Working with a math specialist or tutor is often a great way to get students back on track with math, but there are many strategies that you can try at home to support their extra work, or even to render it unnecessary!  Many parents struggle with how to help children at home.  Here is a list of strategies and ideas that may help your child succeed with math (or any) learning.

• Exercise, exercise, exercise. Before your child sits down for a focused homework session, send them out for at least 20 minutes of aerobic activity.  Increased blood flow to the brain gets those neurons firing!  Take frequent study breaks of a minute or so of jumping jacks or running a lap around the house to refresh.
• Feed the mind.  Low blood sugar inhibits learning.  Feed your child a healthy, low sugar snack rich in protein and complex carbohydrates to provide the nutrients needed for learning.
• Match the learning environment to the child.  Some children need a quiet environment, others crave background noise.  Contrary to conventional wisdom, removing all distractions does not always increase concentration.  Try benign methods of stimulation, such as using an exercise ball as a chair, listening to a specific study music mix whose order doesn’t vary (music on “shuffle” won’t help concentration), or a background noise machine.
• Monitor homework assignments. Remembering to bring homework home and bring homework back to school is a challenge for many students.  Getting behind in homework creates a vicious cycle where the student falls behind, which causes homework to become more difficult, so the student falls further behind.  Check in with your student’s teacher or school to see how best to ensure homework is done on time.  Many schools have homework posted online for parents to see, others assign homework in specific weekly rhythms.
• Provide external motivation.  If students have already developed a negative attitude towards math, they may not be motivated to improve.  Use a token economy to provide an external motivator for extra math work.
• Find a math mentor.  Many high schools require students to do community service, and having an older student to look up to can be just what the doctor ordered.  It can be as simple as having the student work alongside your child as they both work on math homework, with the high school student available for questions, or it can be a more formal tutoring arrangement.  Either way, make sure the personalities are a good match before committing to a long term arrangement.
• Sleep, sleep, sleep.  Teens need about 9 ¼ hours of sleep each night, and younger children even more.  Our brains are incredibly active when we sleep, transferring memories from short term to long term memory, integrating new knowledge with existing knowledge, and replenishing neurotransmitters in preparation for the new day.  Pre-adolescents and adolescents often struggle with an early bedtime, as their brain chemistry differs from that of adult brains, causing them to be less tired at bedtime and more tired in the morning.  And yet, without adequate sleep, many children present with learning challenges whose root cause is sleep deprivation.  More on this next post…