Parents Urged to Promote Maths in the Home

Parents are being encouraged to promote mathematics in the home while doing regular day-to-day activities with their children.

National Mathematics Coordinator in the Ministry of Education and Youth, Simone Williams, gave the advice during a recent JIS Think Tank, where she provided tips on how parents can help their children to develop an appreciation for the subject.

The Ministry is observing National Mathematics Week 2024 from April 14 to 19 under the theme ‘Adding Up the Excitement: Maths Rocks’.

Stating that “maths is in everything that we do”, Mrs. Williams said that parents should not be hard-pressed to find opportunities around the home to teach their children about the subject.

She noted, for example, that children can learn about measurement by helping in the kitchen.

“Measurement is one of the strands that we have challenges with every year but we can’t just leave it abstract. We have to have the conversation and it doesn’t mean just talking but having students do things,” she said.

Mrs. Williams said that parents can help their children by using the right measuring tools in the kitchen.

“I know that in Jamaica we do a pinch of salt and things like that, but we can shift from that and actually use the right tools to do the measurement, just for the child’s sake. It doesn’t have to be every day; it can be one day you decide, ‘I am going to do this particular thing with my child’,” she said.

For younger children, Mrs. Williams noted that doing household chores is a great opportunity to teach them counting, for example, having the child count the number of clothes pins to be used for hanging clothes when doing laundry.

“You can ask how many more clothes pins will I need to have seven? They should be able to see that if you add one more pin, take one pin from the bucket, you will have seven pins,” she pointed out.

Mrs. Williams is also urging parents to make use of their Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) meetings to get practical tips on how to assist their children with mathematics.

“These are good opportunities. I know of several schools that actually have PTA sessions that focus on maths workshops. If you have that opportunity, go to the sessions because… when invited to these sessions, we present these same strategies and we give you other ideas that you can utilise,” she said.

Mrs. Williams implored parents to not talk negatively about maths, and instead, affirm their children’s ability to do the subject.

“You might not have had the best of experience with it but try to encourage the child to continue pushing forward.  Each effort that the child makes, even if there is an error in what the child does, it is a step forward to becoming better,” she said.

She pointed out that making errors is a part of the learning process. “When they get back to the classroom, the teacher can make the corrections and the student will learn from the mistakes,” she said.