Can Your Sixth Grade Math Student Handle the Abstract Concepts of
6th Grade Math?

The sixth grade math curriculum should focus on advanced arithmetic. This should be a year of solid, focused work devoted mainly to mastering fractions, decimals and mixed numbers concepts.

But as it is, your child's teacher might devote only a couple of months to these primary 6th grade math problems, and spend most of one year on a host of more advanced topics such as percents, introductory algebra and graphing.

My feeling is these secondary sixth grade math topics could be introduced more profitably and efficiently later on.

The result is, sadly, that if your child is going to become fully competent in the advanced arithmetic involved in 6th grade math problems, it might have to be at the kitchen table with you, your child, and a stack of workbooks like these, which I use with great success in my own middle school classrooms:

For homeschooling parents, your challenge is to avoid the weak public math curriculums, and find a sixth grade math curriculum that is comprehensive, incremental and focuses on core skills. You want to be sure to includes enough practice for your child to gain mastery of they key 6th grade math topics.

If you feel your child may need tutoring, here are some tips for selecting and working successfully with a math tutor.

The major 6th grade math skills that you want to practice, and gain mastery of, include:

• Four whole number operations - skills and applications


• All operations with fractions - skills and applications


• All operations with decimals - skills and applications

If your child has fully explored and mastered the above skills, you should also introduce the student to some additional topics listed below.

If you are considering enrolling your child into Algebra in middle school years, you should first be certain whether an accelerated math course is appropriate for your child.

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Secondary Topics
If you are confident that your child has mastered all the above subjects and would benefit from some math enrichment, here are some other sixth grade math concepts you could introduce:

• Number theory - factoring, GCF and LCM
• Units of measurement and denominate numbers
• Graphs
• Geometry: perimeter, area, volume, coordinates
• Ratio and proportion
• Percent
• Equations
• Probability

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