Parents support at home is essential in helping children to develop their math skills. This doesn’t mean you need to be a maths genius in order for your child to succeed. Simply incorporating maths into your everyday life will help to improve your child’s numeracy skills.

Here are some top tips from an independent sixth form college in London on how parents can help children to develop their math skills…

Make maths fun

To help your child see maths as a fun subject, it is important to incorporate it into activities that they already enjoy. For example, if your child enjoys cooking then you could ask them to help you measure out the ingredients when baking. If your child likes imaginative play, then you can play shop keepers and count using pretend money. By practicing maths in this way, your child won’t even realise they are learning!

Learn school methods

It can be really helpful for parents to understand how maths is taught at school. This will help you to practice the same methods at home. It will also help you to identify your child’s maths learning level. Speak to your child’s teacher to find out what maths exercises they are currently working on in class and what you can do to support your child at home.

Test their knowledge

Another fun technique is getting your child to play teacher. When they come home from school, ask them to tell you about what they did in maths that day. Get them to show you on a black or white board like a teacher. This will not only help you to keep up to date with school work, but it will also help your child to memorise what they have learnt by repeating it.

Learn online

Using online resources is a great way to improve your child’s maths skills. Many are free and often include games, which make learning maths much more exciting for children. You can also download Maths learning apps to your smart phones and tablets so that your children can practice anytime and anywhere.