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Why do some children dislike mathematics, and how they can become interested in it?
Although many children find mathematics a comprehensible topic in school, some others find it extremely difficult to understand and some even dislike it. There are certain reasons that cause these difficulties. Mainly, the change in the means of communication for the child from words to numbers and symbols, having to deal with operations which mean simple – or at some point complicated – logic principles, and also encountering concepts which might have been introduced to them in a too serious or unfriendly way, affect the child’s subjective perception of maths. In this article I will describe these effects and propose solutions to approach the problem.
When a child gradually learns a language, as a means for communicating, they learn to distinguish between the letters, the words and their meanings and how a sentence can be constructed. That is, their perception of the world, is mainly based upon words, after the five senses. Once they come across mathematics, which normally starts with digits and numbers, and later on continues with symbols and letters, they are actually obliged to learn a new language to enter a new medium of communication, but usually without the primary attention which was made for learning or teaching the ‘word’ language. This somehow leads to a weakness in comprehension and expression in the new environment i.e. maths, especially because the appearance of the new language is unfamiliar. This unfamiliarity adds up to a lack of attention to the learning and causes some forms of difficulty. A potential solution to this task is pre-familiarising the child with the concepts of numbers, figures and symbols. For example candies or chocolates with the shapes of Greek letters might be considered an admirable approach. Still, a second factor exists that causes problems is new logical operations.
The second important factor is the new processes that the mind should undertake in order to get answers or results in mathematics. Most probably, the child has previously learnt to realise or perceive the elements around them by means of remembering, memorising and comparing. For example they will remember their relatives’ names, or they will memorise the colours of rainbow or they will compare sizes of apples once they learn the meanings of ‘small’ and ‘big’. But the operations which are offered in maths are further than this. It starts with addition and subtraction and continues through fractions and decimals and goes on. This new space of logical operations seems to be an obstacle for the child especially because the reason why they are asked to learn them might not be obvious to them. However, adults who have learnt may find it obvious. The vagueness in the child’s mind will distract them or even prevent them from learning the operations and more advanced concepts or definitions in maths. This challenge can be faced using different forms of interactive techniques of teaching. For example engaging the child in a game of their interest, which includes different mathematical operations as well, might automatically enhance their perception of logical operations and motivate them in the learning procedure.
In the meantime, a third factor might add up to the whole environment seen up to here which consisted of both having to deal with figures and symbols and having to learn the operations and concepts, and that is the unfriendliness of the conveyance of this environment to the child.
The last but not the least fact that causes major difficulties in learning maths in children, is related to the way in which they are taught. There have been periods in different countries, where maths has been taught in a very rigid and too serious way, so that it has made the maths class very tiring or even frightening. Fortunately, developments have recently been made in teaching methods to make it sweeter and friendlier for children. Using visually appealing figures in books, benefiting colours and even multimedia can be proposed as basic approaches in this regard.
In fact, there are several reasons which lead to disliking mathematics as a school subject for children. Perhaps there are more reasons to be mentioned here, but the most important ones are the unfamiliarity of the maths language, the logic lying inside the mathematical rules and also the possibly unattractive way of presenting maths. Trying to familiarise children with maths elements such as figures and symbols before entering school, creating interactive and maths based games to involve children and encourage them to find practical solutions, and lessening the seriousness of our attitude towards maths and its importance can hopefully help children to get more intimate with mathematics.
