According to Dr Sian Beilock, a cognitive scientist and the president of Barnard College, many Americans experience math anxiety – whether it’s calculating a tip on a dinner bill as your friends look on or doing math homework with your child. When parents are apprehensive about math, their children’s math achievement in school can suffer.
A longitudinal study has found that Bedtime Math, a free app already proven to boost kids’ math achievement, has long-lasting effects even after children stop using the app. The results of the study led by University of Chicago psychologists appear in the December issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, one of the premier research journals of the American Psychological Association.
The study also looked at the impact of the app on families in which the parents have math anxiety. “Math-anxious” parents – those who have a fear or discomfort about math – have been found to impede their children’s learning of math. Findings suggest that while parents’ math anxiety did not change, the app improved their expectations of their children’s math performance – and those changes in attitude translated to kids’ math gains. This indicates that apps that engage children and parents together may foster greater learning than apps children use on their own.
Dr. Susan Levine, a developmental psychologist at the University of Chicago and study co-author, said “With the app, math-anxious parents have a chance to see their children engaging productively in mathematical thinking, which leads them to change the way they think about their children’s ability to achieve in math.”
Bedtime Math delivers quick, engaging math story problems for parents and children to solve together. Earlier results of the study, published in Science, found that children who used the Bedtime Math app gained an additional three months of math skills over children who didn’t use the app. Today’s results show that the gains in achievement persisted two years later, even if families decreased or ended their app usage
Learn about the Bedtime Math App in the video below:
Anllelic Lozada “Angie” is a proud P.A.N.K (professional aunt with no kids), a Personal Marketing Strategist in NYC and Los Tweens & Teens “Tia-in-Charge,” based in New York City. Anllelic wants you to best your best life so you can positively influence your tween and teen. Subscribe to her weekly e-newsletter in Spanish in marketingparatucarrera.com/Vendete, where she shares personal marketing strategies to help you “Comunicar lo genial que eres.”