The Lakes South Morang College Newsletter CURRICULUM CONNECTIONS
PARENTS ’ BELIEFS ABOUT MATHS CHANGES THEIR CHILDREN ’ S ACHIEVEMENT
GEORGE LEARNING SPECIALIST (MATHEMATICS)
Parents need to replace sympathetic messages such as “ Don ’ t worry, maths isn ’ t your thing ” with positive messages such as “ You can do this, I believe in you, maths is an open, beautiful subject that is all about effort and hard work. ”
We now know that the messages we give students can change their performance dramatically, and that students need to know that the adults in their lives believe in them. As well as the messages we give students about their potential, brain research is now showing that messages students pick up from their parents about maths and their parents ’ relationships with maths can also change students ’ maths learning and achievement. Researchers have found that when mothers told their daughters they were not good at maths in school, their daughter ’ s achievement declined almost immediately. It has also been found that parents ’ maths anxiety reduced their children ’ s learning of maths across grades 1 and 2, but only if parents helped their children on maths homework. If they did not help them on homework, the parents ’ maths anxiety did not detract from their children ’ s learning. Research does not know exactly what parents with maths anxiety say to their children but suggests that it is likely they communicate the negative messages we know to be harmful, such as “ maths is hard ” or “ I was never good at maths in school. ” It is critical that when parents interact with children about maths they communicate positive messages, saying that maths is exciting and it is an open subject that anyone can learn with hard work, that it is not about being “ smart ” or not and that maths is all around us in the world.
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