To assess a child’s math performance means evaluating the math content (topics), his learning and the fairness of the questions asked. The main objective of assessments is to find out where the student stands against each question so that the teacher or coach will know how to enhance this child’s learning.
Three points stand out here:
- Assessments validate that our students have had good instructional practice.
- It provides an opportunity for teachers/coaches and students alike to identify the areas of understanding and misunderstanding or even non understanding of the topics they should have learnt. Through this identification can the teacher/coach turn a child’s misunderstanding into significant learning, in other words, improve the child’s math learning.
- See not math assessments as an accountability tool to monitor teachers or tutors or even the performer/child, but as lending support to this child for what and how he has not succeeded to comprehend well. See it as a realization of precisely what he has not quite grasped and how the facilitator can allow him more time to delve on that section. Judge not the teacher or the student but see this as a tool to pick at what has not been mastered and the learning process that may not have been taken so effectively on the part of the child so that those segments can be re-visited.
How then can we help our child to succeed or improve in his math performance?
A) Show Real World Examples
Since math is an abstract subject, one should learn to bring the meaning of learning of this subject with respect to the real world. Probably in school, math is taught in a manner where it does not look applicable to real life. Teaching abstract principles with no connection to real life may just make a child lose interest and wonder what the subject’s benefits bring. Other students will struggle with understanding these math concepts and become anxious and disinterested.
Give your child opportunities to calculate volume of water in a pail with cups or a tape measure to see how big a room is or a weighing scale to measure all kinds of household items. Ask how pizzas and oranges should be cut to give members of the family and let them handle money and change.
B) Incorporate Manipulatives
Common manipulatives like Lego blocks, pattern tiles, boards, and clock faces are helpful for young students to learn math concepts like fractions, ratios and percentages. Their visual and tactile nature helps them understand and remember mathematical ideas and support children with different learning styles.
Kinesthetic-dominant learners need active role play and math games to tickle the brain while those more auditory-dominant like to hear repetitions. Most of us tend to be visual-oriented so we love to see colors, shapes, sizes and patterns. Others who are less observant will need help to be more focused on this aspect so that when story problems come in, we have to be attentive and decide the necessary and the unnecessary aspects of the narratives in order to problem-solve accurately.
In S.A.M. Hougang we apply the C-P-A (Concrete-Pictorial-Abstract) approach where early learners can grasp abstract math principles if they can see these first by handling objects, then seeing or visualizing simple math concepts through pictures and then only the abstract. Even simple plus (+) or minus (-) signs may baffle young children if not approached correctly. Yet, done well, young children can even be introduced the concepts of multiplying or regrouping or breaking a part into parts when we make use of objects for the kids to manipulate.
C) Asking Interesting and Probing Questions
Text book questions may be filled with dry and uninteresting problem sums. Children may not see the relevance and hence move their attention to something or some where else. Tweak questions to make them more relevant and ask them or invite them to ask salient questions. Patience is needed here.
In S.A.M. Hougang we do not use the traditional teach method but allow children time to reason for themselves each story sum, by asking probing and clarifying questions in order for every child to think for themselves. Our students are expected to express their learning process and hence here we can see math with its communicative value. Our LEARN segment is exactly what it means; the section where children learn before they embark on their practice segment.
D) How to Help Them at Home
The best way we can help our children is to be good models. If we do not like to see them use digital devices so often, we, too, should not be glued to the screen. If we want to help them improve in their language learning, we, too, need to be seen reading avidly. If we want them to like math, we, too, need to be seen solving math puzzles at home.
Another point about parental help is not to obsess with giving them correct answers and expecting perfect work to be submitted, so that it is more the parent or tutor picking out the mistakes and not the child realizing them on their own. How then can they learn when their attitude becomes one of ‘my mum will help me’ or ‘my tutor will show me’ and I just copy the right answers out as ‘corrections’?
Our S.A.M. Hougang approach is that while our students take home Worksheet Reinforcement work, children are expected to do them on their own. You could render help with probing questions, but that work should be their own, mistakes and all if need be. We hope to inculcate self-study and the spirit of self-discipline and confidence-booster in our students.
Home encouragement and setting aside time and space for their work is imperative. Praise and reward system helps encourage effort and support. Hence here in S.A.M. Hougang, we partner with you to encourage your kids while our rewards system in order to allow them to strive for excellence.
E) How to Seek Professional Help
Sometimes we may need to resort to the professionals for help and support. The right kind of assessment will show up the sections of strengths and weaknesses of each student which provides not only as diagnostics but as placement exercises so that facilitators will know where the starting point of each child will be and the rate each learner will be taking during their sessions. Hence at S.A.M. Hougang, our students do their our customized work and take their learning at their own pace. The curriculum is Singapore MOE (Ministry of Education)-based, what we call Singapore Math, perceived very highly, as Singapore students rank top in TIMSS (Trends in International Math and Science Study) and PISA (Program for International Student Assessment).
F) Conclusion
To assess and evaluate a child’s math work helps the educator check in the boxes the kid’s performance before moving on. Continuous testing is bench-marking them on their learning journey so that if there are moments to reverse a small cycle, we should. Math should be understood conceptually first and not be taken as merely a procedural exercise in fluency and that learning need be taken variably in progression. Pointers on how to help your child succeed have also been discussed.
You may contact S.A.M. Hougang for any clarifications or should you need help.