Growing Your Child's Math Mind

David Owen: 00:00:00

Did you know that a child's math ability is most strongly shaped in the early years and is a good predictor of general academic success? That's our focus today on the Inside Scoop. Hello and welcome back to the Inside Scoop. I'm your host, David Owen.

Math is sometimes considered the boogeyman of subjects, but it doesn't have to be. Reading literacy tends to be emphasized early in a child's life. For greater success in reading, math literacy can work in the same way.

Here to take some of the mystery out of how you can make that happen is Compton Elementary's math teacher extraordinaire, Tim o'. Neill. Tim, welcome to the podcast.

Tim O'Neill: 00:00:40

Thank you, David.

David Owen: 00:00:40

Appreciate it. Your actual title is Academic Coach.

Tim O'Neill: 00:00:44

Academic Coach, that's correct.

David Owen: 00:00:45

I think I'd prefer math teacher extraordinaire, but that's just me. Maybe I'll take either. Okay, so in the open, I mentioned that math literacy is basically as important in those early years as reading literacy.

We hear about reading to your child all the time as they're developing, even before coming into the school system. Why is math literacy so important in those same early years?

Tim O'Neill: 00:01:14

Yeah, great question. My wife and I have a 7 year old and a 5 year old at home at the moment.

So it's been interesting, having gone through the beginning of my teaching career without children and then, you know, the last seven years with the kids and seeing their development as well.

David Owen: 00:01:27

Yeah.

Tim O'Neill: 00:01:27

And just thinking through a little bit of how things can start to become automatic. And really we need to give our kids all sorts of exposures and experiences with numbers.

The more we can increase those exposures and experiences and the more comfortable they're going to be. So getting comfortable with counting and understanding objects and magnitude and size and that sort of thing is incredibly important.

So that when they get to school age and even throughout elementary school and beyond, things become a little bit more automatic as well.

David Owen: 00:02:00

So it's interesting because a lot of times as adults, we take so much for granted now. Right. But when it comes to math and really young children, just getting them to understand what numbers mean is a big step. Right?

I mean, that's a milestone. Absolutely.

Tim O'Neill: 00:02:17

It sure is. If you speak to an adult who's not used to teaching kindergarten, you say, hey, how do you teach two plus three?

Or something along those lines, that can be difficult because thinking through the metacognition of, well, how am I thinking about that?

Because really, for many of us, that becomes automatic and we don't really even understand maybe exactly what's happening when we're Thinking about that and trying to break that down for our kids and for our students is an interesting thought just to truly make sense of it.

David Owen: 00:02:46

Okay. By the way, I need to get a. Like a yellow flag or something to throw whenever you have one of those academic terms. Metacognition. What does that mean?

Tim O'Neill: 00:02:57

Thinking about our own thinking. So just being aware of our own thought process. Sort of.

David Owen: 00:03:01

Very interesting. Very interesting. How are we understanding things, I guess is another way to put that.

All right, so how can parents help their children in the home develop a positive mindset toward math?

We always hear, well, for those of us who have had children who go through homework struggles relating to math, they have a tendency to say, I'm just not good at math. It's almost like talking themselves into not doing well. How can a parent change that or head that off in the early years?

Tim O'Neill: 00:03:37

Yeah. Our language matters in a very large way. If you've ever attempted to lecture a child, we know that frequently that doesn't work very well, right?

David Owen: 00:03:45

Well, unfortunately, I have, many times.

Tim O'Neill: 00:03:48

Same here. Guilty.

But we know that they're frequently watching us and learning from our actions and our words more so than the words that sometimes we're directly giving straight to them.

So I think just as we come across various different problems, and I know that many of us are probably not working on math homework as much at home, but just whatever other problems that we're facing, just modeling that, I might not know right away, but I know I can work to figure this out. I can put in the work. And one of the things that we say at home frequently is thinking takes time. And.

And it's okay to spend some time thinking through something that's true.

David Owen: 00:04:22

And deep thinking gains or gives us better understanding, right?

Tim O'Neill: 00:04:27

Absolutely.

David Owen: 00:04:29

And this is a little bit of a side question for you, but in the old days, the math frequently was more of a memorization thing, the multiplication tables and so forth. That's not at all the way things go nowadays. Right. The goal is not only being able to do the math, but it's to understand it. Is that accurate?

Tim O'Neill: 00:04:53

I do think there's a very large emphasis on the reasoning at this point in time.

I've been honored to be with Cobb county now for this is my 21st year, and it's changed from the beginning of my career until now, I would say, as well. But you also think about how our country has changed, how our access to tools have changed as well.

We're all kind of walking around, typically with a calculator in our pocket or in a Purse or something along those lines, access to AI as well, and that sort of thing. So when you think about computation.

Excuse me, there's opportunities for resources for computation all over the place, which doesn't mean that that's not important for us to still know how to do.

But I do think that there's been a shift where we need to continue to think through the mathematical reasoning and the thinking that you mentioned as well, that we need to continue to develop that also.

David Owen: 00:05:42

So it doesn't hurt to memorize, but it is a good idea to make sure they understand what that result is all about. Right.

Tim O'Neill: 00:05:52

I think when we think about deep learning, people kind of think about what that might mean in a variety of different ways. Right, right. So do we want our students and our kids to eventually become automatic with their times tables and their multiplication division? Yes.

I don't know that the best way of doing that is forcing the memorization onto our students.

So spending time developing relationships and understanding how numbers relate to each other is incredibly important in order for that deep learning to occur.

My daughter I mentioned earlier is 7 years old, and she's not necessarily automatic with some things, but she can figure things out and has ways of figuring things out. So therefore, she's still pretty fluent with her mathematics, even though the memorization piece is not there.

So at this point in time, it's going to come.

David Owen: 00:06:40

Right. And the memorization, like you're saying, is almost as a byproduct of continual working problems, right?

Tim O'Neill: 00:06:52

Absolutely. As I mentioned earlier, the exposures and the experiences, when you have those deep level experiences, and it's going to become automatic.

David Owen: 00:07:00

Yeah.

Tim O'Neill: 00:07:01

So I kind of prefer the word. And I know fluency is kind of defined in different ways, but frequently defined as being automatic, being efficient, and being flexible.

David Owen: 00:07:11

Yeah.

Tim O'Neill: 00:07:11

I think maybe when you and I were growing up, we were thinking about knowing our multiplication facts just from memory and knowing them automatically. But we want that automaticity to come from repeated exposures and being efficient and flexible with it, so that it becomes automatic.

David Owen: 00:07:27

Yeah. Okay. And by the way, I think you're either giving me really good credit or you are older than you look, so thank you for that.

Tim O'Neill: 00:07:37

We're probably the same age or at least one, you know, nearby.

David Owen: 00:07:42

All right, So a while back, actually not that long ago, we did a podcast on homework and the struggles that some kids have with homework.

And perhaps we'll place that link in the description or show notes, but specifically, when it comes to the math homework and the struggles that students endure, not all struggles are bad. Right. I mean, it's kind of like lifting weights.

Tim O'Neill: 00:08:14

Sure.

David Owen: 00:08:15

If you can lift every weight very quickly, then you're not really accomplishing much. But if you're having to struggle and push a little bit, that's a good thing. It grows you.

So how does a parent know when it's a healthy struggle versus There might need to be some help here.

Tim O'Neill: 00:08:35

Yeah. We definitely want to find that appropriate zone. Right. Something too difficult is going to cause all sorts of frustration.

Something too easy is not worth doing at that point in time. So just finding kind of that sweet spot of the appropriate amount of struggle.

Like you mentioned, there's actually a term in weightlifting kind of called progressive overload. And I kind of mentioned this earlier. As far as students need to go through the experiences, too. There are no shortcuts.

There's no getting around mathematical development. We have to experience it and go through it in order to develop.

So I think one of the ways that we can really help support our kids at home, if we're not mathematical experts at this point in time, maybe we're learning and growing along with our.

David Owen: 00:09:16

Kids less and less. So every decade. Right.

Tim O'Neill: 00:09:20

Is thinking through asking questions and prompting. That way, you know, what do you know about the problem? Where can we begin? Where should we start? What's happening in the problem?

Having conversations about the comprehension of a problem, too.

David Owen: 00:09:34

Yeah, yeah.

So, and just a moment ago, you mentioned essentially that as math teaching techniques advance and students are learning and as parents, as we get farther and farther away from our own math education, unless you use it in a daily environment, it's kind of hard for a parent to be the expert.

Tim O'Neill: 00:09:58

Right.

David Owen: 00:09:58

I mean, how can families, how can parents help support their student in their learning if the parent themselves maybe would struggle in the same way as the student?

Tim O'Neill: 00:10:11

Yeah, I want to answer that question. I want to kind of go back for a second, too, because it's interesting to think about what our own mathematical experiences might have been in school.

David Owen: 00:10:19

Oh, for sure.

Tim O'Neill: 00:10:20

And I was working with teachers not too long ago, and I loved this comment. One of our teachers said, this is what I do in the grocery store. And I thought that was phenomenal. Right.

Because when we were growing up, maybe the priority might have been more of these are the step. Follow these steps. It must go exactly this way. And that's not the case anymore at this point in time.

David Owen: 00:10:40

Yeah.

Tim O'Neill: 00:10:41

So even the idea of getting out to the grocery store, going to the hardware store, bringing them into the kitchen and helping with cooking and working on projects at home and different things like that. The more experiences they can have doing that type of work and even thinking from a larger picture of problem solving.

So, like, a lot of times in the math world, we think of problem solving as being solving problems. Solving numerical problems. Right.

David Owen: 00:11:05

Like spreadsheet stuff. Yeah.

Tim O'Neill: 00:11:07

Even the having the cognitive flexibility of, for example, even me coming over here today, I had to think about, like, what time do I need to leave? How long is it gonna take me to get there? What's traffic gonna look like?

And thinking through some of the executive functioning of those steps, that's also problem solving.

So anytime that we have an opportunity to support our kids with that and really think out loud as far as do we have all the ingredients that we need to follow a recipe? What happens if we don't have all the ingredients? How can we substitute something if we don't have all the ingredients?

Is the whole meal over and we're doing frozen pizza? I did that the other night.

David Owen: 00:11:42

Dad's in charge. Yeah, right.

Tim O'Neill: 00:11:43

It might be, but just being really flexible to solve problems like that as well can come into play. And then obviously you have all the measurement that's going into the kitchen or working with tools and measuring and that sort of thing.

So incredibly powerful.

And I know we talked earlier about the importance of exposures at a young, early age, but then students can see the relevance of how it applies as well.

David Owen: 00:12:08

Yeah, Actually, that was going to be my next question was bringing that real world relevance into the classroom or into the homework situation. But just a moment ago, you mentioned the cooking and so forth.

When little kids, I'm talking about preschool kids, are playing shop or storekeeper or whatever, they're actually kind of learning about math. I mean, absolutely.

Tim O'Neill: 00:12:36

And in a variety of different ways too.

David Owen: 00:12:38

Right.

Tim O'Neill: 00:12:38

You're playing with play coins or you have real coins out or whatever it might be. Even thinking through the parental prompting that goes into that too.

You know, I gave you five coins and to purchase something and how many coins am I going to get back? And different things like that.

David Owen: 00:12:54

Yeah.

Tim O'Neill: 00:12:55

And then obviously with older ages, you can apply the value of what each coin is.

And I think that's one of the neatest things when we think about mathematical progressions too, is that some similar routines like that can work for students in very different places with their mathematical development.

David Owen: 00:13:15

Now, one of the best life lessons I ever learned actually came in high school. My math teacher actually told the entire class, once you have finished your.

Your problem, step back, just erase the problem from your mind, look at it fresh and think. Is the answer even reasonable?

Tim O'Neill: 00:13:38

Reasonable.

David Owen: 00:13:39

Just that judgment statement alone can really help guide a student into, oh, that can't be right. And go back and revisit things. Right.

Tim O'Neill: 00:13:49

Yeah. I don't know that as a student I understood the importance of estimating and how that is incredibly important.

But when you think as an adult, we mentioned the grocery store or the hardware store or wherever else it might be, how often are we estimating something costs $14.99? You're probably not calculating something exactly. To think through. Okay, $14.99. And I'm buying this many items at $14.99. Right.

We're going to think about $15 and roughly how much is it going to be?

David Owen: 00:14:14

Right.

Tim O'Neill: 00:14:15

So that's a skill that we do all the time. But we've got to make that relevant for our kids at home and in school as well, to show them what the importance of that is.

David Owen: 00:14:25

So what role should technology play?

It's so easy for parents, you know, thinking of maybe somebody at home who's trying to clean up the house and they've got a preschooler, and it's like, well, here, sit in front of the computer and do these problems on this program. What role should technology play in. In supporting a math brain development in our children?

Tim O'Neill: 00:14:52

I think it plays a role.

I think it's incredibly important for our kids also to be from the creative side, to also think through additional problem solving of what do I do when I'm bored sometimes?

Like, we do that at home too, because we try not to get the screens out too often in order for our kids to be bored, in order for kids to come up with something to do. Because motivation, that is also problem solving.

David Owen: 00:15:14

Yes.

Tim O'Neill: 00:15:14

And it's wild to kind of point out when they play with various different. Different toys, the creativity that comes from that and the problem solving that comes from doing that sort of work also.

But I do think that technology has its place. I don't think it should be the primary driver of what we're doing.

I think we need to get our hands on things at home and in the classroom as well, because it just makes math come to life also. So I think, you know, if you're thinking about pulling in some technology, I think that's totally fine.

But I would kind of analyze what web resource or tool you're planning on using to make sure that the conceptual understanding is there and make sure that its primary focus is not on memorization, but is on deep, authentic learning.

David Owen: 00:15:57

Okay, so Cub Schools has ctls, and we've got a lot of online things There are there, and I'm not saying that that would be it, but are there some online resources that particularly parents of younger kids can grab onto as, hey, this is kind of our go to, or are there several that you could cite that might fall into that category you were describing?

Tim O'Neill: 00:16:23

Yeah, I think I might recommend just reaching out to the child's teacher at that point in time too, because there are several, but I think depending upon what direction the class has experienced and that sort of thing. And I think that can sometimes vary from school to school a little bit on preference.

So I know we have some that we have purchased at our school and have utilized as well, but I think reaching out to the teacher would be a good move there. Okay.

David Owen: 00:16:52

And for those who are parents of younger kids, before preschool kids, maybe we can drop a few links in the show notes and description there that might have some helpful things, always with the caveat of know what you're getting into. You don't want to find that suddenly your kid signed you up for 48 months of subscription to something. That's always the risk.

Well, Tim, thank you so much for coming in and sharing these insights. I know that math is kind of a scary area for a lot of parents.

Maybe it wasn't a good experience in their career of academics, but this certainly is helpful to know. You don't have to know all the answers, you just have to know how to support your student and teacher. Right? That's right.

And communicate with the teacher. Appreciate you coming in and sharing.

Tim O'Neill: 00:17:44

Thank you, David. I appreciate it.

David Owen: 00:17:46

Though the mindset of this discussion has been on those early years, it's never too late to help your child who may be struggling with math. Encouraging positive self talk, resilience and some grace to expect mistakes can go a long way toward success too.

So if you heard something helpful, click that like button, subscribe and share it with a friend. Thank you for listening to this edition of the Inside Scoop, a podcast produced by the Cobb County School.