Author: The Dropkick Math Team

How to Speak with Your Child about Their Progress Report

How to Speak with Your Child about Their Progress Report

Report Card Cartoon

Chances are, your child will be bringing home a progress report over the next couple of weeks. This will be the first time for your child’s teacher to let you know where they see your child’s development regarding the standards set by the Ministry of Ontario. Usually, it gives you an idea of where your child is and what areas they need to work on as they work toward some actual marks in February.

When the progress reports are distributed, there are some common questions that parents often have about them such as:

  • What does this Progress Report mean? 
  • How does it help me better understand where my child is at? 
  • How do I talk to my child about it, so they also understand where they are at?

First, let’s look at what this Progress Report is and what it intends to do.

There are two main versions of the Elementary Progress Report Card:

  • Grades 1 to 6
  • Grades 7 and 8

All versions of the Elementary Progress Report Card are intended to show a student’s development of learning skills and work habits during the fall of the school year. Their general progress in working towards the achievement of the curriculum expectations in all subjects are also explained.

Three Options

The three options on the report card are “Progressing Well”, “Progressing Very Well” and “Progressing With Difficulty.”

“Progressing Very Well” means that students are meeting learning goals that are set by the teacher.

“Progressing Well” means that students are working toward meeting the learning goals that are set by the teacher

“Progressing With Difficulty” means that students are not moving toward meeting the learning goals set by the teacher.

You will see a lot of “Progressing Well” as it is a very general statement. Any child that is learning and working toward learning goals in the classroom will fit under this umbrella. This year, with the effects of COVID-19, teachers have been instructed to make the umbrella even larger, so even if children show gaps in their learning, but are still working toward learning in class, then they are still housed under the umbrella “Progressing Well”

“The Progressing With Difficulty” statement means that this student in this subject is still not making much progress in their learning. It is a red flag and should be addressed so that all involved can develop a plan to help improve your child’s education.

So, now that you have this information, what do you do with it, and how do you approach it with your child?

Generate a Conversation

It starts with generating a conversation with your child and addressing, without judgement, how they feel about the designation they received. Start by asking them about what each progressing statement means to them, then ask which ones they feel good about and why. This starts the conversation and gets your child focused on what they did well and what they feel good about.

Engaging with your child in this way can open the door to a discussion in what areas they feel they can improve. It is essential to word it in a way that emphasizes this is an area that they can improve on or that they still have learning to do here. This helps them to think about what they can improve on, not what they failed at. It helps to build a growth mindset in your child and get them to look at problems as solvable rather than hopeless.

Talking about your child’s learning progression is essential in opening up and sharing their feelings about school with you. The more they talk, the more trust is built between you and your child. The hardest part is to focus on the task and listen.

Listen to their thoughts and continue to ask questions. Be open and transparent, share your feelings with them and make sure they have a say in solutions and directions you want to take.

If your child appears to be struggling, it may be helpful to have a conversation with your child’s teacher. A parent-teacher conference can help clarify your child’s academic performance and overall experience at school. This will help you gain more information and build on the progressing statement that doesn’t offer many specifics.

Schedule a Parent-Teacher Conference

By getting past the structured responses on the progress report cards, you can learn more about your child and their learning progress. In a one-on-one conversation, teachers can give more detailed information about your child and offer suggestions on how they can improve in any areas that may be falling behind.

This meeting can also be used as a way for the teacher to understand your child better. Think about how you can describe your child to them to help them connect on a more personal level with your child. Let them know about your child’s favourite subjects, their special interests, hobbies, medical conditions, family situations, and any problems that could affect their learning, attendance, or behaviour.

A Missed Opportunity

Unfortunately, many parents glance at a progress report when it is brought home from school and don’t take much notice. But, this can be a significant time to focus on the child and offer them support in any areas they may be falling behind in. Addressing any issues early on will make it much easier for them to catch up to where they need to be by the time report cards come around.

If your child’s progress report signals that they may be falling behind in Math, the Dropkick Math team can help! At Dropkick Math, we teach students how to approach math concepts and understand their relationships to overcome problems more efficiently on their own. Our tailored programs equip students with problem-solving skills that can help them for years to come. Get started today!

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The Math Gene

The Math Gene

math genes

I have heard it time and time again……

Go ask your Mother! I don’t get math, she has the math gene in the family.

Time and time again I hear adults make similar statements, they aren’t good at math and that is due to some missing genetic code in their DNA make-up. It is an easy way to explain how some individuals are so good with numbers and some are not.

But it is not an accurate statement, and it not only continues to allow generations of people with math anxiety to hide from the problem, but it is also helping a whole new generation start to develop their own math anxiety.

To be clear, there is no math gene! It has been scientifically proven and stated. 

None at all.

But the idea helps to bring light to a darker issue, why some people are so averse to working with math that they actually actively avoid it at all costs. Adults all over the globe have started to come out of the closet with the true issue here, the fact that they suffer from math anxiety, and we are not talking about a joking aversion to numbers, but a legitimate fear of them. 

A Fear Of Math

It comes from the methods that were used to teach most of us math, the “old math” as the media has recently coined it in comparison to the “new math” that students are now learning. It is, in fact, that old math that has created this math anxiety that much of our population silently suffers with. If you look through popular movie references to math, it is repeated time and time again……as a community, many of us don’t really get math!

Many of you were taught similar to me, we learned a variety of rules and procedures in order to come up with answers to questions involving multiplication, division, and a variety of operations with fractions (you all know a rhyme for how to divide fractions). 

These rules and procedures are great for getting a correct answer on a regular basis, but where they fail is in thinking mathematically. These systems are all based on a set of rules, rules that really have nothing to do with math and more to do with a regular set of procedures in order to get an accurate answer. 

Math Algorithms

Algorithms actually were created long ago by mathematicians as a way of helping people who knew very little about math get accurate math answers. Somewhere along the way, it became how we define math, and that is why many of us admit confusion when trying to answer some algebraic question that our Gr. 8 child is having trouble with. We weren’t allowed to visually see the math and slowly work with it, we never got into the learning pit and struggled with the math itself, we were just shown the bridge that went right over the pit and told to follow these rules when multiplying fractions all the time and everything will be great.

We need to get back to just working with the math, bringing it all to a visual medium and allow our brains the time to see what is happening with each operation to make sense of it. The algorithm is a great tool, but should only be used once the meaning behind it is better understood. This way, we have an understanding of the math and what the answer actually represents as well as the set of rules that will help us get the answer regularly.

But how does this have anything to do with the math gene part?

Well, not only is there no such thing as the math gene, but research also shows that the brain is constantly looking to build new neural pathways and grow stronger connections between neurons, which also means that everyone, at any age, is able to practice and get better at working with math.

Believing In Getting Better In Math

Children need to believe that they can get better at math, because just like anything, the more you practice effectively, the better you will get at it! If your child hears that you aren’t good at math and never have been, or that someone in the family has always just been good at it, it sets the tone for them to also start believing this concept, and therefore not want to go through the struggle of math at, in the end, they don’t have a math mind, and therefore don’t, and won’t ever, get math either.

It is important to think about the messages we are sending our children, not just by what we are saying, but also by what we are doing. Everyone is able to understand math, we just have to get back to looking at things the way mathematicians look at them, starting with visual representations to develop a solid understanding, and then start working with algorithms and shortcuts that allow us to get the answer faster. 

This ability for everyone to work with and enjoy math is why DKM Homeschool Resource wants to help your family better understand how math works and rid the world of math anxieties.

Help us help you!

Let’s give math the beating it deserves.


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Why Does My Child Have Difficulty Learning Math?

Why Does My Child Have Difficulty Learning Math?

Why Does My Child Have Difficulty Learning Math?Many frustrated parents often think of this question. 

Why does my child have an issue with learning math? 

How long will it last?

Will it impact future pathways?

The issue of learning isn’t as detrimental as many of us think, it often comes down to processing speed. Processing speed is the term that refers to how quickly the brain can pick up on a concept and mimic or understand it and move on to the next one.

Processing speed varies greatly from student to student as our brains develop at individual rates. We all end up with fully developed brains, but some move at a faster pace and this can bring advantages and disadvantages for each.

Let me provide you with an example.

My partner and I both love working with math and have enjoyed it as a subject throughout public school. I have a fast processing speed and am always naturally trying to get an answer quickly and move on to the next question. My partner has a much slower processing speed, so she doesn’t try to get an answer quickly, but she does want to just think about what the answer means once she does get it.

We both get the answer, but I tend to get it, and then move on. Faster processors tend to put less thought into what the answer means and more into what’s next. It often looks like they grasp concepts quickly, when, in fact, fast processors often merely mimic the process to get an answer. I was able to quickly get the algorithm to find an answer and replicate that process over and over again, making it look like I really understood the math.

My partner has a slower processing speed as so she doesn’t speed through to get the answer as quickly, but in taking her time she also thinks about what the answer actually represents rather than merely racing through the steps toward the end. Students with this slower processing benefit from more visual systems that allow their brains to better understand what is happening with the math, allowing them to develop a deeper understanding of what is going on.

Math Processing Speed

Each processing speed has its issue in the classroom, the faster speed quickly grasps concepts, although on a shallow level that relies on mimicking a set of steps to rapidly get an answer and move on. The slower speed takes the concept and works through it slowly, wanting to understand what is happening at a deeper level so it can have a thorough understanding of what is going on and what the answer means. Each comes out of a classroom environment with learning, but also with some gaps depending on the individual. 

It is interesting to note, that historically, it is the slower processing speed that has generated the best mathematical brains. Although this slower processing speed has also generally done more poorly in the classroom environment that we work with today.

Working Through Math

Students often don’t get enough time to just sit and work through the math they learn, our curriculums have a lot in them and classrooms have a lot of information to cover in a school year. Math is particularly hard in the fact that it is one of the few subjects that is scaffolded, meaning the mastery of the material from Grade 5 is important for a student to then be able to tackle the material learned in Grade 6. Slow processors sometimes miss the time they need to just let their brain catch up with the learning and get a good hold of what is being learned.

In the end, processing speed is often confused with intelligence, but that is not the case. Research has proven that the speed at which students grasp information has no relationship to how intelligent they are. Math is no exception. People (not just children) often have similar perceptions, if they are fast with math, they think they are not as good at it.

Speed In Math Learning

Speed should never be a factor in math learning, it actually is often an early source of math anxiety in children who are slow processors and need some extra time to work through math concepts. This is an important lesson to keep in mind while teaching young learners. 

As parents, we need to make sure we allow all our participants, young and old(er) the chance to work and learn at the pace that is best for them, ensuring that all brains grasp the important concepts that are key to future math learning. 

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Where is your child’s current level of understanding?

Where is your child’s current level of understanding?

Where is your child’s current level of understanding

Caregivers of elementary school children often feel confident about their child’s current math level. However, many times children may appear to be doing well in mathematics at school, but they may not really understand the math they are working on. Simply by playing the game of school, children can follow the rules and directions, making them appear to understand, get good grades, and move onto the next unit. 

Often, a child may appear to be doing well, so parents don’t realize the opportunity they can give them by investing in extra math support now, which can give them the skills needed in the future.

Different Generations

Our generation grew up in a time when memorizing rules and procedures that result in an answer is what defined math. However, “the mathematics students need to learn today is not the same mathematics that their parents and grandparents needed to learn. When today’s students become adults, they will face new demands for mathematical proficiency that school mathematics should attempt to anticipate.” – National Research Council (2016)

Society has become increasingly globalized and interconnected; information and technology is rapidly evolving. Students of today will be expected to solve problems we can’t even anticipate yet. Due to this, basic content knowledge is no longer enough to compete in the world’s market. Students need to be well versed in complex problem solving and decision making, as those are skills computers have not yet taken away from us. So, it is no longer about following rules to get the correct answer, it is now about conceptually understanding the math well enough that it can be applied to any and all complex situations.

Surface Level of Math Knowledge

This surface level knowledge of math that students learn may work in the short term, but they will eventually encounter barriers. These usually appear in grade 10 or 11, when they are expected to be applying fundamental math concepts to increasingly complex math problems. This is typically the point where caregivers decide to invest in supplemental math support.

Well, my friends, this is too late. The gap in understanding has widened so significantly that mending the root cause of the struggle is extremely difficult while maintaining the grade-level material. So, what happens? The tutor acts as a band-aid. Helping the student get through this quiz, this test, this unit, this year but never actually creating a sustainable environment where the student will be able to act independently without the aid of a one-on-one support system.

By simply focusing on getting the student through high school math, your child will be extremely limited on not only post-secondary program choices but career choices. This is a mindset that many caregivers have that needs to be changed in order to develop a society of critical problem solvers.

Think About the Future

Getting back to the original point, if your child is only in grade 6, you may not be thinking about their career choices or post-secondary programs…

Fair enough, but you should be aware that your child is currently developing the building blocks of all math that they will be exposed to in their academic career. If your child is simply following memorized rules and procedures and does not have the conceptual understanding, they will falter in math at some point. At Dropkick Math, we can help your child better understand the Four Pillars of mathematics that can build confidence and understanding in math for years to come.  

With Dropkick Math’s programs, parents can help their children better understand the prerequisite math so they can successfully meet the curriculum requirements for their current and future grades.

Have your child take this Early Indicators Check-In to determine if there are any gaps in understanding. We will then provide you with recommended Dropkick Math programs that target the missing knowledge. This will be the key to remediating common misunderstandings that arise from students being introduced to concepts before they are ready or because the concepts are presented in a developmentally inappropriate way. Get started today on your child’s future math success!

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Why does it benefit me to learn math alongside my child?

Why does it benefit me to learn math alongside my child?

Why does it benefit me to learn math alongside my child

Being a part of your child’s learning is vital for their success. By being actively involved and setting high expectations for your child, you can help guide them towards having high values of doing well in school. 

Over three decades of research has found that student success is positively impacted by parent involvement regardless of socioeconomic status, background, or parent’s level of education.  When you learn with your child, you are setting an example while strengthening your relationship. Your child will see your confidence building in mathematics which will help build them up as well. Your attitude about learning can directly influence your child’s educational success. 

Math Anxiety

Approximately 50 percent of Americans suffer from a condition known as “math anxiety” which leaves them feeling like they “just can’t do math.” This type of anxiety can start as early as five years old and can last into adulthood. 

In the past, you may have learned math through traditional algorithms, which included “carrying,” “borrowing,” or “putting a zero.” If you didn’t understand what you were doing with this type of mathematics, you are not alone. Many knew that it was fast and efficient and got them the correct answer most of the time, but they didn’t fully understand how it worked. This led many to believe that simply following steps to get quick answers was the best way to do math. But, the reality is that it never translated well in the real world.  

Be Positive

No matter how you feel about math, and if you suffer from math anxiety, it is imperative not to talk negatively about the subject. Often when a child hears their caregiver say, “I never use math,” or “I am no good at math,” they receive the message that only certain people can do math, and that it may not be necessary for daily life. The more often children hear negative attitudes towards math, the more deep-rooted their dislike for mathematics may become. 

Being positive about math also includes showing your child how important and valuable it is in everyday life. By making it relevant to them, you are creating an interest for them to learn about it. Children learn by imitating the people around them, so try and make math an important part of experiences to help develop healthy academic skills. 

Be A Math Role Model

By learning math along with your child, you can become a role model for them. Try to talk out loud as you work your way through everyday tasks. This way, they will see you using mathematics in daily life and will begin to mimic your behaviour. Thinking aloud allows your child to hear how you think and will help them develop the essential skills needed for posing and solving problems. 

A great way to use the “thinking out loud” strategy is at the grocery store. As you fill your basket, try recording the prices in a small notebook and saying them out loud. Before you get to the register, add the prices to get a total and see how close you and your child can get to the sum once you cash out. 

You can also make use of the scales available at the grocery store to create a learning experience. Try to estimate the weight of a bag of apples and then use the scale to get an accurate measure in kilograms. This can be a great teaching moment for you to show your child the importance of understanding measurements. 

Your Child’s Education

It is a common misconception that it is difficult for parents to contribute to their child’s math education. While it is often advised to read with your child to develop their skills or play in the backyard to teach them teamwork and the importance of physical activity, math is often left out of this advice.

The Ministry of Education recently released information on “Parent Engagement,” which said:

“Parent engagement matters. Study after study has shown us that student achievement improves when parents play an active role in their children’s education, and that good schools become even better schools when parents are involved…” 

So don’t be afraid to get involved and learn math with your child! It can help them get a better grasp on mathematics and strengthen your relationship!

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How has the pandemic affected your child’s progression in mathematics?

How has the pandemic affected your child’s progression in mathematics?

How has the pandemic affected your child's progression in mathematics_ newThe pandemic has affected many aspects of life, including your child’s learning. While it is too early to pinpoint exactly how much school closures and transitions into virtual learning have affected students’ education, the evidence so far shows that many are struggling with math. 

According to research on math development and anxiety, math learning seems to be taking a bigger hit during the pandemic over other subjects. A handful of studies pulled data from millions of students participating in computer-adaptive tests to estimate students’ learning growth during school closures and how much that growth rate is likely to slow during the next few years. 

Three studies predicted that students could learn half of up to a full year less math compared to what they would have learned in a typical year. None of the research has gone far enough to find any specific skills students may have lost, such as content or foundations in math like number sense or fractions. However, these studies are helping to show the overall impact that the pandemic has had on students and their math learning. 

Why Is The Learning Loss Worse In Math?

Experts believe math may be more sensitive to pandemic-related disruptions for a few reasons, including:

  • It is often more difficult for teachers to engage in effective math instructional practices via virtual learning. 
  • Stress-related to the pandemic may worsen existing math anxiety in some students.
  • Math is almost always formally learned at school as parents are often less well-equipped to help their children with their lessons. 
Math Anxiety

Math anxiety, also known as math phobia, is a condition that leaves many people feeling like they “just can’t do math.” This type of anxiety can start as early as five years old and can last into adulthood. Unfortunately, the stress of the pandemic has exacerbated the condition in many students, leaving them with a much worse situation before school closures and virtual learning. 

The greater number of students reporting math anxiety adds to the mounting evidence that the pandemic has had an impact on academics and the broader health and well-being of students. More than 35% of parents have reported that they are extremely concerned about their child’s mental health. 

Future Prospects Threatened

The fallout from the pandemic threatens this generation’s prospects and could ultimately constrict their opportunities far into adulthood. The effects of both a decrease in learning and mental health problems may undermine their chances of attending University and ultimately finding a fulfilling career that enables them to support a family. 

Unless steps are taken now to address students’ unfinished learning from the pandemic, irreparable damage may be done. Here at DKM Homeschool Resource, we understand how important it is to help keep children on track. By utilizing educational resources, you can ensure your child stays up to date on their learning. 

 

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