2011-10-26, 04:06 AM
In an attempt to be a BIT more helpful:
I managed to get my wife better at math by repetition. Tons and tons of repetition and correction. I had her calculating 15% tips on made up amounts of money in her head. I told her how to do it, guided her, then had her say her steps out loud. This way I was able to see where her mistakes were.
But if repetition doesn't work for you, I generally come up with easier examples of the problem and have people solve that. Then I show them how to transition to the harder problem while keeping the steps from the easier problem in mind.
To keep numbers in your head:
Get flash cards with numbers on them. Have a friend hold them up one at a time and you say the number out loud (or just hold one up and put it face down on the table after). Do this for three cards. Now with all three cards hidden, try and recall the three numbers. Once you can do this with 3 cards, do it with 4 or 5 cards. You can do this with poker cards too if you just use 2-9.
Ex:
1) flip a card. if you flip over a 2, say "Two" Put the card face down.
2) flip over a 5 "Five" -> face down
3) flip over a 3 "Three" -> face down
4) at this point, hopefully you remember that you flipped a 2 then a 5 then a 3. You'd check to see if you DID remember them.
If you didn't just try again. Eventually you'll be able to pull it off. If you did it easily, move on to more cards in a row.
I managed to get my wife better at math by repetition. Tons and tons of repetition and correction. I had her calculating 15% tips on made up amounts of money in her head. I told her how to do it, guided her, then had her say her steps out loud. This way I was able to see where her mistakes were.
But if repetition doesn't work for you, I generally come up with easier examples of the problem and have people solve that. Then I show them how to transition to the harder problem while keeping the steps from the easier problem in mind.
To keep numbers in your head:
Get flash cards with numbers on them. Have a friend hold them up one at a time and you say the number out loud (or just hold one up and put it face down on the table after). Do this for three cards. Now with all three cards hidden, try and recall the three numbers. Once you can do this with 3 cards, do it with 4 or 5 cards. You can do this with poker cards too if you just use 2-9.
Ex:
1) flip a card. if you flip over a 2, say "Two" Put the card face down.
2) flip over a 5 "Five" -> face down
3) flip over a 3 "Three" -> face down
4) at this point, hopefully you remember that you flipped a 2 then a 5 then a 3. You'd check to see if you DID remember them.
If you didn't just try again. Eventually you'll be able to pull it off. If you did it easily, move on to more cards in a row.