Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.
-Albert Einstein

American students are lagging behind other countries in math comprehension, especially students who are in elementary school and middle school.  In the United States, only 7 percent of students reached the advanced level in eighth-grade math, while 48 percent of eighth graders in Singapore and 47 percent of eighth graders in South Korea reached the advanced level.  Many parents choose online schooling for middle school and high school because they believe that it’ll help give their teens the math comprehension skills that traditional public schools are failing to give their own students.  Online school can be beneficial for students, but they also need to work on their skills outside of a school setting.  If you want to help your student improve their math skills, follow these tips.

Avoid Memorization Drills

If you want to test your teen’s math skills at home, put them in real life situations where they’d have to use their math skills.  Many parents think that they’re helping hone their teen’s math skills by asking them to recite their multiplication tables.  The tried and true times tables can help students remember the solution to some basic math problems, but they’re really only testing the student’s ability to memorize numbers instead of testing their ability to solve math problems.

Get Creative in the Kitchen

Your teen encounters numbers in their everyday lives, and if you want to help them hone their math skills (and give them an excellent lesson in nutrition and portion sizes) you should have them use their math skills when they eat.  Have them make a list of their favorite foods along with the foods they eat on a daily basis.  Then have them use the nutritional information provided on the labels to determine how much they have to eat in order to get their daily recommended amount of nutrients.

Set a Budget

“When am I going to need to use these skills in real life?”

That’s a question that nearly every teenager thinks to himself or herself when they’re presented with a new math problem or concept.  If you really want your teen to sharpen their math skill, and teach how their math skills will be used in real life, have your teen get involved with making the family’s monthly budget.  They’ll learn essential money management skills, and they’ll be able to put their math skills to work.  This is also a great way to put your kid’s algebra skills to use.  They’ll be unknowingly putting their algebra skills to work when they determine how many gallons of gas your family will be able to purchase with their gas budget, and how much energy you’re expected to pills for men use when they figure out how much money to allocate towards your energy bills.