How Hard is it to Teach Math in Elementary School?

Math is undoubtedly a vital subject as it forms part of our everyday life. However, many children in elementary school struggle to understand it, making them feel overwhelmed and frustrated. Could this struggle be because math is also challenging for teachers?

Math is a hard class for most elementary school teachers. Causes of this problem include the choice of teaching methods and teachers’ level of expertise. Moreover, there’s a lack of subject specialists since elementary school teachers handle several subjects.

This article explores a few topics related to the question, including the challenges that teachers face when teaching math in elementary schools and their remedies. Keep reading to learn more about what might make math class hard for elementary school teachers.

Table of Contents

What Challenges Do Elementary Teachers Face Teaching Math?

Elementary school teachers teach fundamental subjects to learners from kindergarten to the sixth grade. Hence, they form a vital part of the education system since they assist the children in developing positive learning abilities and social skills.

However, most elementary teachers face issues while teaching some subjects, especially math.

Lack of specialization is the biggest challenge that elementary teachers face in math class. Furthermore, many teachers have a negative attitude towards the subject, while others use ineffective teaching methods. Also, some educators lack the zeal and expertise to teach math efficiently.

Now, let’s have a deeper look at these challenges:

Lack of Subject Experts

Elementary school teachers handle all subject areas in the same class. These include math, science, social studies, languages, arts, music, and reading.

Hence, they generalize, which can be overwhelming with the changing educational dynamics.

It’s essential to have a deep understanding of math concepts to impart the right attitude and instruction to elementary students effectively. Unfortunately, many teachers lack this capability since they don’t specialize in the subject.

And some experts acknowledge that the lack of subject experts in mathematics is one of the reasons why it’s challenging to teach the subject. If a teacher doesn’t understand basic mathematical logic, it will be challenging to instruct learners adequately.

If you are teaching older elementary students, you will need to have a deeper knowledge of mathematical concepts like variables. Be sure to familiarize yourself with such topics before the lesson comes around.

Ineffective Teaching Methods

In the early years of learning, teachers impart a positive learning attitude to learners. Therefore, it would help if elementary teachers applied effective teaching methods to make students like and enjoy math class.

However, most teachers lack adequate time to prepare for each subject since they handle several areas. Therefore, they might find it hard to develop the best approaches to teach the subject. And some only rely on textbooks for knowledge and insights.

For instance, they might emphasize repetitions and memorization to help learners solve problems to pass their tests. But they fail at making the kids grasp the deeper meaning of arithmetic.

Negative Perceptions

A teacher passionate about other subjects will find it challenging to teach math. So, they won’t be enthusiastic about math and may even have anxiety, which will affect the delivery of content.

Other educators have a negative attitude towards math, while some fear teaching it. Students can also acquire these perceptions from teachers, resulting in a dismal performance.

So, a teacher with no passion for math will find it hard to employ effective teaching methods.

Lack of Expertise

According to the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE), high school students in the US performed dismally in math compared to their counterparts in countries like Japan. One of the reasons for this observation was that they have a poor foundation since most elementary school teachers are high school graduates.

Hence, such teachers lack the expertise to teach the subject. Moreover, they lack a deeper understanding of the underlying logic of mathematics.

So, such teachers aren’t confident and require professional learning systems to boost their skills.

Strategies That Elementary Teachers Can Use in Teaching Math

Elementary math curriculums are often not as effective and exhaustive as they should be. Therefore, teachers should devise strategies to help learners comprehend math ideas like addition, subtraction, multiplication division, or decimals.

Teachers can employ various approaches to make math easy and fun to study. Such strategies also improve the learners’ performance in the subject and include:

Using Hands-On Teaching Methods

Hands-on teaching methods ensure that each learner is actively involved in learning. Using these approaches makes it easy for students to understand abstract math concepts, and math becomes more interesting.

These methods include:

Use of geoboards to learn about shapes and do geometry activities for fun. For example, learners can model plasticine into different shapes or join it with toothpicks to form 2D or 3D shapes.
Setting up a play store where learners can practice buying and selling. It makes it easy for learners to learn about addition and subtraction.

Using dice rolls to learn place value, ‘less than,’ ‘equal to,’ or ‘greater than.’

Using Visual Aids

Most learners in their early ages learn best by seeing as opposed to hearing. Charts and talking walls make it easy to understand some concepts as the learners use a different part of their brain to learn.

Hence, using buttons, blocks, sticks, stones, or other objects to explain multiplication and division makes the concepts natural and easy to comprehend.

Integrating Games Into Learning

Most elementary students find math class boring. But these kids love playing. So, including games in math learning can make it active and enjoyable.

Some games to include in math class include:

101 and out: It involves rolling two dice twice and then multiplying or adding the numbers to get a number close to 101. The game enhances competition and stimulates strategic thinking. Here’s a YouTube video demonstrating how to play this game:

War: It’s a card game that helps children practice multiplication, subtraction, and addition. The YouTube video below shows how to play it:

Math hopscotch: It involves drawing a calculator or hopscotch on the floor. Then, the teacher mentions numbers and lets learners hop on the numbers that show the sum. You can apply digital learning tools like the prodigy math game to make math more adventurous and exciting.

Linking Math Concepts to Everyday Life

Math can be more interesting if learners know its relevance to everyday life. Show your students how some concepts relate to their environment.

Here are some examples:

World problems that portray the learners’ interests and lives. They make learning real and practical.
Service-learning. It helps learners understand the community’s needs and develop communication skills and self-awareness. It also boosts their interest in math.

Project-based learning. It entails guiding learners to identify a problem and letting them carry out a project to solve the problem. It encourages learning by discovery through engagement and develops problem-solving skills.

Allowing Learners To Explain Their Thinking

It’s not advisable to jump into giving learners a formula and explaining facts, as it leads to rote learning. Instead, allow learners to think through a problem and come up with their ways of finding solutions. Thus, this encourages critical thinking among the learners.

Moreover, giving learners time to explain their way of doing things to the class boosts their confidence and self-esteem.

Later you can show learners other ways of solving the problem.

Giving Frequent Guidance and Feedback

When applying learner-centered methods in teaching, a teacher becomes a guide. Hence, your frequent guidance throughout the learning process and instant feedback on learners’ progress motivate them to do more. Therefore, they develop a growth mindset.

Also, it helps to identify challenges that learners are facing in their learning process in time and address them before they build up.

Note: You can develop rubrics or other assessment tools to assess every learner’s achievement.

Using Positive Reinforcement

Children love rewards for any achievement, however small. Hence, positive reinforcement makes them yearn to do more. After a project or test, celebrate what the learners have achieved.

You can do this verbally or by giving tokens of appreciation.

If there’s a budget for the celebration, involve students in drafting it. Others can do decorations and add more fun to the event. You can also use this opportunity to teach some math concepts.

Personalizing Learning

Personalized learning involves taking care of every learner’s unique needs, interests, abilities, likes, and dislikes. So, it’s essential to give differentiated learning to each student depending on their learning characteristics.

You can apply various learning methods for the different classes of learners, but with a shared end goal.

Personalized learning ensures no learner is idle or bored during the learning process as everyone is active as per their abilities.

Encouraging Group Work

Group work encourages peer learning. Some learners find it easier to learn from their colleagues than from the teacher. Working in groups also develops the competency of communication and collaboration among the learners and nurtures leadership skills.

However, a teacher should be careful during group work to ensure that learners do not stray from the topic of discussion.

Letting Concepts Build on One Another

Concepts in math are related, and no idea is independent of the others. So, building concepts from the easiest to the challenging ones helps greatly. And it’s essential to take time to lay a strong background any time you’re introducing a new concept.

Also, practice mastery learning so that every learner learns successfully irrespective of their abilities. Moreover, assess learners after introducing a concept so that you can easily monitor their learning. But, don’t cover so many ideas before evaluating because it will not be easy to tell whether students have ]achieved the outcomes.

Final Thoughts

Math class is a challenge to many elementary school teachers. However, applying learner-centered teaching methods, as opposed to teacher-centered methods, makes the subject easier to teach, enjoyable, and fun.

Sources

Connecticut State Government: 10 Principles of Mastery-Based Learning