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Health & Fitness

Keeping Students Sharp in Math Over the Summer Is As Easy As Four-Eighths Divided by Two.

As summer kicks into gear, parents will want to help students remain as engaged thinkers and stave off the dreaded “summer slide” that sometimes accompanies a couple of months without academic activity away from school. 

In the realm of math, parents can help young students in a variety of ways that can keep students thinking and help them to maintain skills that they may have acquired in the recent school year; they can even help to further a student’s understanding and facility with mathematical thinking.  

An effective strategy and important guiding principle is to start with what students can do well in math and create opportunities to connect new learning to prior knowledge.  The goal here is to build the big picture of number sense and fluency with numbers, and build confidence.  

We’ll use a simple illustration that takes a hypothetical student that knows, for example, both how to find the amount that results from six being divided by two and understands the basic concept of fractions.  Ask the student to divide six by two and ask him/her to explain the thinking behind the answer.  In other words, have him/her tell you “why” the answer is three.  Next, point out that s/he can use the same reasoning to find the number that results from dividing a more challenging number, like thirty-eight and an even more challenging number, like four eighths, by two.  Say things like “If dividing six by two ended up giving us two equal numbers or groups, doesn’t it make sense that dividing other numbers, no matter what kind, by two, will result in getting two equal numbers every time?”  You can then explain that after dividing, there should always be two equal numbers that when added back together give us what we started with.  Finally, you can help the student to reason that even if the things we’re dividing are fractions, the result we just discussed should be true.  Say something like, “So, if we have FOUR of something and we divide it by TWO, then we should end up with TWO groups of TWO, no matter what the something is, right?  That’s even true for EIGHTHS.  So dividing FOUR eighths by TWO, should give (let the student try to answer here) . . .?”  

This simple “scaffolding” can help a student to develop new skills that rely on a base where the student already has confidence and help to keep old skills sharp.  There are literally hundreds of other activities, including all sorts of games that can help parents keep students’ minds engaged over the summer.  Studies show that “using it, or losing it” is especially relevant to school skills.  It doesn’t have to take much time - maybe 15 or 20 minutes a day. The benefits are that your student will stay sharp (making the transition back to school in the fall that much easier) and just as importantly, that you will actively demonstrate to him/her that you value a keen mind enough to be involved.

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