The Myth of Ability: Nurturing Mathematical Talent in Every Child

Really interesting concepts. Great ideals for teaching your kids math and breaking down imagined barriers. The author is a little to into teaching fractions, I would have liked a few other concepts presented to show proven success in his teaching method.

John Mighton has, quite simply (not an intentional pun), clarified the mathematical teaching method. I speak as a primary school teacher (that's elementary, for you American folks) who found textbooks to be quite frustrating in their explanations. I mean, just how do you teach everyone what you already know how to do? He begins The Myth of Ability by outlining his frustrations with current teaching methods. Methods that punish the student for not knowing, when in fact there may be other things in play. He implores the teacher to think hard about whether the method of delivery in the lesson might just have a little to do with it. I know that feeling. Having explained something, to which I found remarkably clear and easy to understand, to then find those faces staring blankly back at me... well, I had to look further. He goes on to explain some of the strategies he uses for maths concepts, such as fractions and multiplication. If you look closely, the concepts are explained so as to leave nothing behind. Nothing is assumed. Therefore, students that might be a little fuzzy on some concepts that you may have covered six months ago, can have a refresher before moving on to a new concept. Mighton's JUMP method began as a tutoring system, but the achievement results were so good that it has been translated to the classroom. The whole system stems from his beginnings as a maths tutor himself, finding the available textbooks and methods quite frustrating (as I'm sure some of you out there do too). The backbone of this process is success. He quite rightly believes that if a child experiences success in maths, then they will be more open to further learning in the field. There are too many children turned off maths because we don't give them enough time to absorb the concepts. This method ties concepts together, and makes sure they have a good grounding before moving on. I highly recommend this method. You can find more information at the website, which is :: http://www.jumptutoring.org :: and can also download the fractions unit, which is recommended by Mighton as a starting point for all maths work with this method. (Who'd have though that students would be looking forwards to a fractions unit! Mine did... it's true!)