learning context slope for the qualitative aspects of parents’ involvement. The effect of parents’ educational attainment on their autonomy support varied by context, t (960) = −2.97, p  < .01. The more educated parents were, the less autonomy‐supportive they were in the math activities ( β  = −.09, p  < .05), but not homework ( β  = .02, p  = .50) context, such that parents’ autonomy support did not differ in the two contexts among parents with a college degree or less (| β| s < .04, p s > .17), but was higher in the homework than activity context for parents with a more advanced degree ( β  = −.08, p  < .001). Mothers’ and fathers’ positive affect varied by context, t (665) = 4.02, p  < .001. Mothers ( β  = .15, p  < .001), but not fathers ( β  = −.02, p  = .60), had more positive affect in the activity than homework context such that in the activity context mothers (vs. fathers) had more positive affect ( β  = .10, p  < .05), but there was no difference between the two in the homework context ( β  = −.07, p  = .13).

Predicting children’s math motivation and achievement

To examine whether the quality of parents’ involvement contributes to children’s math motivation and achievement, we conducted multiple regression analyses using the lavaan package (Rosseel, 2012 ) in R (v 3.1.2) to handle missing data with the full information maximum likelihood method to reduce response bias (Duncan et al., 2006 ). Using this package, the ratio of each parameter estimate to its standard error is distributed as a z statistic. Separate multiple regression analyses were conducted for the math homework and activity contexts. Children’s math liking, challenge preference, and achievement at Wave 2 were each predicted from their math adjustment at Wave 1, parents’ educational attainment, parents’ gender, children’s gender, and children’s grade in school, along with the number of days for which parents completed the daily survey (Step 1). The frequency of children’s math engagement and parents’ involvement in the learning context at Wave 1 were added at Step 2. The four qualitative aspects of parents’ involvement (i.e., autonomy support, control, positive affect, and negative affect) at Wave 1 were included in Step 3.

As shown in Table ​ Table5, 5 , the only consistently significant predictor to emerge in terms of the qualitative aspects of parents’ involvement in children’s math learning was parents’ affectively negative involvement. The more parents’ involvement was affectively negative in the homework context, the lower children’s math liking, preference for challenge, and achievement 1 year later over and above their earlier math liking, preference for challenge, and achievement, z s < −2.71, p s < .01. Although not significant in the activity context, the effects were similar to those in the homework context, z s < −1.37, p s > .08. To optimize power and reliability, we examined parents’ involvement across the two math learning contexts. To this end, we took the mean across not only days as in the earlier analyses, but also the homework and activity contexts. Given that 90% of parents were involved in homework or activities at least once, this yielded a dataset with less missing data. Moreover, taking the mean across the two contexts allowed us to use assessments from more days yielding a more reliable predictor based on more instances. Parents’ affectively negative involvement was again the only consistent predictor of children’s math liking, preference for challenge, and achievement 1 year later over and above their earlier math adjustment (see Table ​ Table5), 5 ), z s > 2.54, p s < .05.

Multiple regressions predicting child math motivation and achievement over time

For the combined analyses, we took the mean across homework and activities. For parents’ education, −1 = less than a bachelor's degree, 0 = a bachelor's degree or equivalent, and 1 = an advanced graduate degree; for parent gender, −1 = fathers, 1 = mothers; for child gender, −1 = boys and 1 = girls; for child grade, −1 = first grade and 1 = second grade.

It is possible that the daily composites have a substantial error if parents were rarely involved over the 12‐day report period. For example, if parents were only involved once during the 12‐day period, the affective nature of their involvement may not reflect the general nature of their involvement but rather their unique state on that particular day. To ensure this was not the case, we conducted multiple regression analyses excluding the families in which parents provided fewer than two reports of each qualitative aspect of their involvement. As shown in Supporting Information (see Table S2 ), despite substantially smaller sample sizes, the results from this set of analyses for the effects of parents’ negative affect were quite similar to those reported including families with fewer than two reports of each qualitative aspect of their involvement (see Table ​ Table5). 5 ). The only exception was that the effect of parents’ negative affect in the homework context on children’s preference for challenge was no longer significant, z  = −1.89, p  = .059. These analyses did not reveal any consistent effects of the other qualitative aspects of parents’ involvement, although parents’ control in the homework context predicted less preference for math challenge among children over time, z  = −2.26, p  < .05.

Once children enter school, both math homework and activities provide a context for parents to support children’s math learning. However, relatively little is known as to whether one of these learning contexts may be more effective in fostering constructive involvement in children’s math learning among parents. The current research revealed that during early elementary school, parents’ involvement in children’s math homework tends to be affectively less positive and more negative than their involvement in children’s math activities. Notably, this tendency was mitigated to some extent when parents felt more efficacious in supporting children’s learning, such that the more efficacious parents felt the more positive and less negative their affect in both learning contexts, with this effect of feelings of efficacy being stronger in the homework (vs. activity) context. Parents’ affectively negative involvement, particularly in the homework context, was predictive over time of children’s dampened math liking, preference for challenging math, and math achievement. Taken together, these findings suggest that math homework may elicit less constructive involvement among parents than do math activities, with parents’ feelings of efficacy in helping children with math serving as a resource to optimize their involvement in both contexts, but particularly homework.

Parents’ involvement in math homework and activities

When parents feel pressure or children have difficulties with schoolwork, parents are less constructively involved in children’s learning during elementary and middle school (e.g., Grolnick et al., 2002 ; Silinskas et al., 2015 ). Because math homework may be characterized more by pressure and difficulty than math activities, it was expected that parents’ involvement would be less autonomy‐supportive (vs. controlling) and affectively positive (vs. negative) in the homework (vs. activity) context. Indeed, parents were less affectively positive and more affectively negative when they were involved in math homework than activities, with the size of this difference falling in the medium range. Interestingly, the more educated parents were the less affectively positive their involvement, regardless of the context. This could be due to the higher pressure they feel for children to do well in math. Surprisingly, although parents’ control did not differ in the two contexts, their autonomy support was higher in the math homework (vs. activity) context, with this difference falling in the small range. It is possible that because we adapted the autonomy support and control items from measures originally designed for schoolwork (Cheung et al., 2016 ), these items were less relevant to math activities, particularly for autonomy support. For example, one of the autonomy support items asked about allowing children to take the lead or solve problems on their own, which is likely more relevant to homework than activities for which there may not be problems to solve.

Although the affective quality of parents’ involvement differed in the math homework and activity context, the frequency of parents’ involvement in these two contexts was similar on average. Children’s relative engagement in the two learning contexts, however, depended on children’s grade in school. During first grade, children were more often engaged in math activities than homework; but during second grade, they were more often engaged in math homework (vs. activities). Thus, it appears that as children receive more math homework, they compensate by decreasing their engagement in math activities. This trend of greater engagement in math homework than activities is likely to continue and even widen as children get older given the increase in homework over the school years (Snyder et al., 2019 ). If this is the case, as children get older, the math learning context may be one in which parents’ involvement is affectively less positive and more negative.

Consistent with the notion that parents’ feelings of efficacy in supporting children’s learning serve as a resource in their involvement in children’s learning (Hoover‐Dempsey & Sandler, 1997 ), parents’ feelings of efficacy were associated with their more frequent involvement in children’s math learning in both the homework and activity contexts as in prior research on parents’ involvement in general (e.g., Green et al., 2007 ; Hoover‐Dempsey et al., 1992 ) and in math specifically (e.g., Keating et al., 2021 ; O’Sullivan et al., 2014 ). Extending these findings, in the current research, the more efficacious parents felt, the more autonomy‐supportive and affectively positive and the less controlling and affectively negative their involvement. These effects were not trivial in size as they fell into the medium to large range. Although this trend was evident for both math homework and activities, parents’ self‐efficacy appeared to make a bigger difference for parents’ affect in the homework context where it was more strongly associated with heightened positive and dampened negative affect among parents than in the activity context. This may reflect a tendency for parents’ self‐efficacy to be particularly helpful in regulating their affect in the face of challenge as they feel more confident that they can assist children through the difficulties they encounter.

Given that parents’ feelings of efficacy in supporting children’s math learning are linked to the qualitative aspects of their involvement in children’s math learning, such feelings may be an important target for interventions to enhance parents’ involvement. However, a better understanding of what underlies parents’ feelings of efficacy is needed. For example, do such feelings reflect parents’ confidence in supporting children’s math learning as originally argued by Hoover‐Dempsey and Sandler ( 1997 )? Or do they reflect parents’ actual or perceived math skills? It was not possible to comprehensively address this question directly in the current research as an assessment of parents’ math skills was not administered. However, parents’ educational attainment was included as a covariate in the analyses. Although positively associated with parents’ feelings of efficacy (see Table ​ Table2), 2 ), parents’ educational attainment did not account for any of the self‐efficacy effects, which may have been the case if parents’ actual math skills underlie their feelings of efficacy. Parents also reported on their competence in math (i.e., “How comfortable are you with using math?”), which was associated with parents’ feelings of efficacy ( r  = .51, p  < .01), but when added to the analyses we reported, did not account for the effects of parents’ feelings of efficacy in supporting children’s math learning. Thus, it is likely that the effects of parents’ feelings of efficacy documented here are due largely to their confidence in being able to effectively help children with math. However, in the later years of school when math is more complex, parents’ feelings of efficacy in supporting children’s math learning may only be useful if accompanied by advanced math skills.

Implications of parents’ involvement for children’s math motivation and achievement

Although prior research has examined the link between qualitative aspects of parents’ involvement in children’s math homework and children’s math motivation and achievement (e.g., Doctoroff & Arnold, 2017 ; Silinskas et al., 2015 ), this is the first study to examine qualitative aspects of parents’ involvement in both children’s math homework and activities with attention to how they predict children’s math motivation and achievement over time adjusting for a variety of potential confounds, including children’s prior math motivation and achievement. Parents’ affectively negative involvement predicted children’s dampened math liking, preference for challenging math, and math achievement a year later. These effects fell in the small range, but may accumulate over time to undermine children’s math motivation and achievement. In addition, the effects only reached significance in the homework context, although they were in the same direction in the activity context. It may be that parents’ negative affect was generally not high enough in the math activity context to undermine children’s motivation and achievement. Another possibility is that an absence of negative affect does not facilitate children’s math motivation and achievement unless parents’ involvement supports relevant cognitive abilities among children, which may generally be the case in the homework but not activity context. The inverse effect for parents’ positive affect was not evident. In fact, parents’ heightened positive affect in the homework context predicted dampened math liking. Although it is unclear how much to make of this effect given that it was not evident across the indicators of children’s motivation and achievement and was not significant in the analyses in which parents had to have at least two reports of each qualitative aspect of parents’ involvement, it is possible that parents displayed positive affect to motivate children, which children did not find genuine, and even experienced as controlling. It also may be that heightened positive affect is viewed by children as a lack of empathy on the part of parents when children are struggling, which can undermine children’s motivation (Chen et al., 2018 ).

Neither parents’ autonomy‐supportive nor controlling involvement in children’s math homework or activities predicted children’s motivation or achievement. This was surprising given that autonomy‐supportive and controlling parenting predict children’s motivation and achievement in general over time (for a review, see Pomerantz et al., 2012 ). Moreover, research with children in elementary school focusing on parents’ involvement in math homework finds a concurrent association between more controlling involvement and poorer motivation and achievement (Silinskas & Kikas, 2019a ; Silinskas et al., 2015 ). Although there were similar associations in the current research (see Table ​ Table2), 2 ), once we took into account children’s prior math adjustment and other potential confounds, the associations were no longer evident. Across the analyses, the findings for parents’ autonomy support and control were often not in line with our hypotheses or prior research. It may be that parents’ autonomy‐supportive and controlling involvement operate differently for children’s math learning than for other types of learning. For challenging learning situations like math homework and activities, adopting autonomy‐supportive practices such as encouraging children to solve difficult math problems on their own may be ineffective if it leads to too much frustration when children cannot solve the problems relatively quickly. In addition, in the math learning context, controlling parenting may include instruction and scaffolding that facilitate children’s math skill development which may balance out the negative effects of parents’ control. It is also possible that the measurement of autonomy‐supportive and controlling practices involves more instances of involvement than can be captured in the 12‐day timeframe of the daily reports used in the current research.

Limitations and future directions

Despite key methodological strengths, including the use of daily reports to assess parents’ involvement in two math learning contexts and assessment of both children’s math motivation and achievement nested with a longitudinal design, there are several limitations of the current research that merit consideration and suggest important future directions. First, although the multilevel analytic approach we used ruled out the possibility that differences in the nature of parents’ involvement in math homework and activities are due to differences between families, causal conclusions must be made with caution as differences from day to day within families may drive the differences. For example, the tendency for parents’ involvement in math homework to be more affectively negative than their involvement in math activities may not reflect the different characteristics of the two learning contexts but rather a tendency for parents to get involved in math homework, but not activities, even when they are in a bad mood as only children’s homework has a deadline and evaluation. It was also the case that the association between parents’ self‐efficacy in supporting children’s math learning and their involvement in children’s math homework and activities was concurrent. Consequently, although it appears likely that parents’ feelings of efficacy may serve as a resource for optimal involvement among parents, it is possible that the more parents engage in constructive involvement, the more they see themselves as effective in supporting children’s math learning. However, identifying the direction of effects between parents’ self‐efficacy and their involvement is challenging because parents’ self‐efficacy in helping with math may set the stage early on for their involvement, forming a stable system by the time children enter elementary school. Thus, an experimental approach manipulating parents’ self‐efficacy in helping with math to detect its influence on their involvement in children’s math learning may be fruitful (for a similar approach to identifying the causal role of parents’ beliefs, see Moorman & Pomerantz, 2010 ).

Second, the representativeness of the current sample is limited along several lines. For one, only a third of parents in the sample had less than a college degree. The sample was also comprised predominantly of white families residing in the Midwest with the majority of participating parents being mothers. Although there are similarities in parents’ involvement in children’s learning across parents’ educational attainment, race and ethnicity, and gender, there are also differences (e.g., Barger et al., 2019 ; Kim & Hill, 2015 ; Sibley & Dearing, 2014 ). This may be particularly true for math as it is often viewed as driven by natural intelligence (vs. hard work), which women and people of color may be viewed as lacking (e.g., Leslie et al., 2015 ). These kinds of views may contribute to parents’ feelings of efficacy in supporting children as well as the quality of their involvement in math learning. Interestingly, in the current research, mothers had more positive affect than did fathers in the activity, but not homework, context, suggesting that mothers’ involvement may be particularly constructive around math activities. This finding, however, should be interpreted with caution given the small number of fathers in the sample (i.e., only 20% of the sample). We also did not find ethnic or racial differences, but we had limited power to detect such differences given that the majority (i.e., 67%) of our sample was white. In addition, our analyses on parents’ involvement excluded parents who did not report being involved; thus, we cannot capture the contribution of such parents to children’s math motivation and achievement. In addition, it is possible that by excluding these parents we were not able to fully capture the qualitative aspects of parents’ involvement. For example, it may be that giving children full reign over their math homework and activities is a form of autonomy support—at least when children can handle such independence effectively.

Third, the daily reports we used to assess parents’ involvement in children’s math homework have a number of strengths, but they are susceptible to various reporting biases. For example, parents reported their involvement in a favorable light (e.g., more affectively positive than negative). Although this is in line with observations in the lab of parents’ affect when working with children on an academic activity (e.g., Else‐Quest et al., 2008 ; Moorman & Pomerantz, 2010 ), it is possible that self‐presentational biases suppress unconstructive biases in both daily reports and lab observations, which may have been one reason we did not find more effects of the quality of parents’ involvement on children’s math adjustment. Future work using a multi‐method approach to assessing parents’ involvement may lead to a more accurate portrait of their involvement in children’s math activities and homework and the predictive significance of such involvement. Although we made every effort to provide parents with a comprehensive set of examples of math activities, we may not have been comprehensive enough. For example, given that spatial abilities appear to contribute to math achievement (e.g., Ribeiro et al., 2020 ), this may have been an important type of activity to include. In addition, we did not distinguish between different types (e.g., constrained and unconstrained) of math activities in terms of their support of relevant cognitive skills (e.g., McCormick et al., 2020 ). This will be an important direction for future research, as will comparing parents’ involvement in children's math learning with their involvement in other domains of children's learning such as literacy to identify what is and is not specific to math in regard to the patterns identified in the current research.

The current research makes inroads into understanding the quality of parents’ involvement in two common math learning contexts—homework and activities—during early elementary school. The findings suggest that math homework may be a less constructive context than math activities for parents to be involved in children’s learning as parents are affectively less positive and more negative in the math homework (vs. activity) context. Importantly, parents’ negative affect, particularly in the math homework context, predicted children’s math motivation and achievement over time. Parents’ feelings of efficacy in supporting children’s math learning were linked to more constructive involvement in both math homework and activities, appearing to be particularly likely to help parents tamp down negative affect when assisting with homework (vs. activities). Thus, interventions aimed at increasing parents’ feelings of efficacy in supporting children’s math learning may be useful in optimizing parents’ contribution to children’s math motivation and achievement in early elementary school.

Supporting information

Supplementary Material

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (ECR 1561723). We thank Dr. Dan Hyde for his insightful feedback on an earlier version of the manuscript. We are also grateful to the families who participated in this research.

Wu, J. , Barger, M. M. , Oh, D. (D). , & Pomerantz, E. M. (2022). Parents’ daily involvement in children’s math homework and activities during early elementary school . Child Development , 93 , 1347–1364. 10.1111/cdev.13774 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]

Contributor Information

Jiawen Wu, Email: moc.liamg@72uwnewaij .

Eva M. Pomerantz, Email: ude.sionilli@ztnremop .

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Will I ever need math? A mathematician explains how math is everywhere – from soap bubbles to Pixar movies

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to [email protected] .

Will I ever need math besides for school or work? – Hadassah G., age 9, New Jersey

It can be easy to think that you need math only to do your algebra or geometry homework or if you have a job as an engineer. But, in fact, math pops up everywhere – even in the soap bubbles in your kitchen sink.

While washing dishes when I was 13, I noticed that the soap bubbles formed tiny 3D polygons, packed together like a honeycomb, but not all of these shapes were perfectly round. Why did some of the bubbles look like hexagons? Why were others shaped like squares full of air? Why didn’t I see any star-shaped bubbles, or bubbles with spikes?

When I learned that math could help answer these questions, I thought that was so cool! Now, as a professor of mathematics who studies how people learn math through play , I understand why bubbles are naturally lazy . I even studied the math behind the reason I saw only some shapes in soapy dishwater.

Besides helping explain the behavior of bubbles and other curiosities of nature, math is likely part of many of your everyday activities, along with the technology you enjoy and even the inner workings of your brain. Doing math isn’t just about computing, memorizing, solving an equation or doing word problems by yourself. It’s really about creative problem-solving and logical thinking with other people.

Math in everyday life

Many topics you learn in elementary school – like fractions, percentages and measurements – are useful in everyday life.

For example, if you want to build a fence around your house, paint your walls a new color or with a design , or sew yourself a new outfit or quilt , all of those activities require knowledge about measurement and scaling. More complicated construction projects, such as building a treehouse , require lots of mathematical problem-solving skills.

Once you’ve laid out the plans for one of these projects, you need to buy all the materials. Percentages – which are special kinds of fractions – are especially important to understand when managing money. Understanding percentages can help you budget your money and increase your net worth .

Beyond budgeting, you might find yourself using percentages when cooking a double batch of brownies, determining how much medicine to take when you’re sick or understanding the weather forecast .

Your favorite technology needs math

Math is an essential tool that animators use to make movies.

Studios like Pixar rely on ideas from geometry to bring characters like Ember from “Elemental” to life. With an understanding of geometric transformations like reflections, rotations and translations, you can use your computer to make your own animations.

Coordinate systems, which are fundamental to geometry, show up in video games like Minecraft. The 2D Minecraft world uses a 2D coordinate system – with an x-axis and a y-axis – where you can move north, south, east or west. In the 3D Minecraft world, there’s also a z-axis, allowing you to move up and down. Middle and high school teachers can even use Minecraft to help students learn math concepts.

Many high-paying jobs use math , especially probability – again, fractions. Understanding probability helps doctors identify how effective medical treatments are, informs coaches about ways their teams can improve and aids cryptographers in keeping private information – like your email password or ATM PIN – secret. Cryptography combines probability with number theory to create secret codes that are difficult to crack.