Using Stories in Developmental Math to Reduce Math Anxiety

Stories have multiple access points for students, so they are a non-threatening, low-stakes way to introduce math concepts. As they engage the students with laughter or memories of childhood story times, students’ emotional states relax so they are able to absorb new content. Storytelling helps turn math class into something fun and sparks students’ curiosity about how the story relates to the math concept, thus increasing student engagement. Some stories are used for introducing concepts, while others teach, reinforce or even extend mathematical concepts. In this presentation, I will be telling the story of “The Radical Kingdom” by using a Promethean Board and sharing other successful stories (and maybe some songs, too) that I have used in the developmental mathematics classroom.