如何教出一个数学天才?

Parents who hate math often fear raising kids who will feel the same.
对数学感到头痛的父母常常害怕这样一件事情：教育同样厌恶这个科目的孩子。

Tammy Jolley is one of them - 'a horrible math-phobic,' she says. After struggling through algebra and statistics in high school and college, helping her 9-year-old son Jake with math homework makes her 'feel like saying, 'Aaarghh, this is hard! I know why you don't get it,' ' says the Madison, Ala., state-court official. Instead, she forces herself to encourage Jake.
塔米·乔利（Tammy Jolley）是阿拉巴马州麦迪逊县（Madison）的一名法院官员，她说自己就是患有“严重数学恐惧症”人群中的一员。在高中、大学时代好不容易熬着学完了代数学与统计学的课程后，乔利现在又得给自己九岁的儿子杰克辅导数学作业了。她说，这么做会让她“想要发出这样的感慨，‘啊哈，数学真难，我知道你为什么学不明白了。’”但乔利还是硬着头皮、强迫自己去鼓励儿子学数学。

Ongoing research is shedding new light on the importance of math to children's success. Math skill at kindergarten entry is an even stronger predictor of later school achievement than reading skills or the ability to pay attention, according to a 2007 study in the journal Developmental Psychology.
目前正在进行的研究进一步揭示了数学对孩子成功的重要性。2007年刊发于《发展心理学》（Developmental Psychology）期刊的一篇研究论文指出，学生在幼儿园时表现出来的数学能力是他们在日后学习中能否取得好成绩的一个预报器，其预示作用甚至超过了集中注意力的能力和阅读能力。

The issue is drawing increasing attention as U.S. teens continue to trail their global peers in math, performing below average compared with students in 33 other industrialized nations, based on the most recent results of the Program for International Student Assessment in 2010.
由于美国青少年在数学成绩上继续落后于全球其他国家的同龄人，这个问题也日益受到人们的关注。2010年国际学生评估项目（Program for International Student Assessment）的最新结果显示，与其他33个工业化国家的学生相比，美国孩子的数学成绩低于平均分。

Parents play a pivotal role in kids' math attitudes and skills, starting in toddlerhood. Those who talk often to their youngsters about numbers, and explain spatial relationships in gestures and words, tend to instill better math skills at age 4, according to a long-term, in-home study of 44 preschoolers and their parents led by Susan C. Levine, a professor of psychology and comparative human development at the University of Chicago.
从孩子蹒跚学步开始，父母就在他们学习数学的过程中扮演着不可或缺的角色：从对这个科目的态度到掌握数学技能都是如此。芝加哥大学（University of Chicago）心理学和比较人类发展学教授苏珊?C.莱文（Susan C. Levine）针对44名学龄前儿童和他们的父母进行了一项长期的家庭研究。该研究发现，那些经常跟孩子谈论数字，用肢体语言和文字语言解释空间关系的父母常常在子女四岁的时候就给他们灌输了更强的数学观念。

Yet many parents unconsciously teach children to fear math. A parent who reacts to a child's math questions or homework by saying, 'I have never been good in math,' or, 'I haven't done math in 20 years,' conveys to kids that math is daunting and they probably can't do it either, says Bon Crowder, a Houston-based teacher, tutor and publisher of MathFour.com, a website on math-teaching strategies.
Jason Schneider但很多父母却在无意中令孩子对数学心生畏惧。休斯顿教师、数学教育指南网站MathFour.com的出版人邦?克劳德（Bon Crowder）说，当孩子问到一个数学题目或家庭作业时，那种回答说“我对数学一窍不通”或者“我都有20年没碰过数学”的父母其实是在向孩子传达这样一个观念：这个学科是令人生畏的，他们很可能也将无法攻克它。

It is possible for a math-phobic parent to raise a quant, but parents need to change their behavior, researchers and educators say. This means halting negative talk, mixing math games and questions into daily life just as they do reading and spelling, and encouraging kids to dive into tough math problems and not be afraid to struggle.
研究人员和教育专家称，那些患有数学恐惧症的父母也能教出一位数量分析家，但前提是他们得先改变自己的行为。这就意味着，家长要停止消极的对话，并将数学游戏和问题揉进日常生活中，就像他们教孩子读写那样。父母还得鼓励子女要勇于钻研数学难题，不要害怕费脑子。

Encouraging children's instinctive curiosity is a good place to start. Adam Riess, who won the 2011 Nobel Prize in physics, peppered his parents with questions about math as a child, and they treated his curiosity as natural. On car trips with his family at age 8, 'instead of asking the proverbial, 'Are we there yet?' I'd look at mile markers and the speedometer and figure out how much time we needed to get there,' says Dr. Riess, a professor of astronomy and physics at Johns Hopkins University. 'Math seemed powerful to me.'
教数学可以从激发孩子天生的好奇心开始。约翰?霍普金斯大学（Johns Hopkins University）天体物理学教授、2011年诺贝尔物理学奖得主亚当?里斯（Adam Riess）小时候就喜欢向他父母问东问西，常常都是一些数学问题，而他们觉得这是孩子好奇的天性，所以都一一耐心解答。里斯回忆道，八岁那年，他和家人一起驾车出游，“我没有像别的孩子那样问：我们快到了吗？我是看了里程路牌和车速仪表盘然后算出了到达那里所需的时间。”里斯博士说，“数学于我而言很有用。”

Parents don't have to know math to help kids get off to a good start. Teaching youngsters to make connections between numbers and sets of objects - think showing a child three Cheerios when teaching the number three - helps children understand what numbers mean better than reciting strings of numbers by memory, Dr. Levine says. Doing puzzles together or using gestures to help describe spatial relationships such as 'taller' and 'shorter,' can instill spatial abilities, which are linked to better math skills, she says.
父母也不是非得都懂数学，然后才能帮助孩子在这个科目的学习上有良好的开端。莱文博士说，家长可以教孩子在数字与实物间建立一种联系──在教三这个数字时，可以给孩子三个Cheerios麦圈──帮助他们更好地理解数字的含义，这比让他们背诵一串数字强多了。父母还可以和孩子一起玩拼图游戏，或者借助肢体语言向他们表述像“更高”和“更矮”这样的概念。这些都能逐渐强化孩子的空间认知能力，而这又与习得更强的数学技能息息相关。

Something as simple as playing with blocks side-by-side and encouraging a child to replicate your stacks and structures can teach spatial skills, says Kelly Mix, a professor of educational psychology at Michigan State University.
密歇根州立大学（Michigan State University）教育心理学教授凯利?米克斯（Kelly Mix）说，父母和孩子一起玩积木游戏，鼓励孩子模仿着堆建你砌好的房屋，用这样简单的方法来培养孩子对于空间的认知。

Although Fiona Cameron struggled with math in school, she is trying to teach her children Iain, 5, and Mhairi, 3, to enjoy it. Snuggling with them at bedtime, she encourages them to spot patterns in picture books, such as the 'stripe-stripe-dot' on an eel, says Ms. Cameron, a Pasadena, Calif., financial adviser. She also poses daily problems from Bedtime Math, a noNPRofit website launched last February to help parents integrate math into their children's lives.
菲奥娜·卡梅隆（Fiona Cameron）是加利福尼亚州帕萨迪纳市（Pasadena）的一名财务顾问，她在自己的学生时代曾备受数学的折磨，但如今她仍在试着培养两个孩子──五岁的伊恩（Iain）和三岁的梅莉（Mhairi）──对数学的兴趣。卡梅隆说，她会让孩子们在睡前翻看图形书并认出那些图形，像一条鳗鱼身上的“条-条-点”之类的。卡梅隆还会从“睡前数学”网站（Bedtime Math）上挑选一些日常问题来问自己的孩子。“睡前数学”是一家专门帮父母将数学知识融于孩子日常生活中的非盈利网站，建于去年2月份。