How to Determine Your Child’s Proficiency in Math
As a parent, it is natural to want what is best for your child. This does not just apply to providing for their basic needs, such as food, clothing, and shelter. But it is also applicable to their education and development. In particular, your child’s math studies and their proficiency therein.
Every parent knows that as their child grows, they are supposed to hit certain developmental milestones along the way. From counting with their fingers to taking their first few steps, you know when your child is making progress. But how do you do the same for math? We all know that math is an important subject that teaches your child how to think critically and solve problems.
Math helps prepare your child for careers in various fields, such as architecture and engineering, as well as their future development in general. Knowing that math is a crucial subject to master, how do you, as a parent, determine your child’s proficiency in math?
Continue reading to discover the main ways you can ascertain your child’s math level.
Determining Your Child’s Proficiency in Math
You do not have to feel out of sorts if you are not familiar with determining where your child is in their academic development. Have a look at some of these tips to see how well your child is performing when it comes to math.
1. Improve Parent-Teacher-Student Communication
When it comes to your child’s education, particularly determining their math level and performance, it is important to become an active participant. That said, it does not have to end there.
You need to engage with your child and their math teacher to understand which areas they are doing well in and the areas they may be struggling with.
For example, your child may do well with algebra but find trigonometry challenging. It is easy to think that if their math marks are not good, they may be “bad at math”, but it may just be a subject area that they struggle with. You may even find out that your child is afraid of math and that fear affects their ability to study, thus creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
In addition, your child may have limiting beliefs about their math abilities and proficiency. It may help to open up a dialogue with your child to allow them to open up to you and find out why. Thankfully, these are issues that can be resolved by helping your child develop a growth mindset, which is an empowering mental model to have.
Lastly, do your best to communicate regularly with your child’s math teacher to find out how else your child may learn math better and improve their results. If you and your child’s teacher believe they may benefit from online math classes, it could help to enlist the services of a reliable and accredited online math tutor to improve their math level.
2. Understand What They Should Know By a Certain Age or Grade
Like learning how to walk, children learn specific skills once they have reached a particular age or grade. Here are some math skills your child should demonstrate proficiency in at certain ages and educational levels:
Grades 1 and 2:
- Can count up to 100
- Be able to add and subtract single and double digits
- Understand place value
- Be able to measure with rulers and measuring tapes
- Understand geometry at a basic math level
- Understand and make simple bar graphs
Understand the value of coins (money)
Grade 3:
- Solve mathematical problems with pencil and paper
- Do simple multiplication and division using information gleaned from fact families (e.g. knowing that 2 x 3 = 6 and 3 x 2 = 6)
- Improved understanding of place value with decimal points
- Using a word problem to derive number sentences or equations
Grade 4:
- Use different ways to solve math problems on paper
- Multiply two and three digits (e.g. 112 x 12)
- Apply mathematical concepts to real-world examples (e.g. using a cup of water for 8 fluid ounces in a recipe)
- Estimate and round off numbers to the nearest decimal
- Understand the use of the greater than (>) and less than (<) symbols, and use them to compare numbers
- Can do long division with or without remainders.
Grades 5 and 6:
- Solve basic algebra equations with single variables
- Solve math problems with fractions, proportions, and percentages
- Work with basic geometry
- Work with a graph to locate points on an x- and y-axis
3. Contact Your State’s Board of Education
To find out more about your child’s proficiency in math, get in touch with your state’s board of education to learn about how they set math levels for different grades. Once you have accomplished this, compare your child’s mathematical abilities to those set at state-level, and see if they are in line.
4. Compare Your Child’s Math Level to Those on A National Scale
To take things a little bit further and see where your child places nationally, visit the (NAEP) National Assessment of Education Progress’ website to compare your state’s ranking to the national average.
Final Thoughts on Determining Your Child’s Math Level
If you are looking at strengthening your child’s math proficiency, Maths@Singapore can help develop your child’s math-solving capabilities through our comprehensive range of math heuristics that will help your child understand and master math concepts.
All of our teachers are qualified to teach in Singapore Ministry of Education (MOE) schools , making them perfectly suited for tutoring your child using the Singapore MOE Math method.
If you are concerned about your child’s progression in math studies, speak with one of our expert administrators. You can also send us an email to enquire more about Maths@Singapore and our professional math tutoring sessions.
