Does your child have hard time understanding problems in class?
Do they often get stuck solving math problems?
Do they get frustrated because they constantly get confused with fractions, roots and other fundamentals?
Even when they understand a topic, do they often get confused when they encounter a slightly different example that they're used to?
Your child, like many other children, struggles with math fundamentals.
Why is that a huge problem?
Because math fundamentals occur and will continue to occur in every math problem your child will ever encounter in math.
That's why they get stuck so often.
That's why a small change in a problem throws them off.
It is critical that they master and get confident in math fundamentals, and continuously review them as needed, to remain confident and fluent in their fundamental skills, at any level.
Shockingly, many teachers incorrectly assume that fundamentals are easy... and don’t explain them!
As a result, many children don’t learn them well, or at all.
Hence, your child likely never has.
Fundamentals are fundamental, yes, but not easy!
Many topics are hard for many children when they learn them the first time, no matter how basic.
Fundamentals are no different.
Not only are fundamentals not easy, your child won't succeed in math without them.
Hence, it's even more important to truly understand them, master them, and be able to confidently use them at all times.
Your child's math success depends on it.
Perhaps your child learned math fundamentals a long time ago and didn’t get a chance to refresh their knowledge and practice them recently.
Rarely do classes incorporate a fundamentals review, and only a brief one. Many teachers simply assume that children already know them and don’t see the necessity to review them at all – which costs children frustration, lower grades, lower confidence and confusion.
Fundamentals are like dribbling in basketball – they are an essential part of math.
And need to be treated as such.
Becoming confident and fluent in fundamentals will help your child:
- understand more in class
- follow along much easier
- speed up
- understand math better
- solve more challenging problems
- be more confident in math overall
Your child needs to independently practice the fundamentals that pertain to the concepts they are currently learning because, unfortunately, they won’t get that practice in class. Fundamentals aren’t necessarily challenging but they often do have many variations, and they tend to be detailed.
That’s why your child needs to solve a large number of examples, to gain confidence and speed. It is absolutely critical that they master them, to gain high level of confidence and proficiency.
After they master solving pure fundamental problems, your child should also understand and practice applications of fundamentals, to bridge the gap between pure math operations and how they work in multi-step problems. Most children skip this step and end up struggling.