London-area kids really like math in their early elementary years. And most are pretty good at it.

But over time, the percentage of kids who both hate math and who struggle with it jumps. Exponentially.

This year, for the first time, fewer than half the Grade 6 pupils in the Thames Valley District School board met provincial math standards, results released Wednesday shows.

Perhaps as troubling to educators is that by Grade 9, those kids’ difficulties and anxieties about math have multiplied and their enthusiasm is a fraction of what it was only a few years earlier.

Kids’ sense of frequent math failure leading to inevitable failure “can be a really, really big challenge for the students,” particularly for those who go on to the applied, college-level stream, said Scott Armstrong, learning supervisor of mathematics with the Thames Valley District School Board.

That’s why the board — which has pledged an intense push this year to improve math scores across the board — is starting by persuading even discouraged pupils that math isn’t a lost cause.

“Everybody can do mathematics,” but it’s easier for kids to learn if they know they can, says Mishaal Surti, who teaches math strategies to TVDSB teachers. Math confidence may not cause math proficiency, or vice versa, but there is more than a coincidental connection between the two, he says.

In fact, he says, London-area students score well on knowledge questions, such as equations learned by rote.

But the key trouble areas — understanding, communicating and then applying math concepts — show up glaringly on standardized tests.

While students definitely need to know math facts as facts, Surti says they also need to develop the more abstract-thinking skills to translate, for example, three times four into groupings of six and two, or four and three.

Surti calls these “open problems,” in which math is a discussion beyond a recitation of facts.

And while such strategies may sound a bit like morale-boosting, fine-in-theory ideas, it’s already showing practical results on paper, where it counts, the board says.

Where classrooms are immersed in math strategy, they’re drawing double-digit improvements in their test scores.

It’s also showing results at the London and District Catholic School Board, says Jenifer Goetz, a teacher who is leading colleagues in a similar approach.

Last year, she convened pupils and their parents in her Grade 3 class to learn math and eat a meal together after school hours.

One significant hurdle was convincing them that making mistakes was key to getting things right. “It was huge, that attitude shift,” she says.

Test scores for adept and struggling learners alike improved dramatically.

Across the province, math test scores for Grade 9 applied and academic levels have been dropping for the past five years, leading the education ministry to declare math boosts a priority.

Reading scores for Grades 3 and 6 pupils improved during the same period and over-all literacy results in Grade 10 have stayed steady at about 80 per cent pass rate.

Meanwhile, parents’ appetite for helping their kids improve math skills is evident in that a free public event at the public education centre next Monday, featuring math educator Marian Small offering tips and strategies for better learning, is fully booked with more than 300 parents.

dvanbrenk@postmedia.com

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Who dislikes math?

Grade 3 Grade 6 Thames Valley 10% 14% Catholic board 9% 12%

Grade 9 applied stream

Thames Valley - 34%

Catholic board - 38%

Grade 9 academic stream

Thames Valley - 21%

Catholic board - 18%