Tips to Make Homeschooling Math Less Stressful
If math is a pressure point for your homeschool middle or high school student, you’re not alone! Math anxiety affects lots of kids, but with patience and persistence, you can help your student become math-confident.
When more than half of college students say that math stresses them out, what can you do to help your student shake math anxiety?
Make individual problems the focus.
Researchers in a 2011 study found that math-anxious kids performed almost as well (83 percent correct answers) as kids who didn’t worry about math (88 percent correct answers) when their concentration kicked in. By really focusing on one problem at a time, kids were able to work with less anxiety. Try practice worksheets with fewer problems on the page, or have students copy each new problem into a clean notebook page to isolate it.
Don’t assume it will just go away.
Math anxiety is like any other phobia and should be addressed accordingly, says Kaustubh Supekar, a researcher at Stanford University who has studied math anxiety in elementary and middle school students. Some students may need help learning to regulate their emotions more effectively in general before they can apply that skill to conquering math anxiety. If your student is anxious about math, pay attention to other places where they may feel anxious. It might not actually be about the math.
Find a good tutor.
According to Supekar, cognitive skill-building is one of the most effective ways to reduce math anxiety. Not only does it help kids solve math problems more successfully, it also lowers overall math anxiety levels over time, as students get more confident in their abilities. If you know how to get the right answer but don’t know how to explain what goes into getting the write answer, a tutor can help bridge that gap for your student.
Don’t share your own anxiety.
Plenty of homeschool parents stress about math, too, but math-anxious parents and teachers tend to pass their anxiety on to their kids, found researchers at the University of Chicago. If your child’s math has reached the point where you can’t comfortably solve problems with him, consider outsourcing your math classes — or sign up for a math class yourself to finally beat your own math anxiety.
DO YOU HAVE MATH ANXIETY?
Indicate your anxiety level in the following situations:
[1] not anxious at all, [2] a bit anxious, [3] somewhat anxious, [4] definitely anxious, or [5] extremely anxious. If you have more than five [4] and [5] answers, you may have math anxiety.
How anxious would you feel:
If you were given a set of arithmetic problems involving fractions?
Figuring out the tax on a purchase?
Standing in the supermarket line and trying to figure out if the total makes sense?
Splitting the check with friends at a restaurant?
Interpreting mathematical information in a news story?
Calculating the amount of money you save when buying something on sale?
Figuring out how much eight gallons of gas will cost at $2.66 a gallon?
Learning a new math skill?
Opening a math workbook?
Explaining how to solve a math problem?