Using effective questions when talking about math, supports the development
of your child’s mathematical reasoning. The use of questioning provides children
with opportunities to share and clarify their ideas, draw conclusions, and explain
and explore new strategies. With good intention, we often rush to provide our
children all the information they need to solve a math problem. By giving your
child this information too quickly, they may not think deeply about the problem
or engage in mathematical processes.
with opportunities to share and clarify their ideas, draw conclusions, and explain
and explore new strategies. With good intention, we often rush to provide our
children all the information they need to solve a math problem. By giving your
child this information too quickly, they may not think deeply about the problem
or engage in mathematical processes.
Here is a list of questions you can ask to support your child’s
mathematical thinking:
mathematical thinking:
- How did you solve the problem?
- What did you do?
- What strategy did you use?
- How did you estimate what the answer could be?
- What would happen if …?
- Tell me what is the same? What is different?
- How do you know?
- How did you know where …?
- How did you know which …?
- How did you know when …?
- How do you know your/our answer is reasonable?
- Would this work every time? Can you/we think of any examples that don’t work?
- Have you/we found all the possibilities? How do you/we know?
- What have you/we discovered about __________ while solving this problem?
- What have you/we learned?
