Parents are routinely encouraged to read with their children before bed, but a growing movement wants families to make math part of everyday life, too. “Family math” can mean counting blocks, comparing prices at the grocery store, measuring ingredients or playing a board game together.
The idea is simple: Math doesn’t have to feel like homework. According to The 74, these playful interactions can build number sense, reasoning, confidence and problem-solving skills while giving parents natural opportunities to talk about numbers.
In Los Angeles, nearly $1 million has been invested in a family-engagement program reaching 1,000 public-school students with math games, books and play-based learning. The authors argue that family math could become as familiar a parenting habit as reading aloud.
Parents Have Math Anxiety, Too
For some parents, math homework can bring back uncomfortable memories of struggling in school. Education Week reports that parents sometimes pass that anxiety to children by describing themselves as “not a math person,” potentially making kids more nervous about challenging problems.
Parents don’t need to know every answer to help. Instead, they can model persistence and curiosity; as Kentucky math educator Kelly DeLong puts it, “When you get to the edge of hard, you are learning.”
That message matters because math anxiety can interfere with working memory. A new study involving 3,018 U.S. kindergarten through third-grade students found that parental math anxiety and homework-help frequency were associated with children’s math outcomes, although the researchers did not replicate an earlier finding that the combination specifically produced lower achievement.
Why Kids Need Help With Math and Reading Now
The push for family math comes as U.S. academic results show continuing challenges, particularly among teenagers. In the latest national long-term assessment, only 70% of 13-year-olds met the math benchmark, while 58% met the reading benchmark.
Reading habits are also changing: just 14% of 13-year-olds reported reading for fun every day, down from 27% in 2012. The data suggest that families have an opportunity to make learning part of ordinary routines rather than treating it as something that happens only at school.
That doesn’t mean parents need to become teachers. A bedtime story followed by counting characters, estimating how many pages remain or talking about patterns can turn reading and math into shared family activities—and make learning feel less like a chore.
