You have completed your questionnaire. Based on your responses, we crafted a customized report for you.
Keep reading to find out our recommendations for your child for reaching their main math goal, their potential for improvement and the exact reasons why they are struggling with math.Your child math understanding seems strong. Their test scores are high and they finish most or all of their homework. But their test scores aren’t consistent enough for a straight A. Too often, they stumble upon a problem on a test, that they are unsure about or have no idea how to solve. It’s always a disappointment, and it really prevents them from reaching beyond 90% overall grade.
Your child needs help covering math thoroughly, bridging the gap between the homework and tests. They are strong in math, so the goal is to cover the top 10-20% of the problems, to reach thorough and comprehensive understanding – the level needed for a straight A. They need help expanding beyond homework, when homework doesn’t cover everything or doesn’t cover the specific problems your child needs help with.
Straight A is what your child needs for their GPA, as well as to be prepared and confident for future, higher-level math classes. Perhaps they are planning on taking (or are taking) AP or Honors classes which require additional effort and more in-depth understanding.
A lot of children lack confidence in math.
Unfortunately, your child is one of them.
Fortunately, confidence is not this mysterious quality unachievable for most.
Your child can develop confidence and maintain it. It doesn’t require great math skills or special talents. But it does take consistency and methodical approach.
To become more confident, your child needs to learn methodically. Start with basic examples and truly analyze them in-depth and understand them. Only then, should they move on to more challenging ones. Instead, a lot of children do problems in random order and get frustrated when, as a result, they aren’t able to solve advanced problems. How could they, if they haven’t learned how to solve the intermediate ones?
Hence, to develop confidence, your child needs to gradually increasing the level of difficulty of the problems they solve and attempt to solve them with less and less guidance.
To be confident in their ability to solve variety of different problems, including challenging examples and special cases, your child needs to use the Rule of 3 – solve each problem type until they solve 3 consecutive problems correctly.
While applying all of these methods, your child needs to remember that making mistakes and struggling through problems is the essence of learning. It is not the reason to feel discouraged, it’s a sign that they are challenging themselves. The key point is to face problems that are challenging but attainable.