make time for number talks.

I do think parents are hesitant to teach their children math because of all of the recent changes with Common Core. They don't want to confuse their children even more by attacking problems differently than their teachers. And I get that. Many parents have never heard of Number Talks, or how highly effective they can be in helping your child develop a deeper understanding of the math they are learning. Making Number Talks Matter can help.

In Making Number Talks Matter, Cathy Humphreys and Ruth Parker offer practical ideas for using Number Talks to help students learn to reason numerically and build a solid foundation for the study of mathematics. In the very first chapter they explain what Number Talks are and why they are important. Number Talks are when children solve problems in their heads and then talk about the strategies they used. Students are constantly mixing up rules because they are so busy trying to memorize one way to solve a problem, and when they forget, they get the problem wrong. Number Talks show children that it's OKAY to solve math problems in different ways. There are a lot of examples in this book on how to use Number Talks in all grade levels. Math is such a struggle in our country, adding something as simple is Number Talks is worth a shot.