How to help my 5th grader learn math with me?
My daughter is in 5th Grade and makes silly mistakes while adding, subtracting, etc. I also found she doesn't take any interest in math and doesn't apply any logic when solving problems. She is not vocal about what she doesn't understand and that makes me angry while teaching her. This is again making her lose interest in the subject.
What should I do to help her?
Update
Thanks everyone. I followed you advice and I am certain problem was with me and not with my daughter. I changed my teaching style and taught the subject as friends. She opened up realising I wasn't getting frustrated. Today she passed with flying colours and she scored the highest in math in her class.
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Maybe your daughter is not good at maths and getting increasingly frustrated.
I had a time where I was bad at maths, too. And in the end, it turned out I am not at all bad at maths, I just had bad teachers and even the people from my family trying to help me were not good for me because they made me feel like I am bad at maths.
Never get angry. Never tell her, her mistakes are silly. This will make her less motivated to try at all.
Tell her, she does not have to be perfect or fast but it is a life skill to do some maths. Guide her through it with games and by giving her the time she needs. Let her solve stuff she can solve, rather than making her fail over and over again.
TL;DR: Never get angry. Never tell her it's trivial. It is going to make her feel stupid and loose trust in her own abilities.
Make her like the time the two of you spend practicing. End every lesson on a positive note. Take your time. Again, never get angry.
Well Skymningen's answer covers it. Plus, if the OP cannot teach his own child -- which is very very common -- then find a tutor. There might be a relative or friend or child of a friend, a volunteer from your religious affiliation, an after school club or a Girl/Boy Scout who might volunteer, if tutoring from a place like Kumon or Sylvan is too costly. The bottom line is -- it is a common problem and as long as the OP handles it well, it can be solved.
The last thing you want to do is make this the hill your daughter loses the battle upon...
Maths are still difficult for me. It doesn't come easily, but I am no longer defeated by them. I ask for help if I need to, but usually I can figure it out. That's is because my great teacher told me I could -- and that was half the battle.
I once tutored a seven-year-old in math because she'd been performing badly in school, probably largely due to a lack of confidence. After I began tutoring her - just one hour a week - she started doing much better. What I did was I played math games with her, not much else. Math began to be fun for her, and she gained in confidence.
The funny thing is that her father was an engineer, and had all the knowledge needed to teach her math. He had tried doing it, but something about the parent-child dynamic put her off of it, and their math sessions had become a source of tension.
Once I'd tutored her a bit, she started feeling better about things and started playing the same math games with her parents that I'd been playing with her. She became one of the best in her class, and her success continued long after I'd stopped tutoring her.
The bottom line is this. Often problems in math have more to do with self-confidence than with underlying ability. And when the teaching relationship between parent and child has broken down for whatever reason, it can help to hit the reset button by bringing in outside help. That doesn't mean the parents can't take over again later once the child is feeling better about herself, particularly if they've been able to identify what wasn't working the first time round.
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