Why timed maths games can make maths anxiety worse

Lots of maths apps are built around a countdown clock. For some children that’s exciting. For others, especially anxious or dyslexic children, it can be the very thing that stops them showing what they know.

Maths anxiety is real, and it starts young

Maths anxiety is a feeling of tension or panic when faced with maths. Researchers have found it in children in their very first years at school. It isn’t linked to how clever a child is. Plenty of capable children have it.

Why the clock matters

To work out a maths question, we hold numbers and steps in our working memory, the brain’s mental notepad. Research by Mark Ashcraft and others has shown that anxiety takes up space on that notepad. Worry crowds out the maths.

A study by Gerardo Ramirez, Sian Beilock and colleagues found that in young children with maths anxiety, those with stronger working memory were often the most affected. They were the children who would normally do best, and the anxiety took away their advantage.

Stanford professor Jo Boaler argues that timed tests are one of the main triggers for maths anxiety, and that they teach children that maths is about speed rather than careful thinking.

For a dyslexic child, whose working memory is often already stretched, a countdown clock can make it harder still to recall a fact they actually know.

So should children never practise speed?

Not quite. Being able to recall times tables quickly really does help with harder maths later, and the Year 4 Multiplication Tables Check is timed. Researchers don’t all agree about timed practice, and some children enjoy a race against the clock.

The key is the order. Accuracy and confidence first, then speed. Speed that grows out of knowing the facts well feels very different from speed demanded before the facts are secure.

How to build fluency without the stress

• Practise untimed until answers come easily. You’ll notice your child getting quicker on their own.
• Teach strategies. Knowing that 9 × 6 is 10 × 6 take away 6 gives a calm route to the answer.
• Celebrate progress, not speed. “You got 7 × 8 today, and you didn’t know that last week!”
• Keep any timed practice optional and short, and save it for facts your child already knows well.
• Watch for the signs: guessing wildly, freezing, tummy aches before maths or “I’m just bad at maths”. That’s a sign to take the pressure off.