Crossville Middle School

Practice Daily

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              The first and foremost thing you have to do is drop the thought of "I am horrible at math". Because if you hold on to that idea, you'll never get better. Granted there are always going to be some people who naturally pick it up faster than others, but math is still a learnable skill.

The thing that seems to kill most students is the fact that math is a cumulative subject, where you have to know what you learn one week so that you can apply it the week after. So if you get into a position where you don't know what's going on in class, it's easy to let things slide until it gets harder and harder to catch up. But if you read your notes, read the book, and do your assignments on-time, you can stay on top of things. The good news is that you generally won't have to study when exam time comes, because you'll already know the material.

It's also important to understand why the various things you're doing in your math class work the way they do. A lot of students try to memorize a pattern and regurgitate it or look for similar short cuts. But if you take the time to learn why you're doing the things you're doing, it will all make much more sense.