First of all, let us understand what and why maths makes them afraid. One reason could be that maths is taught in school as a judgmental subject i.e. very often answers are yes or no. and nobody likes to be asked or being told they’re wrong so are the children too. And having to do calculations in class that too quite quickly, if they lack confidence it increases their existing anxiety. As we all know anxiety makes the working memory less effective and this, in turn, makes children just freeze up. Another reason could be that children are drilled that it’s just the formal methods they have to remember. But, actually, maths is an open, creative and flexible subject so we can try and give them a different experience of the learned concept. When a child says ‘I can’t do maths, I’m just rubbish at it', and don’t want to engage with the subject – can be an early sign they might be going down the wrong path with the subject’. But the good news is that there’s a lot you can do to help them get over their fear and start to enjoy maths.
When children think they’re going to fail at something, they usually don’t try. But research shows that the human brain actually grows most when you make a mistake in maths. ‘It’s ironic because children feel terrible if they get something wrong in maths. But as educators, we need to reassure kids that it’s not only good to make mistakes, but when you struggle at maths it means your brain’s developing
One way of getting them out of fear of maths is to ask, “Do you think the answer you’ve just got is bigger or smaller than the proper answer?”. This encourages children to think about the values of the numbers in their maths problem,’ also as they are allowed to estimate it builds their confidence which is a useful life skill to have in children.
Their ability to play around with numbers is vital for mental arithmetic as well as real-life. It’s good to encourage children to play with any numbers on paper and develop their familiarity with numbers and their facts.
For those concepts that need memorization let the children practice listening to their own voices about the concepts i.e. reading the passage/question/situation. While in the process of listening to their own voices they work on the concepts several times as a process of improvisation
When the parents say that they had a bad experience with the subject, children lose their confidence and the concept. We have to welcome maths with a lot of excitement to realize the desired outcome
compilation by raghuram malladi
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